IT practitioners should be able to create policies controlling user access and authorization via Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). It is a way to keep secrets secure, not only as they are stationary within your infrastructure but also when they are in transit across your network. Secrets management is more than just adding a few controls around sensitive configuration properties. This will make a call to and wrap the result in strings marked as sensitive, which prevents the value from being visibly logged. The lookup function will be run on the agent and the value of $d will be resolved when the catalog is applied. In this manifest, call the vault_lookup::lookup function using the Deferred type. In this way, the secret data is not embedded in the catalog, and the server never sees it. Agents should be allowed to retrieve secrets from your secrets management platform when a catalog is applied. Secrets management with DevOps tools is critical in securely retaining and tightly controlling access to secrets and sensitive data.īelow is an example of how your automation platform should leverage secrets from a secrets management tool. Secrets are digital authentication credentials that include passwords, API tokens, encryption keys, certificates, and tokens stored across an IT environment. How to Use Puppet + Vault Secrets Management.This blog post explores the importance of secrets management, and how Puppet and HashiCorp Vault adds an extra layer of protection as you continue to build out your cybersecurity strategy. The question becomes: How do you get a grasp on enterprise secrets as you increase your automation efforts across your Infrastructure & Operations (I&O) teams? There has to be a way to centrally store, distribute, and track these vital configuration settings while gaining more flexibility, right? A common challenge is limited visibility across your infrastructure, and another is the struggle to tighten processes and tools to limit users' access to that sensitive data globally. Securing sensitive data (called “secrets”) - such as passwords, machine credentials, and API keys - is not always simple to manage manually, especially at an enterprise scale.

These are no longer optional but mandatory security requirements as DevOps also gains in popularity for agile development and application deployment.

Compliance requirements and regulations are increasingly calling for key management and strong encryption as part of a business's cybersecurity strategy. Bad actors can use sensitive data to wreak havoc across thousands of machines in minutes if organizations do not have a solid cybersecurity strategy. Security is paramount in today's digital world.

Hashicorp vault password manager