I would like to cover a quick and simple setup of Consul and Vault for learning purpose. These steps short circuit a real world advanced setup options.
Download the proper package for OS and architecture from
Download Consul https://www.consul.io/downloads.html
Download Vault https://www.vaultproject.io/downloads.html
Consul Setup –
write a shell or batch file with following command
E.g. consul_start.bat with following content
consul agent -ui -server -data-dir mydata -advertise 127.0.0.1 -bootstrap-expect 1
Vault Setup –
write a shell or batch file with following command
E.g. consul_start.bat with following content
vault server -config=vault-example.hcl
backend "consul" {
address="127.0.0.1:8500"
path="vault"
}
listener "tcp" {
address = "127.0.0.1:8200"
tls_disable = 1
}
disable_mlock = true
[0;31mError initializing: Put https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/sys/init: http: server gave HTTP response to HTTPS client [0m
The default address of the client uses https. Just set the -address parameter or set the VAULT_ADDRESS env var and you’ll be good to go.
set VAULT_ADDR=https://127.0.0.1:8200
vault operator init -key-shares=5 -key-threshold=2
-key-threshold – This defines the number of keys required to unseal vault
-key-shares – This defines number of keys that should be generated during initialization
[0;0mUnseal Key 1: 45MbjNghzYmFjaagC5Fcx4qj5E2jOl5ZWYByFctXV+T3 [0m
[0;0mUnseal Key 2: Z/TffCSL0mUw4NbMbHpf0dEjGge5iSZja6C7dEoY1AP1 [0m
[0;0mUnseal Key 3: C5YvqiPS20VgtiPPDuqgEwsAt6+qPE0+qO7P8zyqCEJf [0m
[0;0mUnseal Key 4: WLazf5dhHIQUSnOLLi5z29WFaLwD9ap9XASKbgHXXuc0 [0m
[0;0mUnseal Key 5: O1fgO9aT38klIVemz6q5WCXlpQaFS4jjxByaACco9Ga4 [0m
[0;0m [0m
[0;0mInitial Root Token: 4360d91f-cf9d-a33f-45ca-2bdc699caef1 [0m
Make a note of at least two Unseal keys and your root keys
unseal is a one time process as long as your backend does not change.
Now, let us unseal by running this command twice, provide atleast two unique unseal key from the init operation
vault operator unseal
Unseal Key (will be hidden):
Login, by making use of Root token that was generated during init process
vault login <Root Key>
Now , let us run commands to store and retrieve key/value sercrets
vault.exe write secret/my-app/s3password value=s3qwqwq
vault.exe read secret/my-app/s3password
You may also login from the UI and navigate to view the stored key/values