Set Up AWS Secret Manager

For production environments, we highly recommend securing and centralizing the storage and management of your secrets (database access, root token, enterprise key, etc…) in AWS Secrets Manager, then allow your EKS cluster to retrieve those secrets using fine-grained IAM policies.

This section will walk you through the steps to enable your EKS cluster to retrieve secrets from AWS Secrets Manager.

Before You Start #

Make sure you have completed the steps found in the AWS deployment instructions before proceeding.

1. Install The AWS Secrets and Configuration Provider (ASCP) #

To retrieve your secrets through your workloads running on your cluster, you will first need to install:

• A Secrets Store CSI driver
• AWS Secrets Manager and Config Provider

Warning

The ASCP works with Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) 1.17+.

Install the Secrets Store CSI Driver #

Deploy the Secrets Store CSI driver by following the installation steps.

Tip

Make sure to enable the Sync as Kubernetes Secret feature explicitly by setting the helm parameter syncSecret.enabled to true.

Note

helm repo add secrets-store-csi-driver https://kubernetes-sigs.github.io/secrets-store-csi-driver/charts
helm install csi-secrets-store secrets-store-csi-driver/secrets-store-csi-driver --namespace kube-system --set syncSecret.enabled=true

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Install the AWS Provider #

AWS provider for the Secrets Store CSI Driver allows you to make secrets stored in Secrets Manager appear as files mounted in Kubernetes pods.

Note

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/secrets-store-csi-driver-provider-aws/main/deployment/aws-provider-installer.yaml

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2. Store Secrets in Secrets Manager #

In your Secret Manager Console, click on Store a new secret, select the Other type of Secret (for generic secrets), provide the following Key/Value pairs, then choose a secret name.

Create your secret, then retrieve its arn. It will be needed in the next phase.

3. Grant Your EKS Cluster Access To Your Secrets Manager #

Your cluster has an OpenID Connect issuer URL associated with it. To use IAM roles for service accounts, an IAM OIDC provider must exist for your cluster.

Create an IAM OIDC Provider #

Before granting your EKS pods the proper permissions to access your secrets, you need to create an IAM OIDC provider for your cluster or retrieve the arn of your provider if you already have one created.

Follow the steps in AWS user guide

Example #

eksctl utils associate-iam-oidc-provider --cluster="<cluster-name>"

Create An IAM Policy That Grants Read Access To Your Secret #

• Create a new Policy from your IAM Console
• Select the JSON tab.
• Copy/Paste the following text in the JSON tab

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue",
                "secretsmanager:DescribeSecret",
            ],
            "Resource": [
                <!-- Copy the arn of your secret HERE - see example below>
                "arn:aws:secretsmanager:<region>:<account>:secret:<your secret name>"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

This policy limits the access to the secrets that your EKS cluster needs to access.

Attach Your Policy To An IAM Role and The Role To Your Service Account #

Create an IAM role and attach the IAM policy that you specified to it. The role is associated with a Kubernetes service account created in the namespace that you specify (your cluster’s) and annotated with eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn:arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/my-role-name.

Example #

eksctl create iamserviceaccount \
--name "<my-service-account>" \
--cluster "<my-cluster>" \
--attach-policy-arn \ "<Copy the arn of your policy HERE>" \
--approve \ 
--override-existing-serviceaccounts

4. Mount Your Secrets In Your EKS Cluster #

To show secrets in EKS as though they are files on the filesystem, you need to create a SecretProviderClass YAML file that contains information about your secrets as well as information on how to display them in the EKS pod. Use the file provided below and run kubectl apply -f yoursecretclass.yaml.

The SecretProviderClass must be in the same namespace as the EKS cluster.

metadata:
  # Insert your secret name
  name: pach-secrets
spec:
  provider: aws
  parameters:
    objects: |
        - objectName: "pach-secrets"
          objectType: "secretsmanager"
          jmesPath:
            - path: root_token
              objectAlias: root-token
            - path: postgresql_password
              objectAlias: postgresql-password
            - path: OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET
              objectAlias: OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET
            - path: enterprise_license_key
              objectAlias: enterprise-license-key
            - path: pachd_oauth_client_secret	
              objectAlias: pachd-oauth-client-secret
            - path: enterprise_secret
              objectAlias: enterprise-secret        
  secretObjects:
  - data:
    - key: root-token
      objectName: root-token
    secretName: root-token
    type: Opaque
  - data:
    - key: postgresql-password
      objectName: postgresql-password
    secretName: postgresql-password
    type: Opaque
  - data:
    - key: OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET
      objectName: OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET
    secretName: console-oauth-client-secret
    type: Opaque
  - data:
    - key: enterprise-license-key
      objectName: enterprise-license-key
    secretName: enterprise-license-key
    type: Opaque
  - data:
    - key: pachd-oauth-client-secret	
      objectName: pachd-oauth-client-secret	
    secretName: pachd-oauth-client-secret
    type: Opaque
  - data:
    - key: enterprise-secret
      objectName: enterprise-secret
    secretName: enterprise-secret
    type: Opaque

5. Create A Syncer Pod #

Once your secret class is configured, a pod needs to request the class to trigger the CSI driver and retrieve the secrets in Kubernetes. Update the file below with your serviceAccountName and secretProviderClass before you run a kubectl apply -f syncerpod.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: secret-syncer
spec:
  containers:
  - name: secret-syncer
    image: k8s.gcr.io/pause
    volumeMounts:
    - name: secrets-store-inline
      mountPath: "/mnt/secrets-store"
      readOnly: true
  terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 3
  serviceAccountName: "<Insert your service account name>"
  volumes:
      - name: secrets-store-inline
        csi:
          driver: secrets-store.csi.k8s.io
          readOnly: true
          volumeAttributes:
            # Insert the name of your Secret Provider
            secretProviderClass: "pach-secrets" 

Run a quick kubectl get all to check on your new pod.

6. Update Secrets in Values.YAML #

Finally, using the secretName(s) of your SecretProviderClass above, update HPE Machine Learning Data Management’s values.YAML with the list of secrets you will be needing.

Choose the ones that apply to your use case.

deployTarget: LOCAL
global:
  postgresql:
    postgresqlExistingSecretName: postgresql-password
    postgresqlExistingSecretKey: postgresql-password

console:
  enabled: true
  config:
    oauthClientSecretSecretName: console-oauth-client-secret

pachd:
  rootTokenSecretName: root-token
  enterpriseSecretSecretName: enterprise-secret
  oauthClientSecretSecretName: pachd-oauth-client-secret	
  enterpriseLicenseKeySecretName: enterprise-license-key
  activateEnterprise: true

Your Secrets Manager is now configured to provide credential values to your cluster.