KMS Plugin for Key Vault

Enables encryption at rest of your Kubernetes data in etcd using Azure Key Vault.

From the Kubernetes documentation on Encrypting Secret Data at Rest:

[KMS Plugin for Key Vault is] the recommended choice for using a third party tool for key management. Simplifies key rotation, with a new data encryption key (DEK) generated for each encryption, and key encryption key (KEK) rotation controlled by the user.

⚠️ NOTE: Currently, KMS plugin for Key Vault does not support key rotation. If you create a new key version in KMS, decryption will fail since it won't match the key used for encryption when the cluster was created.

💡 NOTE: To integrate your application secrets from a key management system outside of Kubernetes, use Azure Key Vault Provider for Secrets Store CSI Driver.

Features

• Use a key in Key Vault for etcd encryption
• Use a key in Key Vault protected by a Hardware Security Module (HSM)
• Bring your own keys
• Store secrets, keys, and certs in etcd, but manage them as part of Kubernetes

Getting Started

Prerequisites

💡 Make sure you have a Kubernetes cluster version 1.10 or later, the minimum version that is supported by KMS Plugin for Key Vault.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) creates managed, supported Kubernetes clusters on Azure.

To enable encryption at rest for Kubernetes resources in etcd, check out the KMS plugin for Key Vault on AKS feature in this doc.

Setting up KMS Plugin manually

Refer to doc for steps to setup the KMS Key Vault plugin on an existing cluster.

Verifying that Data is Encrypted

Now that Azure KMS provider is running in your cluster and the encryption configuration is setup, it will encrypt the data in etcd. Let's verify that is working:

1. Create a new secret:

   kubectl create secret generic secret1 -n default --from-literal=mykey=mydata

2. Using etcdctl, read the secret from etcd:

   sudo ETCDCTL_API=3 etcdctl --cacert=/etc/kubernetes/certs/ca.crt --cert=/etc/kubernetes/certs/etcdclient.crt --key=/etc/kubernetes/certs/etcdclient.key get /registry/secrets/default/secret1

3. Check that the stored secret is prefixed with k8s:enc:kms:v1:azurekmsprovider when KMSv1 is used for encryption, or with k8s:enc:kms:v2:azurekmsprovider when KMSv2 is used. This prefix indicates that the data has been encrypted by the Azure KMS provider.

4. Verify the secret is decrypted correctly when retrieved via the Kubernetes API:

   kubectl get secrets secret1 -o yaml

   The output should match mykey: bXlkYXRh, which is the encoded data of mydata.

Rotation

Refer to doc for steps to rotate the KMS Key on an existing cluster.

Metrics

Refer to doc for details on the metrics exposed by the KMS Key Vault plugin.

Contributing

The KMS Plugin for Key Vault project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Roadmap

You can view the public roadmap for the KMS plugin for Azure KeyVault on the GitHub Project here. Note that all target dates are aspirational and subject to change.

Release

Currently, this project releases monthly to patch security vulnerabilities, and bi-monthly for new features. We target the first week of the month for release.

Code of conduct

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information, see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

Support

KMS Plugin for Key Vault is an open source project that is not covered by the Microsoft Azure support policy. Please search open issues here, and if your issue isn't already represented please open a new one. The project maintainers will respond to the best of their abilities.