Run Vault on OpenShift

The following documentation describes installing, running, and using Vault and Vault Agent Injector on OpenShift.

Requirements

The following are required to install Vault and Vault Agent Injector on OpenShift:

• Cluster Admin privileges to bind the auth-delegator role to Vault's service account
• Helm v3.6+
• OpenShift 4.3+
• Vault Helm v0.6.0+
• Vault K8s v0.4.0+

Additional resources

The documentation, configuration and examples for Vault Helm and Vault K8s Agent Injector are applicable to OpenShift installations. For more examples see the existing documentation:

• Vault Helm documentation
• Vault K8s documentation

Helm chart

The Vault Helm chart is the recommended way to install and configure Vault on OpenShift. In addition to running Vault itself, the Helm chart is the primary method for installing and configuring Vault Agent Injection Mutating Webhook.

While the Helm chart automatically sets up complex resources and exposes the configuration to meet your requirements, it does not automatically operate Vault. You are still responsible for learning how to monitor, backup, upgrade, etc. the Vault cluster.

How-To

Install Vault

To use the Helm chart, add the Hashicorp helm repository and check that you have access to the chart:

$ helm repo add hashicorp https://helm.releases.hashicorp.com
"hashicorp" has been added to your repositories

$ helm search repo hashicorp/vault
NAME            CHART VERSION   APP VERSION DESCRIPTION
hashicorp/vault 0.29.1          1.18.1      Official HashiCorp Vault Chart

Use helm install to install the latest release of the Vault Helm chart.

$ helm install vault hashicorp/vault

Or install a specific version of the chart.

# List the available releases
$ helm search repo hashicorp/vault -l
NAME            CHART VERSION   APP VERSION DESCRIPTION
hashicorp/vault 0.29.1          1.18.1      Official HashiCorp Vault Chart
hashicorp/vault 0.29.0          1.18.1      Official HashiCorp Vault Chart
hashicorp/vault 0.28.1          1.17.2      Official HashiCorp Vault Chart
hashicorp/vault 0.28.0          1.16.1      Official HashiCorp Vault Chart
hashicorp/vault 0.27.0          1.15.2      Official HashiCorp Vault Chart
hashicorp/vault 0.26.1          1.15.1      Official HashiCorp Vault Chart
hashicorp/vault 0.26.0          1.15.1      Official HashiCorp Vault Chart
hashicorp/vault 0.25.0          1.14.0      Official HashiCorp Vault Chart
...

# Install version 0.29.1
$ helm install vault hashicorp/vault --version 0.29.1

The helm install command accepts parameters to override default configuration values inline or defined in a file. For all OpenShift deployments, global.openshift should be set to true.

Override the server.dev.enabled configuration value:

$ helm install vault hashicorp/vault \
    --set "global.openshift=true" \
    --set "server.dev.enabled=true"

Override all the configuration found in a file:

$ cat override-values.yml
global:
  openshift: true

server:
  ha:
    enabled: true
    replicas: 5
##
$ helm install vault hashicorp/vault \
    --values override-values.yml

Dev mode

The Helm chart may run a Vault server in development. This installs a single Vault server with a memory storage backend.

Install the latest Vault Helm chart in development mode.

$ helm install vault hashicorp/vault \
    --set "global.openshift=true" \
    --set "server.dev.enabled=true"

Highly available raft mode

The following creates a Vault cluster using the Raft integrated storage backend.

Install the latest Vault Helm chart in HA Raft mode:

$ helm install vault hashicorp/vault \
  --set='global.openshift=true' \
  --set='server.ha.enabled=true' \
  --set='server.ha.raft.enabled=true'

Next, initialize and unseal vault-0 pod:

$ oc exec -ti vault-0 -- vault operator init
$ oc exec -ti vault-0 -- vault operator unseal

Finally, join the remaining pods to the Raft cluster and unseal them. The pods will need to communicate directly so we'll configure the pods to use the internal service provided by the Helm chart:

$ oc exec -ti vault-1 -- vault operator raft join http://vault-0.vault-internal:8200
$ oc exec -ti vault-1 -- vault operator unseal

$ oc exec -ti vault-2 -- vault operator raft join http://vault-0.vault-internal:8200
$ oc exec -ti vault-2 -- vault operator unseal

To verify if the Raft cluster has successfully been initialized, run the following.

First, login using the root token on the vault-0 pod:

$ oc exec -ti vault-0 -- vault login

Next, list all the raft peers:

$ oc exec -ti vault-0 -- vault operator raft list-peers

Node                                    Address                        State       Voter
----                                    -------                        -----       -----
a1799962-8711-7f28-23f0-cea05c8a527d    vault-0.vault-internal:8201    leader      true
e6876c97-aaaa-a92e-b99a-0aafab105745    vault-1.vault-internal:8201    follower    true
4b5d7383-ff31-44df-e008-6a606828823b    vault-2.vault-internal:8201    follower    true

Vault with integrated storage (Raft) is now ready to use!

External mode

The Helm chart may be run in external mode. This installs no Vault server and relies on a network addressable Vault server to exist.

Install the latest Vault Helm chart in external mode.

$ helm install vault hashicorp/vault \
    --set "global.openshift=true" \
    --set "injector.externalVaultAddr=http://external-vault:8200"

Tutorial

Refer to the Integrate a Kubernetes Cluster with an External Vault tutorial to learn how to use an external Vault within a Kubernetes cluster.