How to mount a multiline secret in AKS

Ovidiu Borlean
2 min readNov 26, 2022

--

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

This document will provide the guide to use a multi line secret from Azure Key Vault in Azure Kubernetes Secret

Update AKS Cluster with CSI-Secret AddOn

  1. Update my existing AKS Cluster to csi-secret addon:
az aks enable-addons --addons azure-keyvault-secrets-provider --name aks --resource-group aks

2.Creating Azure Key Vault:

az keyvault create -n ovidiuborlean-keyvault -g MC_aks_aks_westeurope -l westeurope

3. Query for the Managed Identity assigned to AKS cluster to access the Key Vault:

az aks show -g aks -n aks --query addonProfiles.azureKeyvaultSecretsProvider.identity.clientId -o tsv

4. Settings access policies based on the Id of Managed Identity:

az keyvault set-policy -n ovidiuborlean-keyvault --key-permissions get --spn xxxxxxxx

az keyvault set-policy -n ovidiuborlean-keyvault --secret-permissions get --spn xxxxxxx

keyvault set-policy -n ovidiuborlean-keyvault --certificate-permissions get --spn xxxxxxxx

5. Creating a multiline secret from a defined file:

az keyvault secret set --vault-name ovidiuborlean-keyvault --name multilinenew --file secretfile.txt

Used the following secretfile format for this multiline secret:

{
"type": "service account",
"project_id": "proj-12345",
"private_key_id": "qwertyuiopasdfghjkl",
"private_key": "-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----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\nXxCr6YyfZArQQdIB5aWkbVEir60Mfnq5agFwS5Y0bTcG3CJnKQAlHA==\n-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\n",
"email": testuser@live.com
}

6. Creating SecretProviderClass on cluster:

apiVersion: secrets-store.csi.x-k8s.io/v1
kind: SecretProviderClass
metadata:
name: azure-kvname-user-msi
spec:
provider: azure
parameters:
usePodIdentity: "false"
useVMManagedIdentity: "true" # Set to true for using managed identity
userAssignedIdentityID: 65c67e63-ab55-42a8-bc20-xxxxx# Set the clientID of the user-assigned managed identity to use
keyvaultName: ovidiuborlean-keyvault # Set to the name of your key vault
cloudName: "" # [OPTIONAL for Azure] if not provided, the Azure environment defaults to AzurePublicCloud
objects: |
array:
- |
objectName: multilinenew
objectType: secret # object types: secret, key, or cert
objectVersion: "" # [OPTIONAL] object versions, default to latest if empty
tenantId: 72f988bf-86f1-41af-91ab-xxx # The tenant ID of the key vault

7. Creating Pod where our secret will be mounted:

kind: Pod
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
name: busybox-secrets-store-inline-user-msi
spec:
containers:
- name: busybox
image: k8s.gcr.io/e2e-test-images/busybox:1.29-1
command:
- "/bin/sleep"
- "10000"
volumeMounts:
- name: secrets-store01-inline
mountPath: "/mnt/secrets-store"
readOnly: true
volumes:
- name: secrets-store01-inline
csi:
driver: secrets-store.csi.k8s.io
readOnly: true
volumeAttributes:
secretProviderClass: "azure-kvname-user-msi"

--

--