Vault Ansible Operator

Vault Ansible Operator implements the vault operator with Ansible playbooks via the Ansible Operator

Quickstart

Start minikube (e.g. minikube start)
Create rbac.yml as described in the vault operator's RBAC guide
Deploy the etcd operator as described here
Create the Vault Ansible Operator RBAC
```
kubectl create -f deploy/rbac.yaml
```
Create the Vault Ansible Operator CRD
```
kubectl create -f deploy/crd.yaml
```
Deploy the Vault Ansible Operator
```
kubectl create -f deploy/operator.yaml
```
Create the Vault CR
```
kubectl create -f deploy/cr.yaml
```

Verify Vault Deployment

Check pods

Issue the kubectl get pods command, and verify that you have the following pods

ansible-operator    // Vault Ansible Operator

etc-operator (3)    // ETCD Operator

example-etcd (3)    // ETCD Cluster Pods

example (2)         // Vault Cluster Pods

Verify Vault

The following steps are derived from the verification steps describe in the Vault Usage Guide

In a new/separate terminal window issue the following command

kubectl port-forward pod/example-<one of the Vault Cluster pods> 8200

In another terminal window set the following environment variables

export VAULT_ADDR='https://localhost:8200'
export VAULT_SKIP_VERIFY="true"

Verify that the Vault server is accessible with the vault status command

The below is the expected output for an uninitialized Vault:

$ vault status

Error checking seal status: Error making API request.

URL: GET https://localhost:8200/v1/sys/seal-status
Code: 400. Errors:

* server is not yet initialized

Initialize the Vault the vault operator init command

$ vault operator init
Unseal Key 1: <key value>
Unseal Key 2: <key value>
Unseal Key 3: <key value>
Unseal Key 4: <key value>
Unseal Key 5: <key value>

Initial Root Token: <token value>

Vault initialized with 5 key shares and a key threshold of 3. Please securely
distribute the key shares printed above. When the Vault is re-sealed,
restarted, or stopped, you must supply at least 3 of these keys to unseal it
before it can start servicing requests.

Vault does not store the generated master key. Without at least 3 key to
reconstruct the master key, Vault will remain permanently sealed!

It is possible to generate new unseal keys, provided you have a quorum of
existing unseal keys shares. See "vault operator rekey" for more information.

Verify that the Vault is initialized

$ vault status
Key                Value
---                -----
Seal Type          shamir
Sealed             true
Total Shares       5
Threshold          3
Unseal Progress    0/3
Unseal Nonce       n/a
Version            0.9.1
HA Enabled         true

Verify Vault Cluster Recovery

The deployment will create a Vault cluster with the number of pods defined by the vault_replica_size variable in the deploy/cr.yaml file (default is 2). Therefore, if a pod is down (or deleted), a new pod should be created.

To test this feature, issue the following command in a terminal window:

watch kubectl get pods

Identify one of the Vault pod and manually delete it. For example, in a new terminal window do the following:

kubectl delete pod example-99bcb876-iwkdv

Verify that the pod above is being terminated, and a new pod is created in its place. Also, verify the Vault's operational status (i.e. vault status) after the replacement pod is in Running state.

Update Deployment

In order to update an existing/running deployment, edit the deploy/cr.yaml file as described in the various subsections, and run the following command:

kubectl apply -f deploy/cr.yaml

Note: You must apply the changes since a deployment already exists. Issuing the create command will error.

Replicas

As stated earlier, the deployment can be updated with a different number of pods for the Vault Cluster (minimum 1).

In order to change the number of pods in your Vault cluster, simply edit the vault_replica_size variable in the deploy/cr.yaml file to the desired pod number.

Verify that the number of pods are created/terminated to match the new vault_replica_size value, and the your Vault cluster is still operational afterwards.

Version

The Vault image version can be changed to the available tags in the vault image repository. To change the version, edit the vault_version value in the deploy/cr.yaml file to the Vault image tag of your choice.

Verify that the existing pods terminate and new pods are created. Issue the kubectl describe pod <pod-name> command, and verify that the new version of the Vault image was used for the pod. The message section of the description will show the following:

Successfully pulled image "quay.io/coreos/vault:<version/tag number>"

Configuration (ConfigMap)

Vault is configured using HCL files. A user can create a custom ConfigMap to customize the Vault configuration. The following are the summary of the steps.

* Create a custom ConfigMap
* Create a service reflecting the changes in the ConfigMap (if needed)
* Edit the `deploy/cr.yaml` file, and apply the changes

The example-custom-configmap.yaml is and example a custom configmap with the Vault client port number changed to 8300. To create the new ConfigMap, do the following:

kubectl apply -f deploy/example-custom-configmap.yaml

Since we changed the client port, we'll need to update the Service (so that our Vault deployment pods are properlty connected together). The example-custom-service.yaml has 8300 for it's vault-client port. To create the new Service, do the following:

kubectl apply -f deploy/example-custom-service.yaml

Finally, we'll want to update our Deployment to reflect the changes we've made. To do so, edit the deploy/cr.yaml file. It would look something like this:

apiVersion: "vault.security.coreos.com/v1alpha1"
kind: "VaultService"
metadata:
  name: "example"
spec:
  vault_replica_size: 2
  vault_version: "0.9.1-0"
  vault_configmap_name: "example-custom-config"
  vault_client_port_num: 8300
  vault_client_port_name: "vault-client2"

Note: Remember to update the vault_client_port_name to something other than vault-client

Apply the custom resource changes:

kubectl apply -f deploy/cr.yaml

Verify that the pods gets recreated. Do the verification steps but remember to change the port to 8300.

Review the default ConfigMap. There are other values which can be customized. All customized variables must be listed in the spec section of the custom resource file (i.e. deploy/cr.yaml).

Uninstall Vault Ansible Operator Deployment

To uninstall the Vault Deployment and the Operator, run the following commands

Uninstall Vault
```
kubectl delete -f deploy/cr.yaml
```
Uninstall Vault Ansible Operator
```
kubectl delete -f deploy/operator.yaml
```

Verify that the all pods created with the deployment are being terminated and are deleted

jimi-c/vault-ansible-operator