Set up Kubernetes and Vault for Boundary
In this tutorial you will take on the role of the operations
team to deploy
Boundary, Vault, and Kubernetes.
Prerequisites
This tutorial requires you to have completed the Connect to Kubernetes using Boundary introduction tutorial.
Deploy Kubernetes
(Persona: operations
)
minikube is a CLI tool that provisions and manages the lifecycle of single-node Kubernetes cluster locally on your system.
Deploy a Kubernetes cluser using minikube.
Open a new terminal session.
Create a new working directory in your home directory called
boundary-kubernetes
to complete the lab exercises. Execute all commands from this working directory unless otherwise specified.$ mkdir ~/boundary-kubernetes && cd ~/boundary-kubernetes/
Start a Kubernetes cluster.
$ minikube start😄 minikube v1.25.2 on Darwin 12.3✨ Automatically selected the docker driver. Other choices: hyperkit, virtualbox, ssh👍 Starting control plane node minikube in cluster minikube🚜 Pulling base image ...🔥 Creating docker container (CPUs=2, Memory=8100MB) ...🐳 Preparing Kubernetes v1.23.3 on Docker 20.10.12 ... ▪ kubelet.housekeeping-interval=5m ▪ Generating certificates and keys ... ▪ Booting up control plane ... ▪ Configuring RBAC rules ...🔎 Verifying Kubernetes components... ▪ Using image gcr.io/k8s-minikube/storage-provisioner:v5🌟 Enabled addons: storage-provisioner🏄 Done! kubectl is now configured to use "minikube" cluster and "default" namespace by default
The initialization process takes several minutes as it retrieves any necessary dependencies and executes various container images.
Verify the status of the Minikube cluster.
$ minikube statusminikubetype: Control Planehost: Runningkubelet: Runningapiserver: Runningkubeconfig: Configured
Kubernetes is now set up.
Start a pod that represents a production workload a
developer
may need to view.$ kubectl run nginx --image=nginxpod/nginx created
Deploy Boundary
(Persona: operations
)
HashiCorp Boundary is an identity-aware proxy aimed at simplifying and securing least-privileged access to cloud infrastructure.
In this workflow you will test integrating Kubernetes with HCP Boundary.
Launch the HCP Portal and login.
From the Overview page, click Boundary in the left navigation menu.
Click Deploy Boundary.
In the Instance Name text box, provide a name for your Boundary instance.
Under the Create an administrator account section, enter the Username and Password for the initial Boundary administrator account. You will use the administrative username and password to authenticate with Boundary.
Note
The Boundary instance is publicly accessible. Be sure to use a non-standard username (e.g. not root or administrator) and create a strong password.
Click Deploy.
Wait for the instance to initialize before proceeding.
Click the copy icon for the Cluster URL in the Getting started with Boundary section.
Return to the terminal you started Kubernetes in and set the
BOUNDARY_ADDR
environment variable to the copied URL.$ export BOUNDARY_ADDR=<actual-boundary-address>
HCP Boundary is now set up.
Deploy Vault
(Persona: operations
)
Vault is an identity-based secrets and encryption management system. Vault can generate secrets on-demand for some systems, such as AWS, and Kubernetes.
Select the appropriate tab to deploy an HCP Vault Dedicated cluster or deploy a Vault in dev mode.
Launch the HCP Portal and login.
From the Overview page, click Vault in the left navigation menu.
From the Vault overview click Create cluster under the Start from scratch section.
Select your preferred cloud provider.
Click the Vault tier pull down menu and select Development.
Click the Cluster size pull down menu and select Extra Small.
Under the Network section, accept or edit the Network ID, Region selection, and CIDR block for the HVN.
Leave Cluster accessibility set to Public.
Security consideration
All new development tier Vault Dedicated clusters are configured with public access enabled by default. This means clients can connect from anywhere. For production tiers (starter, standard, and plus) private access will be enabled by default. This means you can only connect from a transit gateway or peered VPC (AWS) or VNet (Azure).
Under the Basics section, accept or edit the default Cluster ID (
vault-cluster
).Under Templates, select Start from scratch.
Click Create cluster.
Wait for the cluster to initialize before proceeding.
Under Quick actions, click Public Cluster URL.
Return to the terminal you started Kubernetes in and set the
VAULT_ADDR
environment variable to the copied URL.$ export VAULT_ADDR=<public_cluster_URL>
Return to the Overview page and click Generate token.
Within a few moments a new token will be generated.
Copy the Admin Token.
Return to the terminal you started Kubernetes in and set the
VAULT_TOKEN
environment variable to the copied token.$ export VAULT_TOKEN=<admin_token>
Set the
VAULT_NAMESPACE
environment variable toadmin
.$ export VAULT_NAMESPACE=admin
Open a new terminal window, and start a proxy to expose the Kubernetes API.
$ kubectl proxy --disable-filter=trueRequest filter disabled, your proxy is vulnerable to XSRF attacks, please be cautiousStarting to serve on 127.0.0.1:8001
Leave this terminal open with the proxy running.
Open a new terminal window, and start ngrok and create a tunnel to the proxy listening on port
8001
.Warning
ngrok is used to expose the Kubernetes API to Vault Dedicated. Using
--scheme=http
exposes the API without encryption to avoid TLS certificate errors.For production workloads, use a private peering or transit gateway connection with trusted certificates.
$ ngrok http --scheme=http 127.0.0.1:8001
Example output:
ngrok (Ctrl+C to quit)Session Status onlineAccount username (Plan: Free)Update update available (version 3.0.5, Ctrl-U to update)Version 3.1.1Region United States (us)Latency 32.791235msWeb Interface http://127.0.0.1:4040Forwarding http://d12b-34-567-89-10.ngrok.io -> 127.0.0.1:8001Connections ttl opn rt1 rt5 p50 p90 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Leave this terminal open with ngrok running.
Copy the ngrok forwarding address.
Return to the terminal you started Kubernetes in and set an environment variable for the ngrok forwarding address.
$ export KUBE_API_URL=<actual-address-from-ngrok>
Vault Dedicated is now set up.
Validate lab setup
The tutorials in this series use environment variables to simplify the provided commands.
Verify all necessary environment variables are set.
$ printenv | grep 'VAULT_\|BOUNDARY_\|KUBE_'BOUNDARY_ADDR=https://6a6eade6-example.boundary.hashicorp.cloudVAULT_ADDR=https://vault-cluster-exampe-012034567.06f0568a.z1.hashicorp.cloud:8200VAULT_TOKEN=hvs.CAESIPA-K6F9TfY5Vm2nfObyzYum-peHhXPuYzX_BsybIKJMGicKImh2cy4wVXN4NWpyN3A4NUJVAULT_NAMESPACE=adminKUBE_API_URL=http://d12b-34-567-89-10.ngrok.io
If you are missing any of the environment variables, go back and verify each product is running and set the required variables.
HCP Vault Dedicated
VAULT_NAMESPACE
is only required when using Vault Dedicated and will not be present when following the Vault Dev mode workflow.Verify connectivity by authenticating to Boundary. Enter the admin username and password when prompted.
$ boundary authenticatePlease enter the login name (it will be hidden):Please enter the password (it will be hidden):Authentication information: Account ID: acctpw_NgTnYJHTls Auth Method ID: ampw_PqQpz2sqvx Expiration Time: Wed, 19 Jul 2023 09:52:02 EDT User ID: u_09ja9DkXo3The token was successfully stored in the chosen keyring and is not displayed here.
Verify connectivity to Vault.
$ vault login token=$VAULT_TOKENWARNING! The VAULT_TOKEN environment variable is set! The value of thisvariable will take precedence; if this is unwanted please unset VAULT_TOKEN orupdate its value accordingly.Success! You are now authenticated. The token information displayed belowis already stored in the token helper. You do NOT need to run "vault login"again. Future Vault requests will automatically use this token.Key Value--- -----token hvs.EXamPl3t7782QvHbHatL2f56i98VpKePzgqvHGicKImh2cy55bXZyMUVseWNZa00yem9pM3NuaHppRnQuOXpoQ0UQ9gEtoken_accessor tzwWshH6PwGHIFWq1dCCN2Xz.9zhCEtoken_duration 5h54m30stoken_renewable falsetoken_policies ["default" "hcp-root"]identity_policies []policies ["default" "hcp-root"]
Verify connectivity to Kubernetes.
$ kubectl config viewapiVersion: v1clusters:- cluster: certificate-authority: /Users/username/.minikube/ca.crt extensions: - extension: last-update: Wed, 12 Jul 2023 10:04:18 EDT provider: minikube.sigs.k8s.io version: v1.30.1 name: cluster_info server: https://127.0.0.1:63060 name: minikubecontexts:- context: cluster: minikube extensions: - extension: last-update: Wed, 12 Jul 2023 10:04:18 EDT provider: minikube.sigs.k8s.io version: v1.30.1 name: context_info namespace: default user: minikube name: minikubecurrent-context: minikube...snip...
A local
minikube
cluster will be listed undercontexts
.
Next steps
Boundary, Vault, and Kubernetes have been deployed and are ready to be configured.
In the Connect to Kubernetes using Boundary configuration tutorial, you will configure Kubernetes, configure Vault for Kubernetes, and configure Boundary to broker credentials from Vault to the Kubernetes cluster.