How-To: Limit the secrets that can be read from secret stores

How-To: Limit the secrets that can be read from secret stores

Define secret scopes by augmenting the existing configuration resource with restrictive permissions.

In addition to scoping which applications can access a given component, you can also scop a named secret store component to one or more secrets for an application. By defining allowedSecrets and/or deniedSecrets lists, you restrict applications to access only specific secrets.

For more information about configuring a Configuration resource:

Configure secrets access

The secrets section under the Configuration spec contains the following properties:

secrets:
  scopes:
    - storeName: kubernetes
      defaultAccess: allow
      allowedSecrets: ["redis-password"]
    - storeName: localstore
      defaultAccess: allow
      deniedSecrets: ["redis-password"]

The following table lists the properties for secret scopes:

Property	Type	Description
storeName	string	Name of the secret store component. storeName must be unique within the list
defaultAccess	string	Access modifier. Accepted values “allow” (default) or “deny”
allowedSecrets	list	List of secret keys that can be accessed
deniedSecrets	list	List of secret keys that cannot be accessed

When an allowedSecrets list is present with at least one element, only those secrets defined in the list can be accessed by the application.

Permission priority

The allowedSecrets and deniedSecrets list values take priorty over the defaultAccess. See how this works in the following example scenarios:

	Scenarios	`defaultAccess`	`allowedSecrets`	`deniedSecrets`	`permission`
1	Only default access	`deny`/`allow`	empty	empty	`deny`/`allow`
2	Default deny with allowed list	`deny`	[`“s1”`]	empty	only `“s1”` can be accessed
3	Default allow with denied list	`allow`	empty	[`“s1”`]	only `“s1”` cannot be accessed
4	Default allow with allowed list	`allow`	[`“s1”`]	empty	only `“s1”` can be accessed
5	Default deny with denied list	`deny`	empty	[`“s1”`]	`deny`
6	Default deny/allow with both lists	`deny`/`allow`	[`“s1”`]	[`“s2”`]	only `“s1”` can be accessed

Examples

Scenario 1: Deny access to all secrets for a secret store

In a Kubernetes cluster, the native Kubernetes secret store is added to your Dapr application by default. In some scenarios, it may be necessary to deny access to Dapr secrets for a given application. To add this configuration:

Define the following appconfig.yaml.

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: appconfig
spec:
  secrets:
    scopes:
      - storeName: kubernetes
        defaultAccess: deny

Apply it to the Kubernetes cluster using the following command:
```
kubectl apply -f appconfig.yaml`.
```

For applications that you need to deny access to the Kubernetes secret store, follow the Kubernetes instructions, adding the following annotation to the application pod.

dapr.io/config: appconfig

With this defined, the application no longer has access to Kubernetes secret store.

Scenario 2: Allow access to only certain secrets in a secret store

To allow a Dapr application to have access to only certain secrets, define the following config.yaml:

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: appconfig
spec:
  secrets:
    scopes:
      - storeName: vault
        defaultAccess: deny
        allowedSecrets: ["secret1", "secret2"]

This example defines configuration for secret store named vault. The default access to the secret store is deny. Meanwhile, some secrets are accessible by the application based on the allowedSecrets list. Follow the Sidecar configuration instructions to apply configuration to the sidecar.

Scenario 3: Deny access to certain sensitive secrets in a secret store

Define the following config.yaml:

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: appconfig
spec:
  secrets:
    scopes:
      - storeName: vault
        defaultAccess: allow # this is the default value, line can be omitted
        deniedSecrets: ["secret1", "secret2"]

This configuration explicitly denies access to secret1 and secret2 from the secret store named vault, while allowing access to all other secrets. Follow the Sidecar configuration instructions to apply configuration to the sidecar.

Next steps

Service invocation access control

Last modified October 11, 2024: Fixed typo (#4389) (fe17926)

Limit secret store access