Hashicorp Vault Secrets Backend¶

To enable Hashicorp vault to retrieve Airflow connection/variable, specify VaultBackend as the backend in [secrets] section of airflow.cfg.

Here is a sample configuration:

[secrets]
backend = airflow.providers.hashicorp.secrets.vault.VaultBackend
backend_kwargs = {"connections_path": "connections", "variables_path": "variables", "mount_point": "airflow", "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8200"}

The default KV version engine is 2, pass kv_engine_version: 1 in backend_kwargs if you use KV Secrets Engine Version 1.

You can also set and pass values to Vault client by setting environment variables. All the environment variables listed at https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/commands/#environment-variables are supported.

Hence, if you set VAULT_ADDR environment variable like below, you do not need to pass url key to backend_kwargs:

export VAULT_ADDR="http://127.0.0.1:8200"

Set up a Vault mount point¶

You can make a mount_point for airflow as follows:

vault secrets enable -path=airflow -version=2 kv

Optional lookup¶

Optionally connections, variables, or config may be looked up exclusive of each other or in any combination. This will prevent requests being sent to Vault for the excluded type.

If you want to look up some and not others in Vault you may do so by setting the relevant *_path parameter of the ones to be excluded as null.

For example, if you want to set parameter connections_path to "airflow-connections" and not look up variables, your configuration file should look like this:

[secrets]
backend = airflow.providers.hashicorp.secrets.vault.VaultBackend
backend_kwargs = {"connections_path": "airflow-connections", "variables_path": null, "mount_point": "airflow", "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8200"}

Storing and Retrieving Connections using connection URI representation¶

If you have set connections_path as connections and mount_point as airflow, then for a connection id of smtp_default, you would want to store your secret as:

vault kv put airflow/connections/smtp_default conn_uri=smtps://user:host@relay.example.com:465

Note that the Key is conn_uri, Value is smtps://user:host@relay.example.com:465 and mount_point is airflow.

Verify that you can get the secret from vault:

❯ vault kv get airflow/connections/smtp_default
====== Metadata ======
Key              Value
---              -----
created_time     2020-03-19T19:17:51.281721Z
deletion_time    n/a
destroyed        false
version          1

====== Data ======
Key         Value
---         -----
conn_uri    smtps://user:host@relay.example.com:465

The value of the Vault key must be the connection URI representation of the connection object to get connection.

Storing and Retrieving Connections using Connection class representation¶

If you have set connections_path as connections and mount_point as airflow, then for a connection id of smtp_default, you would want to store your secret as:

vault kv put airflow/connections/smtp_default conn_type=smtps login=user password=host host=relay.example.com port=465

Note that the Keys are parameters of the Connection class and the Value their argument.

Verify that you can get the secret from vault:

❯ vault kv get airflow/connections/smtp_default
====== Metadata ======
Key              Value
---              -----
created_time     2020-03-19T19:17:51.281721Z
deletion_time    n/a
destroyed        false
version          1

====== Data ======
Key         Value
---         -----
conn_type   smtps
login       user
password    host
host        relay.example.com
port        465

Storing and Retrieving Variables¶

If you have set variables_path as variables and mount_point as airflow, then for a variable with hello as key, you would want to store your secret as:

vault kv put airflow/variables/hello value=world

Verify that you can get the secret from vault:

❯ vault kv get airflow/variables/hello
====== Metadata ======
Key              Value
---              -----
created_time     2020-03-28T02:10:54.301784Z
deletion_time    n/a
destroyed        false
version          1

==== Data ====
Key      Value
---      -----
value    world

Note that the secret Key is value, and secret Value is world and mount_point is airflow.

Storing and Retrieving Config¶

If you have set config_path as config and mount_point as airflow, then for config sql_alchemy_conn_secret with sql_alchemy_conn_value as value, you would want to store your secret as:

vault kv put airflow/config/sql_alchemy_conn_value value=postgres://user:pass@host:5432/db?ssl_mode=disable

Verify that you can get the secret from vault:

❯ vault kv get airflow/config/sql_alchemy_conn_value
====== Metadata ======
Key              Value
---              -----
created_time     2020-03-28T02:10:54.301784Z
deletion_time    n/a
destroyed        false
version          1

==== Data ====
Key      Value
---      -----
value    postgres://user:pass@host:5432/db?ssl_mode=disable

Then you can use above secret for sql_alchemy_conn_secret in your configuration file.

[core]
 sql_alchemy_conn_secret: "sql_alchemy_conn_value"

Note that the secret Key is value, and secret Value is postgres://user:pass@host:5432/db?ssl_mode=disable and mount_point is airflow.

Vault running with self signed certificates¶

Add “verify”: “absolute path to ca-certificate file”

[secrets]
backend = airflow.providers.hashicorp.secrets.vault.VaultBackend
backend_kwargs = {"connections_path": "airflow-connections", "variables_path": null, "mount_point": "airflow", "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8200", "verify": "/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates"}

Vault authentication with AWS Assume Role STS¶

Add parameter “assume_role_kwargs”: “The AWS STS assume role auth parameter dict”

For more details, please refer to the AWS Assume Role Authentication documentation: https://boto3.amazonaws.com/v1/documentation/api/latest/reference/services/sts/client/assume_role.html

[secrets]
backend = airflow.providers.hashicorp.secrets.vault.VaultBackend
backend_kwargs = {"connections_path": "airflow-connections", "variables_path": null, "mount_point": "airflow", "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8200", "auth_type": "aws_iam", "assume_role_kwargs": {"RoleArn":"arn:aws:iam::123456789000:role/hashicorp-aws-iam-role", "RoleSessionName": "Airflow"}}

Using multiple mount points¶

You can use multiple mount points to store your secrets. For example, you might want to store the Airflow instance configurations in one Vault KV engine only accessible by your Airflow deployment tools, while storing the variables and connections in another KV engine available to your Dags, in order to grant them more specific Vault ACLs.

In order to do this, you will need to setup you configuration this way:

leave mount_point as JSON null
if you use variables_path and/or connections_path, set them as "mount_point/path/to/the/secrets" (the string will be split using the separator /, the first element will be the mount point, the remaining elements will be the path to the secrets)
leave config_path as the empty string ""
if you use config_path, each configuration item will need to be prefixed with the mount_point used for configs, as "mount_point/path/to/the/config" (here again, the string will be split using the separator /, the first element will be the mount point, the remaining elements will be the path to the configuration parameter)

For example:

[core]
sql_alchemy_conn_secret: "deployment_mount_point/airflow/configs/sql_alchemy_conn_value"

[secrets]
backend = airflow.providers.hashicorp.secrets.vault.VaultBackend
backend_kwargs = {"connections_path": "dags_mount_point/airflow/connections", "variables_path": "dags_mount_point/airflow/variables", "config_path": "", mount_point": null, "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8200", "verify": "/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates"}