HashiCorp Vault

Introduction

This HashiCorp Vault series walks through secrets management, dynamic secrets generation, encryption as a service, authentication and authorization, policy management, and operational best practices. Each post includes practical examples to help organizations securely manage secrets, protect sensitive data, and implement robust security policies using Vault's comprehensive platform.

A. Fundamentals

Getting Started with Vault — Installation, configuration, and basic concepts.
Vault Architecture — Core components, storage backends, and cluster architecture.
CLI & Web UI — Command-line interface and web user interface.

B. Secrets Management

Secret Engines — KV, database, AWS, Azure, and other secret engines.
Dynamic Secrets — On-demand credential generation and lifecycle management.
Static Secrets — Key-value storage and secret versioning.

C. Authentication & Authorization

Authentication Methods — Userpass, LDAP, OIDC, AWS, and other auth methods.
Policies & ACLs — Policy syntax, path-based permissions, and access control.
Tokens & Leases — Token types, lease management, and renewal.

D. Advanced Features

Transit Encryption — Encryption as a service and key management.
PKI Secrets Engine — Certificate management and PKI operations.
Database Secrets Engines — Dynamic database credentials and connection pooling.

E. Operations & Administration

Deployment Strategies — High availability, clustering, and production deployment.
Monitoring & Logging — Metrics, audit logs, and observability.
Backup & Disaster Recovery — Snapshot management and recovery procedures.

F. Integration & Development

API & SDKs — REST API, client libraries, and programmatic access.
Terraform Integration — Infrastructure as code and Vault provider.
CI/CD Integration — Secrets injection in pipelines and automation.

Conclusion

By the end of this series, you'll be able to design secure secrets management architectures, implement dynamic secrets generation, manage encryption keys effectively, configure robust authentication and authorization policies, and operate Vault clusters in production environments with high availability and disaster recovery capabilities.