---
title: Standardize ExternalSecret CRD
authors: all of us
creation-date: 2020-09-01
status: draft
---

Standardize ExternalSecret CRD

Summary
Motivation
- Goals
- Non-Goals
Terminology
Use-Cases
Proposal
- API
Alternatives

Summary

This is a proposal to standardize the ExternalSecret CRD in an combined effort through all projects that deal with syncing external secrets. This proposal aims to do find the common denominator for all users of ExternalSecrets.

Motivation

There are a lot of different projects in the wild that essentially do the same thing: sync secrets with Kubernetes. The idea is to unify efforts into a single project that serves the needs of all users in this problem space.

As a starting point i would like to define a common denominator for a CustomResourceDefinition that serves all known use-cases. This CRD should follow the standard alpha -> beta -> GA feature process.

Once the CRD API is defined we can move on with more delicate discussions about technology, organization and processes.

List of Projects known so far or related:

Goals

Define a alpha CRD
Fully document the Spec and use-cases

Non-Goals

This KEP proposes the CRD Spec and documents the use-cases, not the choice of technology or migration path towards implementing the CRD.

We do not want to sync secrets into a ConfigMap.

Terminology

Kubernetes External Secrets KES: A Application that runs a control loop which syncs secrets
KES instance: A single entity that runs a control loop.
ExternalSecret ES: A CustomResource that declares which secrets should be synced
Provider: Is a source for secrets. The Provider is external to KES. It can be a hosted service like Alibabacloud SecretsManager, AWS SystemsManager, Azure KeyVault...
Frontend: A sink for the synced secrets. Usually a Secret
Secret: credentials that act as a key to sensitive information

Use-Cases

one global KES instance that manages ES in all namespaces, which gives access to all providers, with ACL
multiple global KES instances, each manages access to a single or multiple providers (e.g.: shard by stage or team...)
one KES per namespace (a user manages his/her own KES instance)

User definitions

operator := i manage one or multiple KES instances
user := i only create ES, KES is managed by someone else

User Stories

From that we can derive the following requirements or user-stories:

AS a KES operator i want to run multiple KES instances per cluster (e.g. one KES instance per DEV/PROD)
AS a KES operator or user i want to integrate multiple stores from a single KES instance (e.g. dev namespace has access only to dev secrets)
AS a KES user i want to control the sink for the secrets (aka frontend: store secret as kind=Secret)
AS a KES user i want to fetch from multiple providers and store the secrets in a single Frontend
AS a KES operator i want to limit the access to certain stores or subresources (e.g. having one central KES instance that handles all ES - similar to iam.amazonaws.com/permitted annotation per namespace)
AS a KES user i want to provide an application with a configuration that contains a secret

Providers

These providers are relevant for the project:

AWS Secure Systems Manager Parameter Store
AWS Secrets Manager
Hashicorp Vault
Azure Key Vault
Alibaba Cloud KMS Secret Manager
Google Cloud Platform Secret Manager
Kubernetes (see #422)
noop (see #476)

Frontends

Kind=Secret
potentially we could sync provider to provider

Proposal

API

External Secret

The ExternalSecret CustomResourceDefinition is namespaced. It defines the following:

source for the secret (provider)
sink for the secret (fronted)

and a mapping to translate the keys

apiVersion: external-secrets.k8s.io/v1alpha1
kind: ExternalSecret
metadata: {...}

spec:

# the amount of time before the values will be read again from the provider
# may be set to zero to fetch and create it once
refreshInterval: "1h"

# there can only be one target per ES
target:
# The secret name of the resource
# defaults to .metadata.name of the ExternalSecret. immutable.
name: my-secret

# Enum with values: 'Owner', 'Merge', or 'None'
# Default value of 'Owner'
# Owner creates the secret and sets .metadata.ownerReferences of the resource
# Merge does not create the secret, but merges in the data fields to the secret
# None does not create a secret (future use with injector)
creationPolicy: 'Merge'

# specify a blueprint for the resulting Kind=Secret
template:
  type: kubernetes.io/dockerconfigjson # or TLS...

  metadata:
    annotations: {}
    labels: {}

  # use inline templates to construct your desired config file that contains your secret
  data:
    config.yml: |
      endpoints:
      - https://{{ .data.user }}:{{ .data.password }}@api.exmaple.com

  # Uses an existing template from configmap
  # secret is fetched, merged and templated within the referenced configMap data
  # It does not update the configmap, it creates a secret with: data["alertmanager.yml"] = ...result...
  templateFrom:
  - configMap:
      name: alertmanager
      items:
      - key: alertmanager.yaml

# data contains key/value pairs which correspond to the keys in the resulting secret
data:

# EXAMPLE 1: simple mapping
# one key from a store may hold multiple values
# we need a way to map the values to the frontend
# it is the responsibility of the store implementation to know how to extract a value
tls.crt:
  key: /corp.org/dev/certs/ingress
  property: pubcert
tls.key:
  key: /corp.org/dev/certs/ingress
  property: privkey

# used to fetch all properties from a secret.
# if multiple dataFrom are specified, secrets are merged in the specified order
dataFrom:
- key: /user/all-creds

status:
# represents the current phase of secret sync:
# * Pending | ES created, controller did not yet sync the ES or other dependencies are missing (e.g. secret store or configmap template)
# * Syncing | ES is being actively synced according to spec
# * Failing | Secret can not be synced, this might require user intervention
# * Failed  | ES can not be synced right now and will not able to
# * Completed | ES was synced successfully (one-time use only)
phase: Syncing
conditions:
- type: InSync
status: "True" # False if last sync was not successful
reason: "SecretSynced"
message: "Secret was synced"
lastTransitionTime: "2019-08-12T12:33:02Z"
lastSyncTime: "2020-09-23T16:27:53Z"

Behavior

The ExternalSecret control loop ensures that the target resource exists and stays up to date with the upstream provider. Because most upstream APIs are limited in throughput the control loop must implement some sort of jitter and retry/backoff mechanic.

External Secret Store

The store configuration in an ExternalSecret may contain a lot of redundancy, this can be factored out into its own CRD. These stores are defined in a particular namespace using SecretStore or globally with GlobalSecretStore.

apiVerson: external-secrets.k8s.io/v1alpha1
kind: SecretStore # or ClusterSecretStore
metadata:
  name: vault
  namespace: example-ns
spec:

  # optional.
  # used to select the correct KES controller (think: ingress.ingressClassName)
  # The KES controller is instantiated with a specific controller name
  # and filters ES based on this property
  controller: "dev"

  store:
    type: vault
    parameters: # provider specific k/v pairs
      server: "https://vault.example.com"
      path: path/on/vault/store
    auth: {} # provider specific k/v pairs

status:
  # * Pending: e.g. referenced secret containing credentials is missing
  # * Running: all dependencies are met, sync
  phase: Running
  conditions:
  - type: Ready
    status: "False"
    reason: "ErrorConfig"
    message: "Unable to assume role arn:xxxx"
    lastTransitionTime: "2019-08-12T12:33:02Z"

Example Secret that uses the reference to a store

apiVersion: external-secrets.k8s.io/v1alpha1
kind: ExternalSecret
metadata:
  name: foo
spec:
  storeRef:
    kind: SecretStore # ClusterSecretStore
    name: my-store
  target:
    name: my-secret
    template:
      type: kubernetes.io/TLS
  data:
    tls.crt:
      key: /corp.org/dev/certs/ingress
      property: pubcert
    tls.key:
      key: /corp.org/dev/certs/ingress
      property: privkey

Workflow in a KES instance:

A user creates a Store with a certain spec.controller
A controller picks up the ExternalSecret if it matches the controller field
The controller fetches the secret from the provider and stores it as kind=Secret in the same namespace as ES

Backlog

We have a bunch of features which are not relevant for the MVP implementation. We keep the features here in this backlog. Order is not specific:

Secret injection with a mutating Webhook #81

Spec.md 9.5 KB

History Raw

Standardize ExternalSecret CRD

Table of Contents

Summary

Motivation

Goals

Non-Goals

Terminology

Use-Cases

User definitions

User Stories

Providers

Frontends

Proposal

API

External Secret

Behavior

External Secret Store

Backlog

Spec.md 9.5 KB History Raw

Standardize ExternalSecret CRD

Table of Contents

Summary

Motivation

Goals

Non-Goals

Terminology

Use-Cases

User definitions

User Stories

Providers

Frontends

Proposal

API

External Secret

Behavior

External Secret Store

Backlog

Spec.md 9.5 KB

History Raw