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Introduction

In this article we will see how to manage secrets using Hashicorp Vault. Before going into the specifics, first lets understand what does a secret mean. In general secrets refer to something that should stay private. Something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others.

If we correlate this with IT, we can call passwords, API Keys, tokens, certificates or anything that we assume to be confidential as secret. In todays distributed systems, we need access to multitudes of secrets: DB credentials, API Keys for accessing cloud and other services, credentials for SOA communication etc. Managing these secrets – Keeping track of who has accessed what,  Auditing, Secure Storage, adhering to compliance is a uphill battle. Hashicorp Vault provides all these features out of the box. You can consider it as a swiss army knife in this space.