Book Image

Kubernetes Secrets Handbook

By : Emmanouil Gkatziouras, Rom Adams, Chen Xi
Book Image

Kubernetes Secrets Handbook

By: Emmanouil Gkatziouras, Rom Adams, Chen Xi

Overview of this book

Securing Secrets in containerized apps poses a significant challenge for Kubernetes IT professionals. This book tackles the critical task of safeguarding sensitive data, addressing the limitations of Kubernetes encryption, and establishing a robust Secrets management system for heightened security for Kubernetes. Starting with the fundamental Kubernetes architecture principles and how they apply to the design of Secrets management, this book delves into advanced Kubernetes concepts such as hands-on security, compliance, risk mitigation, disaster recovery, and backup strategies. With the help of practical, real-world guidance, you’ll learn how to mitigate risks and establish robust Secrets management as you explore different types of external secret stores, configure them in Kubernetes, and integrate them with existing Secrets management solutions. Further, you'll design, implement, and operate a secure method of managing sensitive payload by leveraging real use cases in an iterative process to enhance skills, practices, and analytical thinking, progressively strengthening the security posture with each solution. By the end of this book, you'll have a rock-solid Secrets management solution to run your business-critical applications in a hybrid multi-cloud scenario, addressing operational risks, compliance, and controls.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1:Introduction to Kubernetes Secrets Management
6
Part 2: Advanced Topics – Kubernetes Secrets in a Production Environment
10
Part 3: Kubernetes Secrets Providers

Integrating with Secret Stores

Kubernetes provides a basic system for managing Secrets, but it is not typically seen as secure enough for sensitive data such as passwords, tokens, or keys, especially in production settings. To address this, integrating advanced Secrets management tools into Kubernetes is vital. These tools enhance security through encryption and offer centralized management of sensitive information. This surpasses the native capabilities of Kubernetes Secrets, leading to a more robust and compliant security stance. In this chapter, you will learn how to integrate Secrets management tools with Kubernetes. The chapter will cover how to configure external secret stores in Kubernetes and explore the different types of external secret stores that can be used. You will gain an understanding of the security implications of using external secret stores and how to use them to store sensitive data using different approaches such as init containers, sidecars, CSI drivers, operators...