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SPIRE Key Manager

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Prerequisites

Authentication

The following Authentication Methods can be used:

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Note

In this guide, we will use an API Key Authentication Method for simplicity and we are only using Linux machines. For MacOS, please see the guide here.

Create a new API Key Authentication Method using the CLI:

akeyless create-auth-method --name /Dev/Spire-Server-Auth

Create an Access Role:

akeyless create-role --name /Dev/Spire-Server-Role

Associate your API Key Authentication Method to the Access Role that was created:

akeyless assoc-role-am --role-name /Dev/Spire-Server-Role \
--am-name /Dev/Spire-Server-Auth

Set read, create, list permissions for Secret & Keys for the Access Role:

akeyless set-role-rule --role-name /Dev/Spire-Server-Role \
--path /SPIRE/Keys/'*' \
--capability read --capability create

Grant Access Permissions on the Gateway

Log into the console using a Gateway admin account, navigate to the Gateways tab, and choose the relevant Gateway.

Click on Access Permissions and click on New:

Give it a meaningful Name, choose the Auth Method, and click next.

Set the relevant permissions for this Auth Method:

Admin - grant full permissions on the Gateway or

Custom - grant specific permissions for at least Classic Keys.

Configuration

Run the following command to download and unpack pre-built spire-server and spire-agent executables and example configuration files in a spire-1.7.0 directory.

curl -s -N -L https://github.com/spiffe/spire/releases/download/v1.7.0/spire-1.7.0-linux-amd64-glibc.tar.gz | tar xz

Next, download the AkeylessKeyManager plugin, by running the following command:

curl -o AkeylessKeyManager https://download.akeyless.io/Akeyless_Artifacts/Linux/spire/plugin/server/spire-kms-amd64-linux-v0.0.8
chmod +x AkeylessKeyManager
curl -o AkeylessKeyManager https://download.akeyless.io/Akeyless_Artifacts/Linux/spire/plugin/server/spire-kms-arm64-linux-v0.0.6
chmod +x AkeylessKeyManager

Validate the SHA256 CHECKSUM:

sha256sum AkeylessKeyManager

The sha256sum command generates a unique, fixed-size hash value (256 bits) for the binary file, ensuring that data remains unchanged.

Open your SPIRE Server Conf file which you will find in the spire- directory at /conf/server/server.conf, and edit the KeyManager Plugin section as follows:

KeyManager "akeyless_kms" {
    plugin_cmd = "/path/to/plugin_cmd"
    plugin_checksum = "sha256 of the plugin binary"
  	plugin_data {
         akeyless_gateway_url = 'https://<Your-Akeyless-GW-URL:8000/api/v2>' # or use port 8081
  	 access_id = "<Your_Access_ID>"
         access_key = "<Your_Access_KEY>"
         key_metadata_file = "./key_metadata"
         target_folder = "/SPIRE/Keys/"
	}
}

Where:

  • plugin_cmd - The location of the binary file that was created.

  • plugin_checksum - sha256 of the binary.

  • akeyless_gateway_url - Akeyless Gateway URL API v2 endpoint.

  • access_id - The Auth Method AccessID

  • access_key - Optional, The AccessKey. Relevant only for API Key.

  • key_metadata_file - A file path location where information about generated keys will be persisted

  • target_folder - A path to save all items inside Akeyless where the generated KEY-ID will be stored using the following form /SPIRE/Keys/{TRUST_DOMAIN}/{SERVER_ID}/{KEY_ID}

For K8s,GCP or AzureAD Auth methods set the following settings as well:

  • k8s_auth_config_name- K8s Auth Config name as created under your Gateway

  • gcp_audience- The audience to verify the JWT received by the client. By default, akeyless.io

  • azure_object_id - Optional for Azure, objectID

SPIRE Server Initialization

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Info

Key Type

In order to set a key type for the spire server, inside the server section, add the following parameter.

For example, if we would want to use a key type of RSA-2048 we will add:
ca_key_type = rsa-2048. The default Key Type is: ec-p256

To initialize the server, run the following command:

bin/spire-server run -config conf/server/server.conf &

With a successful server initialization, 2 Classic keys will be created in your Akeyless account and you can find them in the console in the SPIRE/Keys folder:

  • JWT-Signer-A - Uses JSON Web Tokens (JWT) signed by an identity provider for authentication and authorization of clients.
  • X509-CA-A - Relies on X.509 certificates issued by a trusted Certificate Authority.
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Info

SPIFFE/SPIRE

For the full configuration steps, visit the official Quickstart for Linux and MacOS X guide

Updated 15 days ago

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