Storing Cassandra secrets in Hashicorp Vault

This feature allows you to store Cassandra DB credentials for Apigee Hybrid in Hashicorp Vault, an external secret manager. External secret managers allow you to manage how secrets are stored in Kubernetes, including managing data residency and fine grained access controls.

Before Apigee hybrid version 1.10, the only way to supply passwords for Cassandra users was to specify the password in overrides.yaml. These passwords are stored in Kubernetes secrets. For example:

cassandra:
  auth:
    default:
      password: "********"
    admin:
      password: "********"
    ddl:
      password: "********"
    dml:
      password: "********"
    jmx:
      username: "jmxuser"
      password: "********"
    jolokia:
      username: "apigee"
      password: "********"

Using Hashicorp Vault, you can supply these passwords via the Kubernetes Secrets Store CSI Driver API (SecretProviderClass). This allows Kubernetes to mount multiple secrets, keys, and certs stored in an external Vault.

Cassandra users and passwords

You will need to create secrets for the following Cassandra users. Change the default values to meet your organization's security policies.

Note: You set the Cassandra usernames when you first install Apigee hybrid. You cannot change them afterwards. The Default username must always be "cassandra".

Cassandra User	Default username	Default password
Admin	`admin_user`	`"********"`
DDL	`ddl_user`	`"********"`
Default	`cassandra` Note: The Default username must always be "cassandra"	`"********"`
DML	`dml_user`	`"********"`
JMX	`"jmxuser"`	`"********"`
Jolokia	`"apigee"`	`"********"`

See cassandra configuration property for more information.

Configure external secret integration

Setting up Vault integration for Apigee hybrid consists of the following procedures.

In the first two procedures, you interact directly with Vault.
In the third and fourth procedures, you apply the configurations to your Kubernetes cluster.

Use the following procedures to create the secrets in Vault and enable your hybrid installation to have access to them.

Create Vault secrets, policies, and roles

Verify that the current Kubernetes context is set to your cluster:
```
kubectl config current-context
```

Use the Vault API, CLI, or UI to create the cassandra secrets. The secret values you create must match the Cassandra usernames and passwords currently used in your cluster.

Secret key: Any secret key (or combination of multiple keys) can be used, for example:
```
secret/data/apigee/cassandra
```

Secret data: Apigee Hybrid expects username and password pairs for the following Cassandra users:

Cassandra users
Admin
DDL
Default
DML
JMX
Jolokia

These username and password values can be spread across any number of secret keys.

Vault CLI: The following command shows how to create a single secret containing all the required usernames and passwords:

vault kv put secret/apigee/cassandra \
    adminUsername="ADMIN_USERNAME" \
    adminPassword="ADMIN_PASSWORD" \
    ddlUsername="DDL_USERNAME" \
    ddlPassword="DDL_PASSWORD" \
    defaultUsername="cassandra" \
    defaultPassword="DEFAULT_PASSWORD" \
    dmlUsername="DML_USERNAME" \
    dmlPassword="DML_PASSWORD" \
    jmxUsername="JMX_USERNAME" \
    jmxPassword="JMX_PASSWORD" \
    jolokiaUsername="JOLOKIA_USERNAME" \
    jolokiaPassword="JOLOKIA_PASSWORD"

Note: data/ should not be included in the secret key when running this command. Vault automatically inserts it.

The default usernames for each user are as follows:

Cassandra user	Default value
Admin	`admin_user`
DDL	`ddl_user`
Default	`cassandra`
DML	`dml_user`
JMX	`jmxuser`
Jolokia	`apigee`

Tip: You can see the default passwords in the values.yaml file in the apigee-datastore/ chart directory.

Within Vault, create a policy to grant access to the secret you just created.
1. Create a policy file (suggested name: apigee-cassandra-auth.txt) with the following contents:
```
path "secret/data/apigee/cassandra" {
  capabilities = ["read"]
}
```
  If you created multiple secrets, each secret must be added to the policy file:
```
path "secret/data/apigee/cassandra/admin" {
  capabilities = ["read"]
}

path "secret/data/apigee/cassandra/ddl" {
  capabilities = ["read"]
}
```
  Note: Do not forget data/ in the paths (e.g. secret/data/apigee/cassandra).
2. Apply the policy to Vault:
```
vault policy write apigee-cassandra-auth apigee-cassandra-auth.txt
```
  It is possible to create the policy using standard input instead of reading from a file:
```
echo 'path "secret/data/apigee/cassandra" { capabilities = ["read"] }' | vault policy write apigee-cassandra-auth -
```
  Note: apigee-cassandra-auth is the policy name. Any value can be used, but this exact value must be specified when binding the policy to Kubernetes service accounts in the next step.

Bind the policy to the Apigee Cassandra Kubernetes service accounts.

Define the following environmental variables:
```
export ORG_NAME=APIGEE_ORG_NAME
export ENVS_LIST=LIST_OF_APIGEE-ENVS
export APIGEE_NAMESPACE=YOUR_APIGEE_NAMESPACE
```
Where:
- ORG_NAME is the name of your Apigee organization.
- ENVS_LIST Is a comma separated list of your Apigee environments, for example dev,prod.
- APIGEE_NAMESPACE is your Apigee namespace. The default is apigee.

Create a script with the following contents. The script can have any name. In the following example, the name of the script is create-vault-cassandra-role.sh:

# create-vault-cassandra-role.sh

ORG=ORG_NAME  # ORG name
ENVS=ENVS_LIST # comma separated env names, for example: dev,prod

org_short_name=$(echo $ORG | head -c 15)
encode=$(echo -n $ORG | shasum -a 256 | head -c 7)
org_encode=$(echo "$org_short_name-$encode")
names=apigee-manager,apigee-cassandra-default,apigee-cassandra-backup-sa,apigee-cassandra-restore-sa,apigee-cassandra-schema-setup-${org_encode},apigee-cassandra-schema-val-${org_encode},apigee-cassandra-user-setup-${org_encode},apigee-mart-${org_encode},apigee-mint-task-scheduler-${org_encode}

for env in ${ENVS//,/ }
do
  env_short_name=$(echo $env | head -c 15)
  encode=$(echo -n $ORG:$env | shasum -a 256 | head -c 7)
  env_encode=$(echo "$org_short_name-$env_short_name-$encode")
  names+=,apigee-synchronizer-${env_encode},apigee-runtime-${env_encode}
done

echo $names

Run the script and assign the output to the SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAMES variable. This will create a comma-separated list of Kubernetes service account names.
```
export SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAMES=$(./create-vault-cassandra-role)
```
Note: You may need to chmod your script before running it.

Check that the variable was populated with the list:
```
echo $SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAMES
```
Use the Vault CLI to create a role which binds the policy to Kubernetes service accounts:
```
vault write auth/kubernetes/role/cassandra \
    bound_service_account_names=${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAMES} \
    bound_service_account_namespaces=${APIGEE_NAMESPACE} \
    policies=apigee-cassandra-auth \
    ttl=1m
```
Note: The policy name must match the one created in the previous step (e.g. apigee-cassandra-auth).

Install CSI driver and Vault provider

Apigee hybrid v1.13.4 supports the following Helm chart versions:

Software	Version
Secrets Store CSI Driver	v1.4.4
Vault	1.17.2

Follow the Secrets Store CSI Driver installation instructions to Install the CSI driver on your cluster. The CSI driver has a Helm chart for installation.
Note: On OpenShift installations, grant privileged access to the secrets-store-csi-driver service account with the following command:
```
oc adm policy add-scc-to-user privileged system:serviceaccount:"${NAMESPACE}":secrets-store-csi-driver
```
Where NAMESPACE is the namespace where you installed the CSI driver.
Follow the instructions in Installing the Vault CSI provider to install the Vault CSI provider if you have not installed it already.
Note: For installations on OpenShift, follow the procedures in Installation on OpenShift.
- For KUBERNETES_APPLICATION_NAMESPACE provide the namespace where you installed Vault.
- For APPLICATION_SERVICE_ACCOUNT provide the name of the Kubernetes service account for Vault. This is usually vault-csi-provider. You can check the name of the service account with the following command:
```
kubectl -n KUBERNETES_APPLICATION_NAMESPACE get ds vault-csi-provider -oyaml | grep 'serviceAccountName'
```
```
      serviceAccountName: vault-csi-provider
```

Create SecretProviderClass object

The SecretProviderClass resource tells the CSI driver what provider to communicate with when requesting secrets. The Cassandra users' credentials must be configured via this object. The following table shows the file names (objectNames) expected by Apigee Cassandra:

Cassandra User	Expected secret file names
Admin	`adminUsername`, `adminPassword`
DDL	`ddlUsername`, `ddlPassword`
Default	`cassandra`, `defaultPassword`
DML	`dmlUsername`, `dmlPassword`
JMX	`jmxUsername`, `jmxPassword`
Jolokia	`jolokiaUsername`, `jolokiaPassword`

Create a YAML file for your SecretProviderClass. The file name can be anything, for example: spc.yaml. Use the following SecretProviderClass template to configure this resource:

apiVersion: secrets-store.csi.x-k8s.io/v1
kind: SecretProviderClass
metadata:
  name: apigee-cassandra-auth-spc
spec:
  provider: vault
  parameters:
    roleName: apigee-cassandra-auth  # the roleName should match the vault role you created earlier in this procedure

    # vaultAddress is the endpoint your Vault server is running at.
    # If Vault is running in the same cluster as Apigee, the format will generally be:
    # http://vault.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local:<vaultServicePort>
    vaultAddress: VAULT_ADDRESS

    # "objectName" is an alias used within the SecretProviderClass to reference
    # that specific secret. This will also be the filename containing the secret.
    # Apigee Cassandra expects these exact values so they must not be changed.
    # "secretPath" is the path in Vault where the secret should be retrieved.
    # "secretKey" is the key within the Vault secret response to extract a value from.
    # For example, if the Vault secret is located at `secret/data/apigee/cassandra`
    # and you want to specify the admin password, you would use the following:
    # - objectName: "adminPassword"
    #   secretPath: "secret/data/apigee/cassandra"
    #   secretKey: "key within Vault secret specifying the admin password"
    objects: |
      - objectName: "adminUsername"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "adminPassword"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "defaultUsername"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "defaultPassword"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "ddlUsername"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "ddlPassword"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "dmlUsername"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "dmlPassword"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "jolokiaUsername"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "jolokiaPassword"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "jmxUsername"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""
      - objectName: "jmxPassword"
        secretPath: ""
        secretKey: ""

Apply the SecretProviderClass to your apigee namespace:
```
kubectl -n $APIGEE_NAMESPACE apply -f spc.yaml
```

Enable external secret for Cassandra

Within your overrides.yaml, add the following configuration to enable external secret usage for Cassandra:
```
cassandra:
  auth:
    secretProviderClass: apigee-cassandra-auth-spc  # The name of the SecretProviderClass created in spc.yaml.
```
Note: The name you provide for cassandra.auth.secretProviderClass must match the name of the SecretProviderClass you created in the spc.yaml file in the previous steps.

See cassandra.auth.secretProviderClass.
Use helm upgrade to apply the change to the apigee-operator and apigee-datastore components:
- The datastore controller in apigee-operator takes part in Cassandra decommissioning and data replication during region expansion. These tasks require the JMX and Jolokia credentials.
```
helm upgrade operator apigee-operator/ \
  --namespace $APIGEE_NAMESPACE \
  --atomic \
  -f overrides.yaml
```
- apigee-datastore provides credentials that downstream components like apigee-runtime, Synchronizer & MART use when connecting to Cassandra.
```
helm upgrade datastore apigee-datastore/ \
  --namespace $APIGEE_NAMESPACE \
  --atomic \
  -f overrides.yaml
```

Verify external secrets are being used. When external secrets are enabled, new Volumes, Volume Mounts , and Environment Variables, are added referencing the secrets.

Verify the apigee-controller-manager deployment.

Check that a Volume named apigee-external-secrets exists and references the SecretProviderClass created above:

kubectl -n $APIGEE_NAMESPACE get deployment apigee-controller-manager -o jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.volumes[?(@.name=="apigee-external-secrets")]}'

Example output:

{
  "csi": {
    "driver": "secrets-store.csi.k8s.io",
    "readOnly": true,
    "volumeAttributes": {
      "secretProviderClass": "apigee-cassandra-auth-spc"
    }
  },
  "name": "apigee-external-secrets"
}

Check that a VolumeMount named apigee-external-secrets exists:

kubectl -n $APIGEE_NAMESPACE get deployment apigee-controller-manager -o jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.containers[?(@.name=="manager")].volumeMounts[?(@.name=="apigee-external-secrets")]}'

Example output:

{
  "mountPath": "/opt/apigee/externalsecrets",
  "name": "apigee-external-secrets",
  "readOnly": true
}

Check that Environment Variables exist that reference external secrets:

kubectl -n $APIGEE_NAMESPACE get deployment apigee-controller-manager -o jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.containers[?(@.name=="manager")].env}'

Example output:

[
  ...
  {
    "name": "CASSANDRA_JOLOKIA_USERNAME_PATH",
    "value": "/opt/apigee/externalsecrets/jolokiaUsername"
  },
  {
    "name": "CASSANDRA_JOLOKIA_PASSWORD_PATH",
    "value": "/opt/apigee/externalsecrets/jolokiaPassword"
  }
]

Rollback to K8s Secret

To revert back to non-external secrets, remove the secretProviderClass configuration in overrides.yaml and use the previous configuration:
```
cassandra:
      auth:
        secretProviderClass: apigee-cassandra-auth-spc # remove this line
```

Use helm upgrade to apply the change to the apigee-operator and apigee-datastore components:

helm upgrade operator apigee-operator/ \
  --namespace $APIGEE_NAMESPACE \
  --atomic \
  -f overrides.yaml

helm upgrade datastore apigee-datastore/ \
  --namespace $APIGEE_NAMESPACE \
  --atomic \
  -f overrides.yaml

Troubleshooting: Create a client container for debugging

If you are using Vault, this section replaces instructions in the troubleshooting section, Create a client container for debugging.

This section explains how to create a client container from which you can access Cassandra debugging utilities such as cqlsh. These utilities allow you to query Cassandra tables and can be useful for debugging purposes.

Create the client container

To create the client container, follow these steps:

The container uses the TLS certificate from the apigee-cassandra-user-setup pod. The first step is to fetch this certificate name:
```
kubectl get secrets -n APIGEE_NAMESPACE --field-selector type=kubernetes.io/tls | grep apigee-cassandra-user-setup | awk '{print $1}'
```
This command returns the certificate name. For example: apigee-cassandra-user-setup-rg-hybrid-b7d3b9c-tls.

Open a new file and paste the following pod spec into it:

apiVersion: v1
  kind: Pod
  metadata:
    labels:
    name: CASSANDRA_CLIENT_NAME   # For example: my-cassandra-client
    namespace: $APIGEE_NAMESPACE
  spec:
    containers:
    - name: CASSANDRA_CLIENT_NAME
      image: "gcr.io/apigee-release/hybrid/apigee-hybrid-cassandra-client:1.13.4"
      imagePullPolicy: Always
      command:
      - sleep
      - "3600"
      env:
      - name: CASSANDRA_SEEDS
        value: apigee-cassandra-default.apigee.svc.cluster.local
      - name: APIGEE_DML_USERNAME_PATH
        value: /opt/apigee/externalsecrets/dmlUsername
      - name: APIGEE_DML_PASSWORD_PATH
        value: /opt/apigee/externalsecrets/dmlPassword
      volumeMounts:
      - mountPath: /opt/apigee/ssl
        name: tls-volume
        readOnly: true
      - name: apigee-external-secrets
        mountPath: /opt/apigee/externalsecrets
        readOnly: true
    volumes:
    - name: tls-volume
      secret:
        defaultMode: 420
        secretName: apigee-cassandra-user-setup-vaibhavhybridor-8b3e61d-tls
    - name: apigee-external-secrets
      csi:
        driver: secrets-store.csi.k8s.io
        readOnly: true
        volumeAttributes:
          secretProviderClass: apigee-cass-password
    serviceAccount: apigee-cassandra-default
    serviceAccountName: apigee-cassandra-default
    restartPolicy: Never

Save the file with a .yaml extension. For example: my-spec.yaml.

Apply the spec to your cluster:

kubectl apply -f my-spec.yaml -n $APIGEE_NAMESPACE

kubectl exec -n CASSANDRA_CLIENT_NAME -it -- bash

Connect to the Cassandra cqlsh interface with the following commands. Enter the commands exactly as shown:

APIGEE_DML_USER=$(cat "$APIGEE_DML_USERNAME_PATH")
export APIGEE_DML_USER
APIGEE_DML_PASSWORD=$(cat "$APIGEE_DML_PASSNAME_PATH")
export APIGEE_DML_PASSWORD
cqlsh ${CASSANDRA_SEEDS} -u ${APIGEE_DML_USER} -p ${APIGEE_DML_PASSWORD} --ssl

Deleting the client pod

Use this command to delete the Cassandra client pod:

kubectl delete pods -n $APIGEE_NAMESPACE cassandra-client