In this article, we will talk about Infisical, an open-source secret management tool and how we can setup on a local Kubernetes cluster

Introduction

• An open-source, end-to-end secret management platform

• Enables teams to easily manage and sync their environment variables, API keys, secrets and other configurations

Features

• Intuitive dashboard

• Client SDK's

• Infisical CLI

• Native platform integrations

• Automatic Kubernetes deployment secret reloads

• Complete control of data when hosted by ourself

• Secret versioning

• Point-in-Time recovery

• Role-based access control

• Secret scanning and leak prevention

• Effortless on-premise deployment

Prerequisites

• kubectl
  
  Check my article to install kubectl
  

  $ kubectl version --client --short
  Client Version: v1.27.4
  Kustomize Version: v5.0.1
  

• Helm
  
  Check my article to install Helm
  

  $ helm version
  version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.12.1", GitCommit:"f32a527a060157990e2aa86bf45010dfb3cc8b8d", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.20.4"}
  

• Kubernetes cluster
  
  For this demo, I'm using Rancher Desktop on Windows
  

  $ kubectl get nodes
  
  NAME              STATUS   ROLES                  AGE   VERSION
  rancher-desktop   Ready    control-plane,master   27s   v1.27.4+k3s1
  

Installation

• Add the Infisical Helm repository
  

  $ helm repo add infisical-helm-charts 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/infisical/helm-charts/helm/charts/' 
  
  $ helm repo update
  

• Install Infisical using the below command.
  
  It will install all the necessary components in the infisical namespace and also install Nginx ingress controller
  

  $ helm install -n infisical infisical infisical-helm-charts/infisical --set ingress.nginx.enabled=true --create-namespace
  
  NAME: infisical
  LAST DEPLOYED: Thu Aug 17 19:43:06 2023
  NAMESPACE: infisical
  STATUS: deployed
  REVISION: 1
  TEST SUITE: None
  

• Check the status of the components and the load balancer service created by Nginx ingress controller
  
  Copy the Load Balancer IP, we will need it in the next step
  

  $ kubectl -n infisical get pods
  
  NAME                                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
  infisical-frontend-8588c9f65-sxz8d                    1/1     Running   0          3m19s
  infisical-frontend-8588c9f65-nsnjr                    1/1     Running   0          3m19s
  mongodb-0                                             1/1     Running   0          3m19s
  infisical-backend-6777b66f58-79d84                    1/1     Running   0          3m19s
  infisical-backend-6777b66f58-g2fwb                    1/1     Running   0          3m19s
  infisical-ingress-nginx-controller-7785998dc6-lqxgk   1/1     Running   0          3m19s
  

```bash
$ kubectl -n infisical get svc

NAME                                           TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)                      AGE
infisical-backend                              ClusterIP      10.43.203.3     <none>           4000/TCP                     9m47s
infisical-frontend                             ClusterIP      10.43.41.186    <none>           3000/TCP                     9m47s
infisical-ingress-nginx-controller-admission   ClusterIP      10.43.42.222    <none>           443/TCP                      9m47s
mongodb                                        ClusterIP      10.43.112.139   <none>           27017/TCP                    9m47s
infisical-ingress-nginx-controller             LoadBalancer   10.43.63.38     172.31.134.241   80:30035/TCP,443:31538/TCP   9m47s
```

Initial Setup

• In our local setup, we are skipping SMTP configuration and accessing the dashboard via the LoadBalancer IP address http://172.31.134.241/signup
  You can also set up the hostname using ingress.hostName=<your-hostname> option during the installation

• Create an account for the administrator by clicking the "Continue with Email" option

• Enter your email id and click the "Get Started" option

• Enter the details accordingly and click "Sign Up" option

• Once you sign up, you will need to download "Emergency Kit" and save it somewhere safe. If you get locked out of your account, we can use this emergency kit to unlock it

• Now we are redirected to the homepage of Infisical

Configuration

• Create a new project by clicking the "Add New Project" button from the dashboard and name your project "MyApp"

• Once our project is created, we will get an interface like below. Here we can see different environments like Development, Staging and Production. We are going to add the secrets in the Development environment by clicking the "Go to Development" option

• We can copy secrets from other environments, upload env files etc. We can create a new secret by clicking the "Add a new secret" option

• Add the required secrets and save the changes

Secrets Operator Setup

• First, we need to generate a Service Token from our project settings

• Select the "Create token" option and enter a name for the service token. Select the environment, secrets path, expiration and permissions according to your use case and click on "Create" option

• Once the service token is created, copy and save it somewhere safe. We need this token to configure the secrets operator

• Back in our Kubernetes cluster, we need to install and configure the Infisical secrets operator to sync our secrets to the cluster
  

  $ helm install -n infisical infisical-secrets-operator infisical-helm-charts/secrets-operator
  
  NAME: infisical-secrets-operator
  LAST DEPLOYED: Thu Aug 17 21:05:56 2023
  NAMESPACE: infisical
  STATUS: deployed
  REVISION: 1
  TEST SUITE: None
  

• Check the infisical namespace, we can see a secret controller manager pod is created and it's up and running
  

  $ kubectl -n infisical get pods
  
  NAME                                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
  infisical-frontend-8588c9f65-sxz8d                    1/1     Running   0          84m
  infisical-frontend-8588c9f65-nsnjr                    1/1     Running   0          84m
  mongodb-0                                             1/1     Running   0          84m
  infisical-backend-6777b66f58-79d84                    1/1     Running   0          84m
  infisical-backend-6777b66f58-g2fwb                    1/1     Running   0          84m
  infisical-ingress-nginx-controller-7785998dc6-lqxgk   1/1     Running   0          84m
  infisical-secre-controller-manager-56c6f9b6d-lqk2v    2/2     Running   0          100s
  

• Create a new namespace for our application
  

  $ kubectl create ns myapp
  
  namespace/myapp created
  

• Create a Kubernetes secret containing the Service Token
  

  $ kubectl -n myapp create secret generic myapp-service-token --from-literal=infisicalToken=st.64de3f83a96c27c805827382.a7acb98a535125353af9135009f9b974.3d41003562f52a730823347dd4a01f96
  
  secret/myapp-service-token created
  

```bash
$ kubectl -n myapp get secrets

NAME                  TYPE     DATA   AGE
myapp-service-token   Opaque   1      25s
```

• Now we can sync our secrets to our cluster by creating an InfisicalSecret CRD
  

  apiVersion: secrets.infisical.com/v1alpha1
  kind: InfisicalSecret
  metadata:
    name: myapp-infisical-secret
    namespace: myapp
  spec:
    hostAPI: http://infisical-backend.infisical.svc.cluster.local:4000/api
    resyncInterval: 10
    authentication:
      serviceToken:
        serviceTokenSecretReference:
          secretName: myapp-service-token
          secretNamespace: myapp
        secretsScope:
          envSlug: dev
          secretsPath: "/"
    managedSecretReference:
      secretName: myapp-managed-secret
      secretNamespace: myapp
  

```bash
$ kubectl apply -f myapp-infisical-secret.yml
infisicalsecret.secrets.infisical.com/myapp-infisical-secret created
```

• Once it's created, check the status of the CRD

  From the status, we can see our secrets are synced to our cluster
  

  $ kubectl -n myapp get infisicalsecrets
  
  NAME                     AGE
  myapp-infisical-secret   42s
  

```bash
$ kubectl -n myapp describe infisicalsecrets myapp-infisical-secret

Name:         myapp-infisical-secret
Namespace:    myapp
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  <none>
API Version:  secrets.infisical.com/v1alpha1
Kind:         InfisicalSecret
Metadata:
  Creation Timestamp:  2023-08-17T16:07:04Z
  Generation:          1
  Resource Version:    4927
  UID:                 bb156757-1528-4827-afe9-09916fcd4372
Spec:
  Authentication:
    Service Token:
      Secrets Scope:
        Env Slug:      dev
        Secrets Path:  /
      Service Token Secret Reference:
        Secret Name:       myapp-service-token
        Secret Namespace:  myapp
  Host API:                http://infisical-backend.infisical.svc.cluster.local:4000/api
  Managed Secret Reference:
    Secret Name:       myapp-managed-secret
    Secret Namespace:  myapp
  Resync Interval:     10
Status:
  Conditions:
    Last Transition Time:  2023-08-17T16:07:04Z
    Message:               Infisical controller has located the Infisical token in provided Kubernetes secret
    Reason:                OK
    Status:                True
    Type:                  secrets.infisical.com/LoadedInfisicalToken
    Last Transition Time:  2023-08-17T16:07:05Z
    Message:               Infisical controller has started syncing your secrets
    Reason:                OK
    Status:                True
    Type:                  secrets.infisical.com/ReadyToSyncSecrets
    Last Transition Time:  2023-08-17T16:07:05Z
    Message:               Infisical has found 0 deployments which are ready to be auto redeployed when secrets change
    Reason:                OK
    Status:                True
    Type:                  secrets.infisical.com/AutoRedeployReady
Events:                    <none>
```

• We can verify the secrets have been synced to our cluster by checking the myapp-managed-secret
  

  $ kubectl -n myapp get secrets myapp-managed-secret
  
  NAME                   TYPE     DATA   AGE
  myapp-managed-secret   Opaque   4      5m16s
  

```bash
$ kubectl -n myapp describe secrets myapp-managed-secret

Name:         myapp-managed-secret
Namespace:    myapp
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  secrets.infisical.com/version: W/"a5a-hBx83Z5L+nuphYXlN17htm8jAjo"

Type:  Opaque

Data
====
MYSQL_HOST:      9 bytes
MYSQL_PASSWORD:  13 bytes
MYSQL_PORT:      4 bytes
MYSQL_DATABASE:  13 bytes
```

Application Deployment

• Deploy a sample Nginx application using the below manifest file
  
  The annotation secrets.infisical.com/auto-reload: "true" ensures that it automatically redeploys when managed secrets are changed
  

  apiVersion: apps/v1
  kind: Deployment
  metadata:
    name: myapp
    namespace: myapp
    labels:
      app: myapp
    annotations: 
      secrets.infisical.com/auto-reload: "true"
  spec:
    replicas: 1
    selector:
      matchLabels:
        app: maypp
    template:
      metadata:
        labels:
          app: myapp
      spec:
        containers:
        - name: myapp
          image: nginx:1.25.2
          envFrom:
          - secretRef:
              name: myapp-managed-secret
          ports:
          - containerPort: 80
  

```bash
$ kubectl apply -f .\myapp-deployment.yml
deployment.apps/myapp created
```

• Once our application is up and running, exec into the pod and list the environment variables to view our secrets
  

  $ kubectl -n myapp get pods
  
  NAME                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
  myapp-77c586c9ff-5xsxv   1/1     Running   0          48s
  

```bash
$ kubectl -n myapp exec -it myapp-77c586c9ff-5xsxv -- bash

root@myapp-77c586c9ff-5xsxv:/# env | grep -i MYSQL
MYSQL_PORT=3306
MYSQL_PASSWORD=mysqlPassword
MYSQL_HOST=mysqlHost
MYSQL_DATABASE=mysqlDatabase
```

• That's all for now

Reference

https://infisical.com/docs/integrations/platforms/kubernetes

https://docs.rancherdesktop.io/getting-started/installation/