Vault server, how to programmatically put key/value to vault server using Java or Spring framework

Question

I want to store some secrets/credentials during runtime in my application, similar to the following command.

vault kv put -path=secret/application key1=val1

I have reviewed the HashiCorp SDK, but it only provides a write command that overrides previous keys/values in my secrets. I want to update key-value instead of override, how can I do that programmatically.

Answer 1

After digging through the code, I figured out. So what I have to do is to call the method ::opsForKeyValue, it returns the operations for managing key-value including patch command. So with patch command I'm be able to update key-vaule without overriding the previous one.

@Autowired
VaultTemplate template;

public void updateSecrets() {
    var ops = template.opsForKeyValue("test", VaultKeyValueOperationsSupport.KeyValueBackend.KV_2);
    ops.patch("application", Map.of("k3", "v3"));
}

** Note that it only supports KV version 2.

Answer 2

For my part, I use the "Vault Java Driver" library from Bettercloud, available here: https://bettercloud.github.io/vault-java-driver/.

It uses the API to communicate with the vault server, so you don't need to write your own requests. It is very easy to use.

Hopefully I could help you.