Vault-Associate Exam Dumps - HashiCorp Security Automation Certification Questions and Answers

The policy shown in the image is:

path “secret/data/webapp1” { capabilities = [“create”, “read”, “update”, “delete”, “list”] }

path “secret/data/super-secret” { capabilities = [“deny”] }

This policy grants or denies access to the key/value v2 secrets engine mounted at secret/ according to the following rules:

• The path “secret/data/webapp1” has the capabilities of “create”, “read”, “update”, “delete”, and “list”. This means that the policy allows performing any of these operations on the secrets stored under this path. The data/ prefix is used to access the actual secret data in the key/value v2 secrets engine5. Therefore, the policy permits the operation of vault kv get secret/webapp1, which reads the secret data at secret/data/webapp16.
• The path “secret/data/super-secret” has the capability of “deny”. This means that the policy denies performing any operation on the secrets stored under this path. The policy overrides any other policy that might grant access to this path. Therefore, the policy does not permit the operations of vault kv delete secret/super-secret and vault kv list secret/super-secret, which delete and list the secret data at secret/data/super-secret respectively6.
• The policy does not explicitly define any rules for the path “secret/metadata”. The metadata/ prefix is used to access the metadata of the secrets in the key/value v2 secrets engine, such as the number of versions, the deletion status, the creation time, etc5. By default, if the policy grants any of the capabilities of “create”, “read”, “update”, or “delete” on the data/ path, it also grants the same capabilities on the corresponding metadata/ path7. Therefore, the policy permits the operation of vault kv metadata get secret/webapp1, which reads the metadata of the secret at secret/metadata/webapp18.

References: 5(https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/secrets/kv/kv-v2), [ 6]6, 7(https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/secrets/kv/kv-v2), [ 8]8

The environment variable VAULT_ADDR overrides the CLI’s default Vault server address. The VAULT_ADDR environment variable specifies the address of the Vault server that is used to communicate with Vault from other applications or processes. By setting this variable, you can avoid hard-coding the Vault server address in your code or configuration files, and you can also use different addresses for different environments or scenarios. For example, you can use a local development server for testing purposes, and a production server for deploying your application. References: Commands (CLI) | Vault | HashiCorp Developer, Vault Agent - secrets as environment variables | Vault | HashiCorp Developer

Secrets engines are components that store, generate, or encrypt data in Vault. They are enabled at a specific path in Vault and have their own API and configuration. Some of the statements that describe the secrets engines in Vault are:

• Some secrets engines simply store and read data, such as the key/value secrets engine, which acts like an encrypted Redis or Memcached. Other secrets engines perform more complex operations, such as generating dynamic credentials, encrypting data, issuing certificates, etc1.
• You can build your own custom secrets engine by using the plugin system, which allows you to write and run your own secrets engine as a separate process that communicates with Vault over gRPC. You can also use the SDK to create your own secrets engine in Go and compile it into Vault2.
• Each secrets engine is isolated to its path, which means that the secrets engine cannot access or interact with other secrets engines or data outside its path. The path where the secrets engine is enabled can be customized and can have multiple segments. For example, you can enable the AWS secrets engine at aws/ or aws/prod/ or aws/dev/3.

The statements that are not true about the secrets engines in Vault are:

• You can disable an existing secrets engine by using the vault secrets disable command or the sys/mounts API endpoint. When a secrets engine is disabled, all of its secrets are revoked and all of its data is deleted from the storage backend4.
• A secrets engine can be enabled at multiple paths, with a few exceptions, such as the system and identity secrets engines. Each secrets engine enabled at a different path is independent and isolated from others. For example, you can enable the KV secrets engine at kv/ and secret/ and they will not share any data3.

References: 1(https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/secrets),  2(https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/secrets),  3(https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/secrets),  4(https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/secrets)

The statement is true. When an auth method is disabled, all users authenticated via that method lose access. This is because the tokens issued by the auth method are automatically revoked when the auth method is disabled. This prevents the users from performing any operation in Vault using the revoked tokens. To regain access, the users have to authenticate again using a different auth method that is enabled and has the appropriate policies attached. References: Auth Methods | Vault | HashiCorp Developer, auth disable - Command | Vault | HashiCorp Developer

The command shown in the image is:

vault token create -policy=approle -orphan -period=60h

This command creates a new token with the following characteristics:

• It has the policy “approle” attached to it, which grants or denies access to certain paths and operations in Vault according to the policy rules. The policy can be defined by using the vault policy write command or the sys/policy API endpoint12.
• It is an orphan token, which means it has no parent token and it will not be revoked when its parent token is revoked. Orphan tokens can be useful for creating long-lived tokens that are not affected by the token hierarchy3.
• It has a period of 60 hours, which means it has a renewable TTL of 60 hours. This means that the token can be renewed indefinitely as long as it does not go past the 60-hour mark from the last renewal time. The token’s TTL will be reset to 60 hours upon each renewal. Periodic tokens are useful for creating tokens that have a fixed lifetime and can be easily revoked4.

References: [1]1, [2]2, 3(https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/secrets/kv),  4(https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/secrets/kv)

The CLI command vault login -method ldap username=mitchellh generates a token that is response wrapped. This means that the token contains a base64-encoded response wrapper, which is a JSON object that contains information about the token, such as its policies, metadata, and expiration time. The response wrapper is used to verify the authenticity and integrity of the token, and to prevent replay attacks. The response wrapper also allows Vault to automatically renew the token when it expires, or to revoke it if it is compromised. The -method ldap option specifies that the authentication method is LDAP, which requires a username andpassword to be provided. The username mitchellh is an example of an LDAP user name, and the password will be hidden when entered. References: Vault CLI Reference | Vault | HashiCorp Developer, Vault CLI Reference | Vault | HashiCorp Developer

Vault Agent is a client daemon that provides the following features:

• Auto-Auth - Automatically authenticate to Vault and manage the token renewal process for locally-retrieved dynamic secrets.
• API Proxy - Allows Vault Agent to act as a proxy for Vault’s API, optionally using (or forcing the use of) the Auto-Auth token.
• Caching - Allows client-side caching of responses containing newly created tokens and responses containing leased secrets generated off of these newly created tokens. The agent also manages the renewals of the cached tokens and leases.
• Templating - Allows rendering of user-supplied templates by Vault Agent, using the token generated by the Auto-Auth step.
• Process Supervisor Mode - Runs a child process with Vault secrets injected as environment variables.

One of the benefits of using the Vault Agent is that it will manage the lifecycle of cached tokens and leases automatically. This means that the agent will handle the token renewal and revocation logic, as well as the lease renewal and revocation logic for the secrets that are cached by the agent. This reduces the burden on the application developers and operators, and ensures that the tokens and secrets are always valid and up-to-date. References: Vault Agent | Vault | HashiCorp Developer, Caching - Vault Agent | Vault | HashiCorp Developer