vault-init

This is a fork of sethvargo/vault-init with the following key differences:

• Root token and unseal keys are encrypted / decrypted with AWS KMS instead of Google Cloud KMS
• Encrypted root token and unseal keys are stored within a Kubernetes Secret instead of Google Cloud Storage

Usage

The vault-init service is designed to be run alongside a Vault server and communicate over local host.

You can download the code and compile the binary with Go. Alternatively, a Docker container is available via the Docker Hub:

$ docker pull ghcr.io/liatrio/vault-init

To use this as part of a Kubernetes Vault Deployment:

containers:
- name: vault-init
  image: ghcr.io/liatrio/vault-init:latest
  imagePullPolicy: Always
  env:
  - name: K8S_SECRET_NAME
    value: my-k8s-secret
  - name: KMS_KEY_ID
    value: arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:112233445566:key/f30464ff-5082-453b-8604-463c07d86d27
  - name: KMS_REGION
    value: us-east-1

You can also use this alongside the official Vault Helm chart:

server:
  extraContainers:
    - name: vault-init
      image: ghcr.io/liatrio/vault-init:latest
      imagePullPolicy: Always
      env:
        - name: K8S_SECRET_NAME
          value: my-k8s-secret
        - name: KMS_KEY_ID
          value: arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:112233445566:key/f30464ff-5082-453b-8604-463c07d86d27
        - name: KMS_REGION
          value: us-east-1

Configuration

The vault-init service supports the following environment variables for configuration:

• CHECK_INTERVAL ("10s") - The time duration between Vault health checks. Set this to a negative number to unseal once and exit.

• K8S_SECRET_NAME - The Kubernetes secret where the Vault master key and root token is stored. The secret will be created in the same namespace as the Vault server pod.

• KMS_KEY_ID - The AWS KMS key ID used to encrypt and decrypt the vault master key and root token.

• KMS_REGION - The region in which the AWS KMS key exists

• VAULT_SECRET_SHARES (5) - The number of human shares to create.

• VAULT_SECRET_THRESHOLD (3) - The number of human shares required to unseal.

• VAULT_AUTO_UNSEAL (true) - Use Vault 1.0 native auto-unsealing directly. You must set the seal configuration in Vault's configuration.

• VAULT_STORED_SHARES (1) - Number of shares to store on KMS. Only applies to Vault 1.0 native auto-unseal.

• VAULT_RECOVERY_SHARES (1) - Number of recovery shares to generate. Only applies to Vault 1.0 native auto-unseal.

• VAULT_RECOVERY_THRESHOLD (1) - Number of recovery shares needed to trigger an auto-unseal. Only applies to Vault 1.0 native auto-unseal.

• VAULT_SKIP_VERIFY (false) - Disable TLS validation when connecting. Setting to true is highly discouraged.

• VAULT_CACERT ("") - Path on disk to the CA file to use for verifying TLS connections to Vault.

• VAULT_CAPATH ("") - Path on disk to a directory containing the CAs to use for verifying TLS connections to Vault. VAULT_CACERT takes precedence.

• VAULT_TLS_SERVER_NAME ("") - Custom SNI hostname to use when validating TLS connections to Vault.

IAM & Permissions

The vault-init service uses the official AWS Golang SDK. This means it supports the common ways of providing credentials to AWS.

To use this service, the AWS service account must have the following permissions:

{
  "Version": "2025-08-05",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "kms:Encrypt",
        "kms:Decrypt",
        "kms:DescribeKey"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": "my-aws-kms-key-arn"
    }
  ]
}

Additionally, Kubernetes service account for Vault needs to be able to create secrets, and read/update the desired secret if it already exists. The following role can be used:

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: Role
metadata:
  name: vault-credentials-manager
rules:
  - apiGroups:
      - ""
    resourceNames:
      - vault-credentials # or whatever you set for the `K8S_SECRET_NAME` env var
    resources:
      - secrets
    verbs:
      - '*'
  - apiGroups:
      - ""
    resources:
      - secrets
    verbs:
      - create