AWS Secrets Manager Tutorial

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by The Captain

on
June 14, 2023

AWS Secrets Manager Tutorial

AWS Secrets Manager is a fully managed service that enables you to easily and securely store, manage, and retrieve secrets such as database credentials, API keys, and other sensitive data. In this tutorial, we will cover how to create and manage secrets using AWS Secrets Manager.

Creating a Secret

To create a secret in Secrets Manager, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the AWS Management Console and navigate to the Secrets Manager service.
  2. Click the "Store a new secret" button.
  3. Select the type of secret you want to create (for example, "Credentials for RDS database").
  4. Enter the required information for your secret (such as username, password, and database endpoint).
  5. Click "Next" and review the settings for your new secret.
  6. Click "Store" to create the new secret.

Retrieving a Secret

Once you have created a secret in Secrets Manager, you can retrieve it using the AWS SDK or the AWS CLI.

Here is an example using the AWS SDK:

  
import boto3

secrets_manager = boto3.client('secretsmanager')
secret_value = secrets_manager.get_secret_value(SecretId='my_database_credentials')

print(secret_value['SecretString'])
  

This will retrieve the value of the secret "my_database_credentials".

Rotating a Secret

Secrets Manager makes it easy to rotate your secrets, which helps to improve security by changing passwords or other sensitive data on a regular basis.

To enable secret rotation, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Secrets Manager console.
  2. Select the secret you want to rotate.
  3. Click "Edit rotation" and then click the "Enable automatic rotation" button.
  4. Enter your rotation settings (such as rotation frequency and number of previous versions to keep).
  5. Click "Save" to enable secret rotation.

Summary

AWS Secrets Manager is a powerful tool for securely storing and managing secrets in the cloud. With its easy-to-use interface and advanced features such as secret rotation, Secrets Manager is an essential component of any secure AWS architecture.