Oracle database secrets engine
The Oracle database plugin is now available for use with the database secrets engine for HCP Vault on AWS. The plugin configuration (including installation of the Oracle Instant Client library) is managed by HCP. Refer to the HCP Vault tab for more information.
This secrets engine is a part of the database secrets engine. If you have not read the database backend page, please do so now as it explains how to set up the database backend and gives an overview of how the engine functions.
Oracle is one of the supported plugins for the database secrets engine. It is capable of dynamically generating credentials based on configured roles for Oracle databases. It also supports static roles.
Capabilities
The Oracle database plugin is not bundled in the core Vault code tree and can be found at its own git repository here: hashicorp/vault-plugin-database-oracle
This plugin is not compatible with Alpine Linux out of the box.
Plugin Name | Root Credential Rotation | Dynamic Roles | Static Roles | Username Customization |
---|---|---|---|---|
Customizable (see: Custom Plugins) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (1.7+) |
Setup
The Oracle database plugin is not bundled in the core Vault code tree and can be found at its own git repository here: hashicorp/vault-plugin-database-oracle
For linux/amd64, pre-built binaries can be found at the releases page
Before running the plugin you will need to have the Oracle Instant Client library installed. These can be downloaded from Oracle. The libraries will need to be placed in the default library search path or defined in the ld.so.conf configuration files.
The following privileges are needed by the plugin for minimum functionality. Additional privileges may be needed depending on the SQL configured on the database roles.
Vault needs ALTER SYSTEM
to terminate user sessions when revoking users. This may be
substituted with a stored procedure and granted to the Vault administrator user.
If you are running Vault with mlock enabled, you will need to enable ipc_lock capabilities for the plugin binary.
Enable the database secrets engine if it is not already enabled:
By default, the secrets engine will enable at the name of the engine. To enable the secrets engine at a different path, use the
-path
argument.Download and register the plugin:
Configure Vault with the proper plugin and connection information:
If Oracle uses SSL, see the connecting using SSL example.
If the version of Oracle you are using has a container database, you will need to connect to one of the pluggable databases rather than the container database in the
connection_url
field.It is highly recommended that you immediately rotate the "root" user's password, see Rotate Root Credentials for more details. This will ensure that only Vault is able to access the "root" user that Vault uses to manipulate dynamic & static credentials.
Use caution: the root user's password will not be accessible once rotated so it is highly recommended that you create a user for Vault to use rather than using the actual root user.
Configure a role that maps a name in Vault to an SQL statement to execute to create the database credential:
Note: The
creation_statements
may be specified in a file and interpreted by the Vault CLI using the@
symbol:See the Commands docs for more details.
Connect using SSL
If the Oracle server Vault is trying to connect to uses an SSL listener, the database
plugin will require extra configuration using the connection_url
parameter:
For example, the SSL server certificate distinguished name and path to the Oracle Wallet to use for connection and verification could be configured using:
Wallet permissions
Note: The wallets used when connecting via SSL should be available on every Vault server when using high availability clusters.
The wallet used by Vault should be in a well known location with the proper filesystem permissions. For example, if Vault is running as the vault
user,
the wallet directory may be setup as follows:
Using TNS names
Note: The tnsnames.ora
file and environment variable used when connecting via SSL should
be available on every Vault server when using high availability clusters.
Vault can optionally use TNS names in the connection string when connecting to Oracle databases using a tnsnames.ora
file. An example
of a tnsnames.ora
file may look like the following:
To configure Vault to use TNS names, set the following environment variable on the Vault server:
Note: If Vault returns a "could not open file" error, double check that
the TNS_ADMIN
environment variable is available to the Vault server.
Use the alias in the connection_url
parameter on the database configuration:
Usage
Dynamic credentials
After the secrets engine is configured and a user/machine has a Vault token with the proper permission, it can generate credentials.
Generate a new credential by reading from the
/creds
endpoint with the name of the role:
API
The full list of configurable options can be seen in the Oracle database plugin API page.
For more information on the database secrets engine's HTTP API please see the Database secrets engine API page.