Company
Date Published
Author
Lynn Frank
Word count
1738
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

Kubernetes and HashiCorp Vault are two mature orchestrators used for managing the lifecycle of containerized applications. Kubernetes' native secrets management functionality is limited, as it stores sensitive information in etcd without encryption or a time-to-live, making it vulnerable to security breaches. In contrast, HashiCorp Vault provides a centralized secrets repository that encrypts data by default during transit and at rest, with built-in mechanisms for secret renewal, rotation, and revocation. Vault integrates with Kubernetes through authentication and secret retrieval, allowing users to delegate the responsibility of creating and managing the lifecycle of a secret to Vault. Nomad, another orchestrator, focuses solely on cluster management and scheduling, delegating secrets management to Vault or external providers. The integration between Nomad and Vault enables simplified operations for users, while Nomad's flexibility allows for managing jobs and their secrets across a heterogeneous environment.