External Secrets Operator — Commands & Recipes

Installation

# Install via Helm
helm repo add external-secrets https://charts.external-secrets.io
helm install external-secrets external-secrets/external-secrets \
  -n external-secrets --create-namespace

# Verify
kubectl get pods -n external-secrets

SecretStore (Vault)

apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1beta1
kind: SecretStore
metadata:
  name: vault-backend
spec:
  provider:
    vault:
      server: "https://vault.example.com:8200"
      path: "secret"
      version: "v2"
      auth:
        kubernetes:
          mountPath: "kubernetes"
          role: "myapp"

ExternalSecret

apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1beta1
kind: ExternalSecret
metadata:
  name: myapp-secret
spec:
  refreshInterval: 1h
  secretStoreRef:
    name: vault-backend
    kind: SecretStore
  target:
    name: myapp-secret
    creationPolicy: Owner
  data:
    - secretKey: DB_PASSWORD
      remoteRef:
        key: secret/data/myapp/db
        property: password
    - secretKey: API_KEY
      remoteRef:
        key: secret/data/myapp/api
        property: key

AWS Secrets Manager

apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1beta1
kind: ClusterSecretStore
metadata:
  name: aws-secrets
spec:
  provider:
    aws:
      service: SecretsManager
      region: us-east-1
      auth:
        jwt:
          serviceAccountRef:
            name: external-secrets-sa
            namespace: external-secrets

Debugging

# Check sync status
kubectl get externalsecret -A
kubectl describe externalsecret myapp-secret

# Check events
kubectl get events --field-selector involvedObject.kind=ExternalSecret

Sources

• ESO Guides