Step 1: Creating Secret

You can create secrets manually or use the ‘kubectl create secret’ command to create them. The create secret command can create secrets from string literals, or files containing the values. If we have our database credentials loaded into files named username.txt and password.txt, then we could load them into the cluster’s secret store with the following command.

kubectl create secret generic db-credentials --fromfile=./username.txt --from-file=./password.txt

This command creates a secret named ‘db-credentials’ in the secret store. The system should respond with a secret “db-credentials” created response.

Once you have created the secret object, you can add it to the container as volume attached to the pod, or you can load the values into environment variables when initializing a new container in the pod. Let’s look at an example configuration that includes the secrets as a volume on the pod.

Assuming that you used the original file names to load the database credentials into the secrets object and attached the secrets into a volume named secrets, the credentials could now be accessed at /etc/secrets/username and /etc/secrets/password.

Step 2: Decoding Secret

To view the data stored in a Secret, you can use the ‘kubectl get secret’ command with the –output flag set to jsonpath.

kubectl get secret my-secret --output jsonpath='{.data}'

• You can check if the Secret is created or not by giving below command.

kubectl get secrets

This command will show us the list of secrets-their names, type and number of data values.

Step 3: Updating Secret

To update an existing Secret, you can use the ‘kubectl create secret’ command again. If you want to update the existing Secret in-place, you can use the ‘kubectl patch’ command.

kubectl patch secret my-secret

Step 4: Deleting Secret

You can delete a Secret using the ‘kubectl delete secret’ command followed by the Secret name.

kubectl delete secret my-secret

Step 5: Edit the Secret

By using the below command we can interactively edit the secrets in the Kubernetes.

kubectl edit secret <secret-name>

By following these steps, you can effectively control the Kubernetes Secrets in your cluster.

How Secure are Kubernetes Secrets?

Kubernetes Secrets offer a moderate level of security by provide the dedicated mechanism to store and manage the important data like passwords, tokens, and keys. However, their security is not absolute and depends on several factors:

1. Base64 Encoding: Secrets are store the data as base64-encode the strings, which is not true encryption. This encode the intended for smooth of transmission rather than security.
2. Encryption at Rest: Kubernetes supports encryption of Secrets at rest, but it must be explicitly configure. Without this, Secrets are stored in plain text in etcd.
3. Access Control: Correctly configure the Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policies is important to ensure that only authorized users and services can access Secrets.
4. Network Security: Securing network communications within the cluster, such as using TLS, helps protect Secrets from being intercepted during transmission.
5. Audit Logging: Enabling and regularly review the audit logs helps detect unauthorized access to Secrets.

Most applications deployed through Kubernetes require access to databases, services, and other resources located externally. The easiest way to manage the login information necessary to access those resources is by using Kubernetes secrets. Secrets help organize and distribute sensitive information across a cluster.