How do you configure Azure Key Vault in a Spring Boot application?
Table of Contents
Introduction
Azure Key Vault is a cloud service provided by Microsoft Azure that helps securely store and manage sensitive information, such as API keys, secrets, certificates, and cryptographic keys. By integrating Azure Key Vault with a Spring Boot application, you can safely manage and access these secrets without hardcoding them into your application code, ensuring security and compliance. This guide explains how to configure Azure Key Vault in a Spring Boot application.
Steps to Configure Azure Key Vault in Spring Boot
1. Add Required Dependencies
To interact with Azure Key Vault from a Spring Boot application, you need to include the appropriate Azure SDK and Spring Cloud Azure dependencies. In your pom.xml
(for Maven), add the following dependencies:
These dependencies will allow Spring Boot to interact with Azure Key Vault and fetch secrets securely.
2. Configure Azure Key Vault
You need to set up the Azure Key Vault in the Azure portal:
- Create an Azure Key Vault: In the Azure portal, navigate to "Key Vaults" and create a new Key Vault instance.
- Add Secrets: Within the Key Vault, add your sensitive data as secrets (e.g., API keys, database credentials, etc.).
3. Azure Authentication Configuration
For your Spring Boot application to access Azure Key Vault, you must authenticate it using Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). There are several methods to authenticate, such as using a managed identity or a service principal.
Using a Managed Identity:
If your Spring Boot application is hosted in Azure (e.g., in Azure App Service or Azure Kubernetes Service), you can use Managed Identity for authentication. Ensure that the managed identity has access to Azure Key Vault.
Using a Service Principal (for local development):
If your application is running locally or outside Azure, you can authenticate using a service principal. First, create a service principal in Azure AD:
This command will output the clientId
, clientSecret
, and tenantId
that you can use to authenticate your application.
4. Set Up Application Properties
Once you have your credentials, configure them in the application.properties
or application.yml
file of your Spring Boot application:
Alternatively, if using managed identity, you can omit the client-id
, client-secret
, and tenant-id
, as Azure will handle authentication automatically.
5. Access Secrets from Key Vault
Once configured, Spring Boot will automatically fetch secrets from Azure Key Vault using Spring Cloud Azure. You can use these secrets in your application like any other property.
For example, if you have a secret named mySecret
in your Azure Key Vault, you can access it as follows:
Spring Boot will replace my.secret
with the value stored in the Key Vault.
6. Accessing Secrets Programmatically
In addition to accessing secrets via application properties, you can also fetch secrets programmatically using Azure SDKs. Here’s how you can fetch a secret from Key Vault using the Azure SDK:
In this example, the KeyVaultService
class allows you to programmatically retrieve secrets from Azure Key Vault.
Conclusion
Integrating Azure Key Vault with a Spring Boot application allows you to securely manage sensitive data such as secrets, certificates, and keys. By using Azure SDKs and Spring Cloud Azure, you can easily fetch and use these secrets in your application, ensuring security best practices by not hardcoding sensitive information in the source code. Whether you’re using managed identity or a service principal for authentication, the process is seamless and secure, enabling your Spring Boot application to interact with Azure Key Vault efficiently.