AWS Secrets Manager is a fully managed service designed to help you protect access to your applications, services, and IT resources by securely storing and managing sensitive information such as database credentials, API keys, and other secrets.
Key Features:
1. **Automatic Secret Rotation**: Sec…AWS Secrets Manager is a fully managed service designed to help you protect access to your applications, services, and IT resources by securely storing and managing sensitive information such as database credentials, API keys, and other secrets.
Key Features:
1. **Automatic Secret Rotation**: Secrets Manager can automatically rotate secrets for supported AWS databases like Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon DocumentDB. You can also configure custom rotation using AWS Lambda functions for other types of secrets.
2. **Encryption**: All secrets are encrypted at rest using AWS Key Management Service (KMS). You can use the default AWS-managed key or specify your own customer-managed KMS key for additional control.
3. **Fine-Grained Access Control**: Using IAM policies and resource-based policies, you can control which users and applications can access specific secrets. This ensures the principle of least privilege is maintained.
4. **Audit and Monitoring**: Integration with AWS CloudTrail allows you to monitor and log all access to secrets, providing visibility into who accessed what and when.
5. **Cross-Account Access**: Secrets can be shared across AWS accounts using resource-based policies, enabling secure collaboration between different teams or environments.
**Common Use Cases for Developers**:
- Storing database connection strings
- Managing API keys for third-party services
- Storing SSH keys and certificates
- Retrieving secrets programmatically using AWS SDKs
**Accessing Secrets**:
Developers can retrieve secrets using the AWS SDK, CLI, or console. The GetSecretValue API call is commonly used in applications to fetch secrets at runtime rather than hardcoding them.
**Pricing**: You pay per secret stored per month and per 10,000 API calls made to the service.
Secrets Manager differs from AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store by offering built-in rotation capabilities and being specifically designed for secrets management, making it ideal for security-conscious applications.
In modern application development, managing sensitive information such as database credentials, API keys, and passwords is a critical security concern. Hardcoding secrets in application code or configuration files creates significant security vulnerabilities and makes credential rotation extremely difficult. AWS Secrets Manager solves these problems by providing a centralized, secure, and automated way to manage secrets throughout their lifecycle.
What is AWS Secrets Manager?
AWS Secrets Manager is a fully managed service that helps you protect access to your applications, services, and IT resources. It enables you to:
• Store and retrieve secrets securely • Rotate secrets automatically • Manage access to secrets using fine-grained IAM policies • Audit secret usage through AWS CloudTrail integration • Replicate secrets across multiple AWS regions
How AWS Secrets Manager Works
Secret Storage: Secrets are encrypted using AWS KMS (Key Management Service) encryption keys. You can use the default AWS-managed key or specify your own customer-managed CMK (Customer Master Key). Each secret can store up to 64 KB of data.
Secret Retrieval: Applications retrieve secrets using the AWS SDK, CLI, or API calls. The service returns the decrypted secret value, which your application can then use. This eliminates the need to store secrets in code or configuration files.
Automatic Rotation: Secrets Manager can automatically rotate secrets on a schedule you define. For supported databases (Amazon RDS, Amazon DocumentDB, Amazon Redshift), AWS provides Lambda rotation functions. For other secrets, you can create custom Lambda functions to handle rotation.
Versioning: Secrets Manager maintains multiple versions of secrets using staging labels: • AWSCURRENT - The current active version • AWSPENDING - The version being rotated to • AWSPREVIOUS - The previous version
Key Features to Remember
• Cross-Region Replication: Secrets can be replicated to multiple regions for disaster recovery and multi-region applications • Resource-based Policies: Control access to secrets from other AWS accounts • Integration with RDS: Native integration with Amazon RDS for automatic credential rotation • Pricing: Charged per secret per month plus per 10,000 API calls
Secrets Manager vs Parameter Store
Understanding the differences is crucial for the exam:
AWS Secrets Manager: • Built-in automatic rotation • Higher cost per secret • Designed specifically for secrets • Cross-region replication built-in
Systems Manager Parameter Store: • No native rotation (requires custom implementation) • Free tier available for standard parameters • General-purpose parameter storage • Can reference Secrets Manager secrets
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on AWS Secrets Manager
1. Rotation Keywords: When a question mentions automatic rotation of database credentials or secrets, Secrets Manager is typically the answer. Parameter Store does not have native rotation capabilities.
2. RDS Credentials: Questions about securely managing RDS database passwords with automatic rotation point to Secrets Manager, not Parameter Store.
3. Cost Considerations: If the question emphasizes cost optimization and automatic rotation is not required, Parameter Store might be the better choice.
4. Lambda Functions: Remember that rotation requires Lambda functions. For supported services, AWS provides these functions; for custom secrets, you must create them.
5. Cross-Account Access: Questions about sharing secrets across AWS accounts should make you think of resource-based policies in Secrets Manager.
6. Encryption: All secrets are encrypted at rest using KMS. Questions about encryption at rest are satisfied by default behavior.
7. CloudFormation Integration: Secrets Manager integrates with CloudFormation using dynamic references ({{resolve:secretsmanager:secret-id:secret-string:json-key:version-stage:version-id}}).
8. Code Changes: When questions ask about retrieving secrets in application code, remember to use the AWS SDK GetSecretValue API call.
9. Caching: For high-throughput applications, use the Secrets Manager caching client to reduce API calls and latency.
10. Multi-Region: For disaster recovery scenarios requiring secrets availability across regions, remember the cross-region replication feature.
Common Exam Scenarios
• Application needs to connect to RDS with rotating credentials → Secrets Manager • Store and rotate API keys automatically → Secrets Manager • Simple configuration values with no rotation needed → Parameter Store • Cross-region secret availability for DR → Secrets Manager with replication • Audit trail for secret access → CloudTrail integration