Using a Credentials Provider
Interacting with a datastore typically implies first connecting using credentials. Those credentials will allow the client to be identified, authenticated and eventually authorized. Username/password based authentication is very common, but that is not by any means the only one. Such credentials information may appear in the application configuration, but it is becoming increasingly popular to store this type of sensitive information in secure stores, such as HashiCorp Vault, Azure Key Vault or the AWS Secrets Manager to name just a few.
To bridge datastores that consume credentials, which can take different forms,
and secure stores that provide those credentials,
Quarkus introduces an intermediate abstraction called Credentials Provider,
that some extensions may support to consume credentials (e.g. agroal),
and some others may implement to produce credentials (e.g. vault).
This Service Programming Interface (SPI) may also be used by implementers that want to support custom providers not yet implemented in Quarkus (e.g. Azure Key Vault).
Currently, the Credentials Provider interface is implemented by the vault extension, and is supported
by the following credentials consumer extensions:
-
agroal -
reactive-db2-client -
reactive-mysql-client -
reactive-mssql-client -
reactive-oracle-client -
reactive-pg-client -
oidc -
oidc-client -
messaging-rabbitmq
All extensions that rely on username/password authentication also allow setting configuration
properties in the application.properties as an alternative. But the Credentials Provider is the only option
if credentials are generated (e.g. Vault Dynamic DB Credentials) or if a custom credentials provider is required.
This guide will show how to use the Credentials Provider provided in the vault extension,
then we will look at implementing a custom Credentials Provider, and finally we will talk about additional
considerations regarding implementing a Credentials Provider in a new extension.
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This technology is considered preview. In preview, backward compatibility and presence in the ecosystem is not guaranteed. Specific improvements might require changing configuration or APIs, and plans to become stable are under way. Feedback is welcome on our mailing list or as issues in our GitHub issue tracker. For a full list of possible statuses, check our FAQ entry. |
Vault Credentials Provider
To configure a Vault Credentials Provider you need to provide the following properties:
quarkus.vault.credentials-provider.<name>.<property>=<value>The <name> will be used in the consumer to refer to this provider. The <property> and <value> fields are specific to the Vault Credentials Provider. For complete details, please refer to the https://docs.quarkiverse.io/quarkus-vault/dev/vault-datasource.html.
For instance:
quarkus.vault.credentials-provider.mydatabase.kv-path=myapps/vault-quickstart/dbOnce defined, the mydatabase provider can be used in any extension that supports the Credentials Provider interface. For instance in agroal:
# configure your datasource
quarkus.datasource.db-kind = postgresql
quarkus.datasource.username = sarah
quarkus.datasource.credentials-provider = mydatabase
quarkus.datasource.jdbc.url = jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/mydatabaseNote that quarkus.datasource.username is the original agroal property, whereas the password property
is not included because the value will come from the mydatabase credentials provider we just defined.
An alternative is to define both username and password in Vault and drop the quarkus.datasource.username
property from configuration. All consuming extensions do support the ability to fetch both the username
and password from the provider, or just the password.
Time Limited Credentials
A Credentials Provider may provide time limited credentials. For instance, the vault extension. When using
time limited credentials, it is important to understand that consuming extensions will not have their
credentials refreshed automatically by the Credentials Provider. Each extension must be configured to recycle its
connections before the credentials expire.
Datasources
Datastore connections are typically pooled. When using a time limited credentials provider, the pool must be
configured to recycle connections before each connection’s credentials expire. Both JDBC and Reactive datasources
have a max-lifetime configuration property that can be used to achieve this.
quarkus.datasource.jdbc.max-lifetime=60mquarkus.datasource.reactive.max-lifetime=60m
It is the developer’s responsibility to ensure that the configuration of the datasource’s max-lifetime
property is less than the credentials expiration time.
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Custom Credentials Provider
Implementing a custom credentials provider is the only option when a vault product is not yet supported in Quarkus, or if credentials need to be retrieved from a custom store.
The only interface to implement is:
public interface CredentialsProvider {
String USER_PROPERTY_NAME = "user";
String PASSWORD_PROPERTY_NAME = "password";
Map<String, String> getCredentials(String credentialsProviderName);
}USER_PROPERTY_NAME and PASSWORD_PROPERTY_NAME are standard properties that should be recognized by any consuming extension that support username/password based authentication.
It is required that implementations be valid @ApplicationScoped CDI beans.
Here is a simple example:
@ApplicationScoped
@Unremovable
public class MyCredentialsProvider implements CredentialsProvider {
@Override
public Map<String, String> getCredentials(String credentialsProviderName) {
Map<String, String> properties = new HashMap<>();
properties.put(USER_PROPERTY_NAME, "hibernate_orm_test");
properties.put(PASSWORD_PROPERTY_NAME, "hibernate_orm_test");
return properties;
}
}Note that we decided here to return both the username and the password.
This provider may be used in a datasource definition like this:
quarkus.datasource.db-kind=postgresql
quarkus.datasource.credentials-provider=custom
quarkus.datasource.jdbc.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5431/hibernate_orm_testIt is also possible to pass configuration properties to the provider using standard MicroProfile Config injection:
custom.foo=barAnd in the provider implementation:
@Inject
Config config;
@Override
public Map<String, String> getCredentials(String credentialsProviderName) {
System.out.println("MyCredentialsProvider called with foo=" + config.getValue(credentialsProviderName + ".foo", String.class));
...
}New Credentials Provider extension
When creating a custom credentials provider in a new extension, there are a few additional considerations.
First, you need to name it to avoid collisions in case multiple credentials providers are available in the project:
@ApplicationScoped
@Unremovable
@Named("my-credentials-provider")
public class MyCredentialsProvider implements CredentialsProvider {It is the responsibility of the consumer to allow a credentials-provider-name property:
quarkus.datasource.credentials-provider = custom
quarkus.datasource.credentials-provider-name = my-credentials-providerThe extension should allow runtime config, such as the CredentialsProviderConfig from the vault extension
to configure any custom property in the provider. For an AWS Secrets Manager extension, this could be:
-
region -
credentials-type -
secrets-id
Note also that some consumers such as agroal will add to their connection configuration any properties returned
by the credentials provider, not just the username and password. So when you design the new credentials provider
limit the properties to what would be understood by consumers, or provide appropriate configuration options to
support different modes.
