vkv

vkv is a tool for easily fetching secrets from a HashiCorp Vault (or compatible) key-value (KV) store. It is primarily targeted at users of pass(1) and similar tools.

vkvmenu is a dmenu wrapper for more interactively selecting (and optionally auto-typing) a secret, similar to passmenu.

Dependencies

• POSIX-compliant /bin/sh
• POSIX-compliant cat, printf, test/[ and true/false
• getent from GNU libc
• id from GNU coreutils
• HashiCorp Vault (or compatible drop-in replacement, e.g. OpenBao
• notify-send from libnotify
• jq

Further dependencies for optional functionality:

• xclip (for vkv show -c)

Further dependencies for vkvmenu:

• dmenu
• xclip (for vkvmenu without -t)
• xdotool (for vkvmenu with -t)

Installation

vkv is a single POSIX sh script that can be installed to some place in $PATH as-is (or simply run from this project directory).

vkvmenu is a single POSIX sh script that can be installed to some place in $PATH as-is (or simply run from this project directory). However, it expects vkv to be present in $PATH.

The manpages are typeset in Groff and can be installed to the system as-is (or simply be read in this project directory with man ./vkv.1 and man ./vkvmenu.1, respectively).

Usage

Set VAULT_ADDR and other environment as required for accessing your HashiCorp Vault instance.

$ export VAULT_ADDR=https://vault.example.net

Get the password secret contained in the mykv KV instance at the path service/web.example.net/admin:

$ vkv show mykv/service/web.admin.net/admin password
hunter2

Instead of writing it out to stdout, you can also copy it to the clipboard:

$ vkv show -c mykv/service/web.admin.net/admin password

Verify that the username is indeed as expected:

$ vkv show mykv/service/web.admin.net/admin password username=webmaster
hunter2

vs.

$ vkv show mykv/service/web.admin.net/admin password username=blabla
KV secret contained differing value for key 'username'

List "bookmarked" secrets (used by vkvmenu to provide suggestions):

$ vkv list
mykv/service/web.admin.net/admin password username=webmaster
mykv/service/db.admin.net/admin password username=dbmaster
mykv/system/webbox01/root password username=root

Disclaimer

vkv is not related to HashiCorp or to any of its products, both Vault and otherwise.