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This solution adds certificate enrollment capabilities to HashiCorp Terraform by seamlessly integrating with the Venafi Trust Protection Platform or Venafi Control Plane in a manner that ensures compliance with corporate security policy and provides visibility into certificate issuance enterprise wide.
π Test drive our integration examples today
Let us show you step-by-step how to add certificates to your Infrastucture as Code automation using Terraform.
NOTE If you don't see an example for a product you use, check back later. We're working hard to add more integration examples.
Make sure that you are protecting your terraform state file as per the best practices by Hashicorp:
https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/state/sensitive-data.
This is an important step to prevent data breaches or leaks of sensitive data like usernames, passwords, tokens,
secrets, etc.
Your certificate authority (CA) must be able to issue a certificate in under one minute. Microsoft Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS) is a popular choice. Other CA choices may have slightly different requirements.
Within Trust Protection Platform, configure these settings. For more information see the Venafi Administration Guide.
-
A user account that has an authentication token for the
Venafi Provider for HashiCorp Terraform
(IDhashicorp-terraform-by-venafi
) API Application as of 20.1 (or scopecertificate:manage
for 19.2 through 19.4) or has been granted WebSDK Access (deprecated). -
A Policy folder where the user has the following permissions:
View
,Read
,Write
,Create
. -
Enterprise compliant policies applied to the folder including:
- Subject DN values for Organizational Unit (OU), Organization (O), City/Locality (L), State/Province (ST) and Country (C).
- CA Template that Trust Protection Platform will use to enroll general certificate requests.
- Management Type not locked or locked to
Enrollment
. - Certificate Signing Request (CSR) Generation unlocked or not locked to
Service Generated CSR
. - Generate Key/CSR on Application not locked or locked to
No
. - Private Key PBE Algorithm to either
SHA1 3DES
orSHA256 AES256
toService Generated CSR
. - (Recommended) Disable Automatic Renewal set to
Yes
. - (Recommended) Key Bit Strength set to
2048
or higher. - (Recommended) Domain Whitelisting policy appropriately assigned.
NOTE: If you are using Microsoft ACDS, the CRL distribution point and Authority Information Access (AIA) URIs must start with an HTTP URI (non-default configuration). If an LDAP URI appears first in the X509v3 extensions, some applications will fail, such as NGINX ingress controllers. These applications aren't able to retrieve CRL and OCSP information.
The Trust Protection Platform REST API (WebSDK) must be secured with a certificate. Generally, the certificate is issued by a CA that is not publicly trusted so establishing trust is a critical part of your setup.
Two methods can be used to establish trust. Both require the trust anchor (root CA certificate) of the WebSDK
certificate. If you have administrative access, you can import the root certificate into the trust store for your
operating system. If you don't have administrative access, or prefer not to make changes to your system configuration,
save the root certificate to a file in PEM
format (e.g. /opt/venafi/bundle.pem) and include it using the trust_bundle
parameter of your Venafi provider.
The Venafi provider offers several authentication methods to Trust Protection Platform. All of them work by requesting an access token that will grant access to the REST API. Automation becomes complex to manage when access tokens are introduced as they have an expiration date. When that date is met, the token is no longer valid.
A new Venafi-token provider has been released that allows customers to manage their access tokens. This way the Venafi provider will always have a valid token to use, and automation will not be disrupted by token expiration.
If you are using Venafi Control Plane, verify the following:
- The Venafi Control Plane REST API at https://api.venafi.cloud or https://api.venafi.eu (if you have an EU account) is accessible from the system where Terraform will run.
- You have successfully registered for a Venafi Control Plane account, have been granted at least the
Resource Owner
role, and know your API key. - A CA Account and Issuing Template exist and have been configured with:
- Recommended Settings values for:
- Organizational Unit (OU)
- Organization (O)
- City/Locality (L)
- State/Province (ST)
- Country (C)
- Issuing Rules that:
- (Recommended) Limits Common Name and Subject Alternative Name to domains that are allowed by your organization
- (Recommended) Restricts the Key Length to 2048 or higher
- (Recommended) Does not allow Private Key Reuse
- Recommended Settings values for:
- An Application exists where you are among the owners, and you know the Application name.
- An Issuing Template is assigned to the Application, and you know its API Alias.
The Venafi Provider for HashiCorp Terraform is an officially verified integration. As such, releases are published to
the Terraform Registry where they are available for
terraform init
to automatically download whenever the provider is referenced by a configuration file. No setup steps
are required to use an official release of this provider other than to download and install Terraform itself.
To use a pre-release or custom-built version of this provider, manually install the plugin binary into
required directory
using the prescribed subdirectory structure
that must align with how the provider is referenced in the required_providers
block of the configuration file.
A Terraform module is a container for multiple resources that are used together and the steps that follow illustrate the resources required to enroll certificates using the Venafi Provider with HashiCorp Terraform 0.13 or higher.
π NOTE: For Terraform 0.12, omit the
required_providers
block and specify any desired version constraints for the provider in theprovider
block using the older way to manage provider versions.
β οΈ We dropped support for RSA PKCS#1 formatted keys for TLS certificates in version 15.0 and also for EC Keys in version 0.15.4 (you can find out more about this transition in here). For backward compatibility during Terraform state refresh please update to version 0.15.5 or above.
β οΈ As a part for upgrading our provider to SDK version 2, we dropped support for Terraform version 0.11 and below.
β οΈ With the introduction of version 0.18.0 the Venafi Terraform provider now incorporates a new feature related to certificate retirement. When an infrastructure is decommissioned, the associated certificate will be automatically retired from the Venafi Platform (Trust Protection Platform and Venafi Control Plane).
-
Declare that the Venafi Provider is required:
terraform { required_providers { venafi = { source = "venafi/venafi" version = "~> 0.16.0" } } required_version = ">= 0.13" }
-
Specify the connection and authentication settings for the
venafi
provider:Trust Protection Platform:
provider "venafi" { url = "https://tpp.venafi.example" trust_bundle = file("/path/to/bundle.pem") access_token = "p0WTt3sDPbzm2BDIkoJROQ==" zone = "DevOps\\Terraform" }
Venafi Control Plane:
provider "venafi" { api_key = "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx" zone = "Business App\\Enterprise CIT" }
Venafi Control Plane with access token:
provider "venafi" { token_url = "xxxxxxxx-xxxx" external_jwt = "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx" zone = "Business App\\Enterprise CIT" }
Venafi Control Plane for EU:
provider "venafi" { url = "https://api.venafi.eu" api_key = "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx" zone = "Business App\\Enterprise CIT" }
The
venafi
provider has the following options:Property Type Description Env. Variable api_key
String Venafi Control Plane
API keyVENAFI_API access_token
String Trust Protection Platform
access token for the "hashicorp-terraform-by-venafi" API ApplicationVENAFI_TOKEN client_id
String ID of the application that will request tokens. Not necessary when access_token
provided. If not provided, defaults tohashicorp-terraform-by-venafi
VENAFI_CLIENT_ID external_jwt
String JWT of the Identity Provider associated to a Venafi Control Plane
service account. Use it along withtenant_id
to request access tokensVENAFI_EXTERNAL_JWT p12_cert_filename
String Filename of PKCS#12 keystore containing a client certificate, private key, and chain certificates to authenticate to Venafi Platform VENAFI_P12_CERTIFICATE p12_cert_password
String Password for the PKCS#12 keystore declared in p12_cert_filename
VENAFI_P12_PASSWORD token_url
String URL to request an access token from Venafi Control Plane
. Use it along withexternal_jwt
VENAFI_TENANT_ID tpp_username
String [DEPRECATED] Trust Protection Platform WebSDK username, use access_token
if possibleVENAFI_USER tpp_password
String [DEPRECATED] Trust Protection Platform WebSDK password, use access_token
if possibleVENAFI_PASS trust_bundle
String Text file containing trust anchor certificates in PEM format, generally required for Trust Protection Platform url
String Trust Protection Platform
service URL (e.g. "https://tpp.venafi.example")VENAFI_URL zone
String Policy folder for Trust Protection Platform
or Application name and Issuing Template API Alias forVenafi Control Plane
(e.g. "Business App\Enterprise CIT")VENAFI_ZONE skip_retirement
Boolean When true
the certificate retirement on the related Venafi Platform (Trust Protection Platform
orVenafi Control Plane
) will be skippedVENAFI_SKIP_RETIREMENT dev_mode
Boolean When true
, the provider operates without connecting toTrust Protection Platform
orVenafi Control Plane
VENAFI_DEVMODE π NOTE: The indicated environment variables can be used to specify values for provider settings rather than including them in a configuration file. Avoid specifying a value for
api_key
unless you are using Venafi Control Plane since that variable is used by the provider to decide which Venafi product to use. -
Create a
venafi_certificate
resource that will generate a new key pair and enroll the certificate needed by atls_server
application:resource "venafi_certificate" "tls_server" { common_name = "web.venafi.example" san_dns = [ "web01.venafi.example", "web02.venafi.example" ] algorithm = "RSA" rsa_bits = "2048" key_password = "${var.pk_pass}" }
The
venafi_certificate
resource has the following options, onlycommon_name
is required:π NOTE: Updating only
expiration_window
will not trigger another resource to be created by itself, thus won't enroll a new certificate. This won't apply if the expiration_window constraint allows it, this means, if time to expire of the certificate is within the expiration window.Property Type Description Default common_name
String Common name of certificate none
nickname
String Use to specify a name for the new certificate object that will be created and placed in a policy. Only valid for Trust Protection Platform. none
san_dns
List String array of DNS names to use as alternative subjects of the certificate none
san_email
List String array of email addresses to use as alternative subjects of the certificate none
san_ip
List String array of IP addresses to use as alternative subjects of the certificate none
san_uri
List String array of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to use as alternative subjects of the certificate none
algorithm
String Key encryption algorithm (i.e. RSA or ECDSA) RSA rsa_bits
Integer Number of bits to use when generating an RSA key pair (i.e. 2048 or 4096). Applies when algorithm
=RSA2048 ecdsa_curve
String ECDSA curve to use when generating a key pair (i.e. P256, P384, P521). Applies when algorithm
=ECDSAP521 key_password
String Private key password none
custom_fields
Map Collection of key-value pairs where the key is the name of the Custom Field in Trust Protection Platform. For list type Custom Fields, use the \ character to delimit mulitple values.
Example:custom_fields = { "Number List" = "2|4|6" }
valid_days
Integer Desired number of days for which the new certificate will be valid none
issuer_hint
String Used with valid_days
to indicate the target issuer when using Trust Protection Platform and the CA is DigiCert, Entrust, or Microsoft.
Example:issuer_hint = "Microsoft"
none
expiration_window
Integer Number of hours before certificate expiry to request a new certificate 168 csr_origin
String Option to decide whether key-pair generation will be local
orservice
generatedlocal
π NOTE: The
venafi_certificate
resource handles certificate renewals as long as aterraform apply
is done within theexpiration_window
period. Keep in mind that theexpiration_window
in the Terraform configuration needs to align with the renewal window of the issuing CA to achieve the desired result.After enrollment, the
venafi_certificate
resource will expose the following:Property Type Description private_key_pem
String Private key in PEM format encrypted using key_password
, if specifiedchain
String Trust chain CA certificate(s) in PEM format concatenated one after the other certificate
String End-entity certificate in PEM format pkcs12
String Base64-encoded PKCS#12 keystore encrypted using key_password
, if specified. Useful when working with resources like azurerm_key_vault_certificate. Base64 decode to obtain file bytes. -
For verification purposes, output the certificate, private key, and chain in PEM format and as a PKCS#12 keystore (base64-encoded):
output "my_private_key" { value = venafi_certificate.tls_server.private_key_pem sensitive = true } output "my_certificate" { value = venafi_certificate.tls_server.certificate } output "my_trust_chain" { value = venafi_certificate.tls_server.chain } output "my_p12_keystore" { value = venafi_certificate.tls_server.pkcs12 }
-
Execute
terraform init
,terraform plan
,terraform apply
, and finallyterraform show
from the directory containing the configuration file.
π NOTE: Don't specify an
expiration_window
within your Terraform file when importing, since will trigger a new update on re-applying your configuration unless that's desired. By default, we set a value of168
hours.
π NOTE: This operation doesn't support
issuer_hint
among the attributes for importing, neither local generated certificate key-pair.
The venafi_certificate
resource supports the Terraform import
method.
The import_id
is composed by an id
which is different for each platform, a comma (,) and the key-password
.
The id
for each platform is:
Trust Protection Platform:
The nickname
of the certificate, which represents the name of the certificate object in Trust Protection Platform. Internally we built the pickup_id
using the zone
defined at the provider block.
π NOTE: The certificate object name at Trust Protection Platform, usually, should be the same as the
common_name
provided as it is considered good practice, but thenickname
actually could differ from the common name, as there some use cases whenever you want to handle certificates with different nicknames. For example, you could have certificates with same common name and different SANs, then, you could manage many certificate resources that share the same common name usingfor_each
andcount
meta arguments.
Venafi Control Plane:
The pickup-id
.
π NOTE: You can learn more about the
pickup-id
and pickup actions for Trust Protection Platform here, and for Venafi Control Plane, here
terraform import "venafi_certificate.<resource_name>" "<id>,<key-password>"
Example (assuming our resource name is imported_certificate
):
resource "venafi_certificate" "imported_certificate" {}
Trust Protection Platform:
terraform import "venafi_certificate.imported_certificate" "tpp.venafi.example,my_key_password"
Venafi Control Plane:
terraform import "venafi_certificate.imported_certificate" "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx,my_key_password"
-
Declare that the Venafi Provider and specify the connection and authentication settings as described in the previous section.
π NOTE: For Trust Protection Platform, the
access_token
assigned to thevenafi
provider must have the configuration:manage scope in order to apply certificate policy. -
Create a
venafi_policy
resource that will create or update the certificate policy for a Venafi zone:resource "venafi_policy" "tls_server_certificates" { zone = "My Business App\\Server Certificates" policy_specification = file("/path/to/tls_server_cert_policy.json") }
The
venafi_policy
resource has the following options, all of which are required when setting policy:Property Type Description Default zone
String The Trust Protection Plaform policy folder or Venafi Control Plane application and issuing template none
policy_specification
String The JSON-formatted certificate policy specification as documented here. Typically read from a file using the file function. Use the VCert CLI to generate a policy specification template to get started (i.e. vcert getpolicy --starter
)none
π NOTE: The
venafi_policy
resource supports theterraform import
method. When used, thezone
andpolicy_specification
options are not required since the zone is a required parameter of the import method and the policy specification is populated from the existing infrastructure. Policy that is successfully imported is also output to a file named after the zone that was specified. The certificate:manage scope is require to import policy from Trust Protection Platform.
-
Declare the Venafi provider and specify the connection and authentication settings as described in the previous sections.
π NOTE: For Trust Protection Platform, the access_token assigned to the Venafi provider must have the ssh:manage scope in order to create SSH certificates.
Trust Protection Platform:
provider "venafi" { url = "https://tpp.venafi.example" trust_bundle = file("/path/to/bundle.pem") access_token = "p0WTt3sDPbzm2BDIkoJROQ==" }
-
Create a resource
venafi_ssh_certificate
that will generate a new key pair and enroll the ssh certificate needed by a remote host:resource "venafi_ssh_certificate" "remote-host" { key_id = "my_remote" template = "devops-terraform" public_key_method = "service" source_address = ["test.com"] key_passphrase = "abcd" extension = ["login@github.com:alice@github.com"] valid_hours = 4 }
The
venafi_ssh_certificate
resource has the following options, which onlykey_id
andtemplate
are required:Property Type Description Default key_id
String The identifier of the requested certificate none
template
String The certificate issuing template none
key_passphrase
String Passphrase for encrypting the private key none
folder
String The DN of the policy folder where the certificate object will be created. It will overwrite the default folder set at the template none
force_command
String The requested force command none
key_size
Int The key size bits, they will be used for creating keypair 3072
windows
Bool Output certificate and key files in Windows format (i.e. with \r\n line endings) instead of Unix format (i.e. \n line endings). false
valid_hours
Int How much time the requester wants to have the certificate valid, the format is hours none
object_name
String The friendly name for the certificate object. If not specified, the value of the key_id
is used.none
public_key
String The path of the public key that will be used to generate the certificate if public_key_method
set tofile
none
public_key_method
String If the public key will be: local
orservice
generated orfile
providedlocal
principal
List [DEPRECATED] This will be removed in the future. Use principals
instead. The requested principalsnone
principals
List The requested principals none
source_address
List The requested source addresses as list of IP/CIDR none
destination_address
List The address (FQDN/hostname/IP/CIDR) of the destination host where the certificate will be used for authentication. Applicable for client certificates and is used for reporting/auditing only. none
extension
List The requested certificate extensions none
-
Create a resource
venafi_ssh_config
that will hold configuration needed by a remote host:resource "venafi_ssh_config" "cit" { template = "devops-terraform-cit" }
The
venafi_ssh_config
resource has the following option, which is required when obtaining configuration from the template:Property Type Description Default template
String The certificate issuing template none
In addition, the following attributes are exported:
Property Type Description ca_public_key
String The template's CA PublicKey principals
List The requested principals
Copyright Β© Venafi, Inc. All rights reserved.
This solution is licensed under the Mozilla Public License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE
for the full license text.
Please direct questions/comments to opensource@venafi.com.