Oracle database secrets engine

The Oracle database plugin is now available for use with the database secrets engine for HCP Vault Dedicated on AWS. The plugin configuration (including installation of the Oracle Instant Client library) is managed by HCP. Refer to the HCP Vault Dedicated tab for more information.

This secrets engine is a part of the database secrets engine. If you have not read the database backend page, please do so now as it explains how to set up the database backend and gives an overview of how the engine functions.

Oracle is one of the supported plugins for the database secrets engine. It is capable of dynamically generating credentials based on configured roles for Oracle databases. It also supports static roles.

Capabilities

The Oracle database plugin is not bundled in the core Vault code tree and can be found at its own git repository here: hashicorp/vault-plugin-database-oracle

This plugin is not compatible with Alpine Linux out of the box.

Plugin Name	Root Credential Rotation	Dynamic Roles	Static Roles	Username Customization
Customizable (see: Custom Plugins)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (1.7+)

The Oracle Database Plugin is managed by the HCP platform. No extra installation steps are required for HCP Vault Dedicated.

Plugin Name	Root Credential Rotation	Dynamic Roles	Static Roles	Username Customization
`vault-plugin-database-oracle`	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Setup

The Oracle database plugin is not bundled in the core Vault code tree and can be found at its own git repository here: hashicorp/vault-plugin-database-oracle

For linux/amd64, pre-built binaries can be found at the releases page

Before running the plugin you will need to have the Oracle Instant Client library installed. These can be downloaded from Oracle. The libraries will need to be placed in the default library search path or defined in the ld.so.conf configuration files.

The following privileges are needed by the plugin for minimum functionality. Additional privileges may be needed depending on the SQL configured on the database roles.

GRANT CREATE USER to vault WITH ADMIN OPTION;
GRANT ALTER USER to vault WITH ADMIN OPTION;
GRANT DROP USER to vault WITH ADMIN OPTION;
GRANT CONNECT to vault WITH ADMIN OPTION;
GRANT CREATE SESSION to vault WITH ADMIN OPTION;
GRANT SELECT on gv_$session to vault;
GRANT SELECT on v_$sql to vault;
GRANT ALTER SYSTEM to vault WITH ADMIN OPTION;

Vault needs ALTER SYSTEM to terminate user sessions when revoking users. This may be substituted with a stored procedure and granted to the Vault administrator user.

If you are running Vault with mlock enabled, you will need to enable ipc_lock capabilities for the plugin binary.

Enable the database secrets engine if it is not already enabled:
```
$ vault secrets enable database
Success! Enabled the database secrets engine at: database/
```
By default, the secrets engine will enable at the name of the engine. To enable the secrets engine at a different path, use the -path argument.

Download and register the plugin:

$ vault write sys/plugins/catalog/database/oracle-database-plugin \
    sha256="..." \
    command=vault-plugin-database-oracle

Configure Vault with the proper plugin and connection information:
```
$ vault write database/config/my-oracle-database \
    plugin_name=oracle-database-plugin \
    connection_url="{{username}}/{{password}}@localhost:1521/OraDoc.localhost" \
    allowed_roles="my-role" \
    username="VAULT_SUPER_USER" \
    password="myreallysecurepassword"
```
If Oracle uses SSL, see the connecting using SSL example.
If the version of Oracle you are using has a container database, you will need to connect to one of the pluggable databases rather than the container database in the connection_url field.
It is highly recommended that you immediately rotate the "root" user's password, see Rotate Root Credentials for more details. This will ensure that only Vault is able to access the "root" user that Vault uses to manipulate dynamic & static credentials.
Use caution: the root user's password will not be accessible once rotated so it is highly recommended that you create a user for Vault to use rather than using the actual root user.

Configure a role that maps a name in Vault to an SQL statement to execute to create the database credential:

$ vault write database/roles/my-role \
    db_name=my-oracle-database \
    creation_statements='CREATE USER {{username}} IDENTIFIED BY "{{password}}"; GRANT CONNECT TO {{username}}; GRANT CREATE SESSION TO {{username}};' \
    default_ttl="1h" \
    max_ttl="24h"

Note: The creation_statements may be specified in a file and interpreted by the Vault CLI using the @ symbol:

$ vault write database/roles/my-role \
    creation_statements=@creation_statements.sql \
    ...

See the Commands docs for more details.

Connect using SSL

If the Oracle server Vault is trying to connect to uses an SSL listener, the database plugin will require extra configuration using the connection_url parameter:

vault write database/config/oracle \
  plugin_name=vault-plugin-database-oracle \
  connection_url='{{username}}/{{password}}@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcps)(HOST=<host>)(PORT=<port>))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=<service_name>))(SECURITY=(SSL_SERVER_CERT_DN="<cert_dn>")(MY_WALLET_DIRECTORY=<path_to_wallet>)))' \
  allowed_roles="my-role" \
  username="admin" \
  password="password"

For example, the SSL server certificate distinguished name and path to the Oracle Wallet to use for connection and verification could be configured using:

vault write database/config/oracle \
  plugin_name=vault-plugin-database-oracle \
  connection_url='{{username}}/{{password}}@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcps)(HOST=hashicorp.com)(PORT=1523))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=ORCL))(SECURITY=(SSL_SERVER_CERT_DN="CN=hashicorp.com,OU=TestCA,O=HashiCorp=com")(MY_WALLET_DIRECTORY=/etc/oracle/wallets)))' \
  allowed_roles="my-role" \
  username="admin" \
  password="password"

Wallet permissions

Note: The wallets used when connecting via SSL should be available on every Vault server when using high availability clusters.

The wallet used by Vault should be in a well known location with the proper filesystem permissions. For example, if Vault is running as the vault user, the wallet directory may be setup as follows:

mkdir -p /etc/vault/wallets
cp cwallet.sso /etc/vault/wallets/cwallet.sso
chown -R vault:vault /etc/vault
chmod 600 /etc/vault/wallets/cwallet.sso

Using TNS names

Note: The tnsnames.ora file and environment variable used when connecting via SSL should be available on every Vault server when using high availability clusters.

Vault can optionally use TNS names in the connection string when connecting to Oracle databases using a tnsnames.ora file. An example of a tnsnames.ora file may look like the following:

AWSEAST=
(DESCRIPTION =
  (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCPS)(HOST = hashicorp.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com)(PORT = 1523))
  (CONNECT_DATA =
    (SERVER = DEDICATED)
    (SID = ORCL)
  )
  (SECURITY =
      (SSL_SERVER_CERT_DN = "CN=hashicorp.rds.amazonaws.com/OU=RDS/O=Amazon.com/L=Seattle/ST=Washington/C=US")
      (MY_WALLET_DIRECTORY = /etc/oracle/wallet/east)
  )
)

AWSWEST=
(DESCRIPTION =
  (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCPS)(HOST = hashicorp.us-west-1.rds.amazonaws.com)(PORT = 1523))
  (CONNECT_DATA =
    (SERVER = DEDICATED)
    (SID = ORCL)
  )
  (SECURITY =
      (SSL_SERVER_CERT_DN = "CN=hashicorp.rds.amazonaws.com/OU=RDS/O=Amazon.com/L=Seattle/ST=Washington/C=US")
      (MY_WALLET_DIRECTORY = /etc/oracle/wallet/west)
  )
)

To configure Vault to use TNS names, set the following environment variable on the Vault server:

TNS_ADMIN=/path/to/tnsnames/directory

Note: If Vault returns a "could not open file" error, double check that the TNS_ADMIN environment variable is available to the Vault server.

Use the alias in the connection_url parameter on the database configuration:

vault write database/config/oracle-east \
    plugin_name=vault-plugin-database-oracle \
    connection_url="{{username}}/{{password}}@AWSEAST" \
    allowed_roles="my-role" \
    username="VAULT_SUPER_USER" \
    password="myreallysecurepassword"
 
vault write database/config/oracle-west \
    plugin_name=vault-plugin-database-oracle \
    connection_url="{{username}}/{{password}}@AWSWEST" \
    allowed_roles="my-role" \
    username="VAULT_SUPER_USER" \
    password="myreallysecurepassword"

Enable the database secrets engine if it is not already enabled:
```
$ vault secrets enable database
Success! Enabled the database secrets engine at: database/
```
By default, the secrets engine will enable at the name of the engine. To enable the secrets engine at a different path, use the -path argument.
Configure Vault with the proper plugin and connection information. The plugin-name must be set to vault-plugin-database-oracle.
Note: Replace your-oracle-host in the connection_url parameter with the hostname of your Oracle server.
```
$ vault write database/config/my-oracle-database \
    plugin_name=vault-plugin-database-oracle \
    connection_url="{{username}}/{{password}}@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=your-oracle-host)(PORT=1521))(CONNECT_DATA=(SID=ORCL)))" \
    allowed_roles="my-role" \
    username="VAULT_SUPER_USER" \
    password="myreallysecurepassword"
```
HCP Vault Dedicated currently supports SSL connections for Oracle on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Relational Database Service (RDS). If Oracle is deployed on AWS RDS, and uses SSL, see the connecting with HCP Vault Dedicated using SSL example.
If the version of Oracle you are using has a container database, you will need to connect to one of the pluggable databases rather than the container database in the connection_url field.
It is highly recommended that you immediately rotate the "root" user's password, see Rotate Root Credentials for more details. This will ensure that only Vault is able to access the "root" user that Vault uses to manipulate dynamic & static credentials.
Use caution: the "root" user's password will not be accessible once rotated so it is highly recommended that you create a user for Vault to use rather than the actual root user.

Configure a role that maps a name in Vault to a SQL statement to execute and create the database credential:

$ vault write database/roles/my-role \
    db_name=my-oracle-database \
    creation_statements='CREATE USER {{username}} IDENTIFIED BY "{{password}}"; GRANT CONNECT TO {{username}}; GRANT CREATE SESSION TO {{username}};' \
    default_ttl="1h" \
    max_ttl="24h"

Note: The creation_statements may be specified in a file and interpreted by the Vault CLI using the @ symbol:

$ vault write database/roles/my-role \
    creation_statements=@creation_statements.sql \
    ...

See the Commands docs for more details.

Connect with HCP Vault Dedicated using SSL

Before using SSL with Oracle RDS, you must configure a option group with SSL and set the following:

SQLNET.SSL_VERSION to 1.2
SQLNET.CIPHER_SUITE to one of TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA, or TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA

If the AWS RDS Oracle instance Vault is trying to connect to uses an SSL listener, the database plugin will require extra configuration using the connection_url parameter:

$ vault write database/config/oracle \
  plugin_name=vault-plugin-database-oracle \
  connection_url='{{username}}/{{password}}@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcps)(HOST=<host>)(PORT=<port>))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=<service_name>))(SECURITY=(SSL_SERVER_CERT_DN="<cert_dn>")(MY_WALLET_DIRECTORY=<path_to_wallet>)))' \
  allowed_roles="my-role" \
  username="VAULT_SUPER_USER" \
  password="myreallysecurepassword"

For example, the SSL server certificate distinguished name for AWS RDS and path to the Oracle Wallet to use for connection and verification could be configured using:

Wallet location and permissions are managed by the HCP platform. The wallet is available at /etc/vault.d/plugin/oracle/ssl_wallet.
The distinguished name for the current AWS RDS CA is in the format SECURITY=(SSL_SERVER_CERT_DN="C=US,ST=Washington,L=Seattle,O=Amazon.com,OU=RDS,CN=your-rds-endpoint-url").
A listener on port 2484 is enabled by adding SSL to a RDS option group and applying the option group with SSL to your Oracle RDS instance.
Replace your-rds-endpoint-url with the endpoint for your RDS instance in the HOST and DN parameters.

Note: For more information on using SSL/TLS with AWS RDS, review the Using SSL/TLS to encrypt a connetion to a DB instance AWS documentation.

$ vault write database/config/my-oracle-database \
  plugin_name=vault-plugin-database-oracle \
  connection_url="{{username}}/{{password}}@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcps)(HOST=your-rds-endpoint-url)(PORT=2484))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=ORCL))(SECURITY=(SSL_SERVER_CERT_DN="C=US,ST=Washington,L=Seattle,O=Amazon.com,OU=RDS,CN=your-rds-endpoint-url")(MY_WALLET_DIRECTORY=/etc/vault.d/plugin/oracle/ssl_wallet)))" \
  allowed_roles="my-role" \
  username="admin" \
  password="password"

Using TNS names: tnsnames.ora configuration is not currently available with HCP Vault Dedicated.

Usage

Dynamic credentials

After the secrets engine is configured and a user/machine has a Vault token with the proper permission, it can generate credentials.

Generate a new credential by reading from the /creds endpoint with the name of the role:

$ vault read database/creds/my-role
Key                Value
---                -----
lease_id           database/creds/my-role/2f6a614c-4aa2-7b19-24b9-ad944a8d4de6
lease_duration     1h
lease_renewable    true
password           yRUSyd-vPYDg5NkU9kDg
username           V_VAULTUSE_MY_ROLE_SJJUK3Q8W3BKAYAN8S62_1602543009

API

The full list of configurable options can be seen in the Oracle database plugin API page.

For more information on the database secrets engine's HTTP API please see the Database secrets engine API page.