How to use Kubernetes External Secret Operator with Secret Manager

INFO

Secret Manager is currently in Beta phase. This guide can be updated in the future with the advancements made by our teams in charge of this product.

Objective

This guide explains how to set up the Kubernetes External Secret Operator to use the OVHcloud Secret Manager as a provider.

Requirements

Instructions

Set up the Secret Manager

To allow access to the Secret Manager you will need to have a token, the region and okms-id of your Secret Manager.

Credential creation

Create an IAM local user with access rights on your domain.

The user should be a member of a group with the ADMIN role. If you are using IAM policies instead, the user should have at least the following rights on the OKMS domain:

  • okms:apikms:secret/create
  • okms:apikms:secret/version/getData
  • okms:apiovh:secret/get

Alternatively, it's possible to create a user using OVHcloud CLI:

ovhcloud iam user create --login "secretmanager-b1033fdd-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx" --group ADMIN --description "A user create for Secret Manager, linked to xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx" --password "secretmanager-xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx" --email "secretmanager-xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx@ovhcloud.com"

Then create a Personal Acces Token (PAT) user_pat:

Via the API
Via the CLI

Use the following API call:

POST/me/identity/user/{user}/token

With the following payload (fill it in with your own values):

{
  "description": "PAT secret manager for domain xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx",
  "name": "pat-secretmanager-xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx"
}

The API will answer with:

{
  "creation": "2025-11-13T10:38:44.658926311Z",
  "description": "PAT secret manager for domain xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx",
  "expiresAt": null,
  "lastUsed": null,
  "name": "pat-secretmanager-xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx",
  "token": "eyJhbGciOiJ...punpVAg"
}

Keep the value of the token field as it will never be prompted again and will be used to authenticate to the Secret Manager as user_pat.

Secret Manager information

You will also need the region and the okms-id of the OKMS domain you want to use. This ID and this region can be found in the OVHcloud Control Panel or via the OVHcloud CLI:

$ ovhcloud okms list
┌──────────────────────────────────────┬─────────────┐
│ id                                   │ region      │
├──────────────────────────────────────┼─────────────┤
│ xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx │ eu-west-par │
│ xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx │ eu-west-par │
└──────────────────────────────────────┴─────────────┘

Set up the Secret Provider in Kubernetes

Install the External Secret Operator (ESO) on your Kubernetes cluster

helm repo add external-secrets https://charts.external-secrets.io
helm repo update

helm install external-secrets \
   external-secrets/external-secrets \
    -n external-secrets \
    --create-namespace \
    --set installCRDs=true

Check that the ESO is running:

$  kubectl get all -n external-secrets
NAME                                                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/external-secrets-8cbc56569-9875p                    1/1     Running   0          12s
pod/external-secrets-cert-controller-565fcd479b-xbkcp   0/1     Running   0          12s
pod/external-secrets-webhook-7fb59d4b88-9tkl6           0/1     Running   0          12s

NAME                               TYPE        CLUSTER-IP    EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)   AGE
service/external-secrets-webhook   ClusterIP   10.3.43.102   <none>        443/TCP   13s

NAME                                               READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/external-secrets                   1/1     1            1           13s
deployment.apps/external-secrets-cert-controller   0/1     1            0           13s
deployment.apps/external-secrets-webhook           0/1     1            0           13s

NAME                                                          DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/external-secrets-8cbc56569                    1         1         1       13s
replicaset.apps/external-secrets-cert-controller-565fcd479b   1         1         0       13s
replicaset.apps/external-secrets-webhook-7fb59d4b88           1         1         0       13s

Create a secret containing the PAT

Start by encoding your user_pat in base 64 so it can be stored in a Kubernetes secret.

$ echo -n "<token>" | base64
ZXlKaG...wVkFn

Alternatively, if the user_pat was stored in an environment variable:

PAT_TOKEN_B64=$(echo -n $PAT_TOKEN | base64) ; echo $PAT_TOKEN_B64

Then create a secret.yaml file:

 apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: ovhcloud-vault-token
  namespace: external-secrets
data:
  token: ZXlKaG...wVkFn

And apply it with the kubectl apply -f secret.yaml command.

Alternatively, if you are using an environment variable:

kubectl create secret generic ovhcloud-vault-token -n external-secrets --from-literal=token=$PAT_TOKEN_B64

The secret should have been created:

$ kubectl get secret ovhcloud-vault-token -n external-secrets
NAME                   TYPE     DATA   AGE
ovhcloud-vault-token   Opaque   1      5m

Configure the External Secret Operator

First, set up a ClusterSecretStore that is responsible of the synchronization with the Secret Manager. We configure the SecretStore using HashiCorp Vault with token authentification and with the OKMS endpoint as backend.

Add the user_pat as a secret to be able to use it in the charts.

To define a new ClusterSecretStore resource, create a clustersecretstore.yaml file with the following content:

apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1
kind: ClusterSecretStore
metadata:
  name: vault-secret-store
spec:
  provider:
      vault:
        server: "https://<region>.okms.ovh.net/api/<okms_id>" # OKMS endpoint, fill with the correct region and your okms_id 
        path: "secret"
        version: "v2" 
        auth:
            tokenSecretRef:
              name: ovhcloud-vault-token # The k8s secret that contain your PAT
              key: token 
              namespace: external-secrets
INFO

Only token authentication is supported.

INFO

This integration works with a SecretStore as well.

The region name can be translated from your region location using:

GET/location

As an example for Europe (France - Paris), the OKMS endpoint is eu-west-par.okms.ovh.net.

Deploy the resource in your cluster:

kubectl apply -f secretstore.yaml

Use the External Secret Operator

Once the ClusterSecretStore is set up you can define the ExternalSecret that comes from the secret manager.

Create an externalsecret.yaml file with this content:

apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1
kind: ExternalSecret
metadata:
  name: docker-config-secret
  namespace: external-secrets
spec:
  refreshInterval: 30m
  secretStoreRef:
    name: vault-secret-store
    kind: ClusterSecretStore
  target:
    template:
      type: kubernetes.io/dockerconfigjson
      data:
        .dockerconfigjson: "{{ .mysecret | toString }}"
    name: ovhregistrycred
    creationPolicy: Owner
  data:
  - secretKey: mysecret
    remoteRef:
      key: prod/va1/dockerconfigjson

Apply the resource in your cluster:

kubectl apply -f externalsecret.yaml

It will create a Kubernetes Secret object.

$ kubectl get secret -n external-secrets
NAME                                     TYPE                             DATA   AGE
...
ovhregistrycred                          kubernetes.io/dockerconfigjson   1      15m
...

For any additional information on how to manage the External Secret Operator, refer to the dedicated documentation, using the HashiCorp Vault provider: https://external-secrets.io/latest/.

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