KV secrets engine - version 2 (API)

This is the API documentation for the Vault KV secrets engine while running in versioned mode. For general information about the usage and operation of the kv secrets engine, please see the Vault kv documentation.

Note: This documentation assumes the kv secrets engine is enabled at the /secret path in Vault and that versioning has been enabled. Since it is possible to enable secrets engines at any location, please update your API calls accordingly.

Configure the KV engine

This path configures backend level settings that are applied to every key in the key-value store.

Method	Path
`POST`	`/secret/config`

Parameters

max_versions (int: 0) – The number of versions to keep per key. This value applies to all keys, but a key's metadata setting can overwrite this value. Once a key has more than the configured allowed versions, the oldest version will be permanently deleted. When 0 is used or the value is unset, Vault will keep 10 versions.
cas_required (bool: false) – If true all keys will require the cas parameter to be set on all write requests.
delete_version_after (string:"0s") – If set, specifies the length of time before a version is deleted. Accepts Go duration format string.

Sample payload

{
  "max_versions": 5,
  "cas_required": false,
  "delete_version_after": "3h25m19s"
}

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request POST \
    --data @payload.json \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/config

Read KV engine configuration

This path retrieves the current configuration for the secrets backend at the given path.

Method	Path
`GET`	`/secret/config`

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/config

Sample response

{
  "data": {
    "cas_required": false,
    "delete_version_after": "3h25m19s",
    "max_versions": 0
  }
}

Read secret version

This endpoint retrieves the secret at the specified location. The metadata fields created_time, deletion_time, destroyed, and version are version specific. The custom_metadata field is part of the secret's key metadata and is included in the response whether or not the calling token has read access to the associated metadata endpoint.

Method	Path
`GET`	`/secret/data/:path?version=:version-number`

Parameters

path (string: <required>) – Specifies the path of the secret to read. This is specified as part of the URL.
version (int: 0) - Specifies the version to return. If not set the latest version is returned.

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/data/my-secret?version=2

Sample response

{
  "data": {
    "data": {
      "foo": "bar"
    },
    "metadata": {
      "created_time": "2018-03-22T02:24:06.945319214Z",
      "custom_metadata": {
        "owner": "jdoe",
        "mission_critical": "false"
      },
      "deletion_time": "",
      "destroyed": false,
      "version": 2
    }
  }
}

Create/Update secret

This endpoint creates a new version of a secret at the specified location. If the value does not yet exist, the calling token must have an ACL policy granting the create capability. If the value already exists, the calling token must have an ACL policy granting the update capability.

Method	Path
`POST`	`/secret/data/:path`

Parameters

options (Map: <optional>) – An object that holds option settings.
- cas (int: <optional>) - This flag is required if cas_required is set to true on either the secret or the engine's config. In order for a write to be successful, cas must be set to the current version of the secret. If cas is set to 0, the write will only be allowed if the key doesn't exist.
data (Map: <required>) – The contents of the data map will be stored and returned on read.

Sample payload

{
  "options": {
    "cas": 0
  },
  "data": {
    "foo": "bar",
    "zip": "zap"
  }
}

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request POST \
    --data @payload.json \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/data/my-secret

Sample response

{
  "data": {
    "created_time": "2018-03-22T02:36:43.986212308Z",
    "custom_metadata": {
      "owner": "jdoe",
      "mission_critical": "false"
    },
    "deletion_time": "",
    "destroyed": false,
    "version": 1
  }
}

Patch secret

This endpoint provides the ability to patch an existing secret at the specified location. The secret must neither be deleted nor destroyed. The calling token must have an ACL policy granting the patch capability. Currently, only JSON merge patch is supported and must be specified using a Content-Type header value of application/merge-patch+json. A new version will be created upon successfully applying a patch with the provided data.

Method	Path
`PATCH`	`/secret/data/:path`

Parameters

options (Map: <optional>) – An object that holds option settings.
- cas (int: <optional>) - This flag is required if cas_required is set to true on either the secret or the engine's config. In order for a write to be successful, cas must be set to the current version of the secret. A patch operation must be attempted on an existing key, thus the provided cas value must be greater than 0.
data (Map: <required>) – The contents of the data map will be applied as a partial update to the existing entry via a JSON merge patch to the existing entry.

Sample payload

{
  "options": {
    "cas": 1
  },
  "data": {
    "foo": "a",
    "bar": {
      "baz": "b"
    }
  }
}

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --header "Content-Type: application/merge-patch+json"
    --request PATCH \
    --data @payload.json \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/data/my-secret

Sample response

{
  "data": {
    "created_time": "2021-09-10T15:26:08.684999Z",
    "custom_metadata": {
      "owner": "jdoe",
      "mission_critical": "false"
    },
    "deletion_time": "",
    "destroyed": false,
    "version": 2
  }
}

Read secret subkeys

This endpoint provides the subkeys within a secret entry that exists at the requested path. The secret entry at this path will be retrieved and stripped of all data by replacing underlying values of leaf keys (i.e. non-map keys or map keys with no underlying subkeys) with null.

Method	Path
`GET`	`/secret/subkeys/:path`

Parameters

path (string: <required>) – Specifies the path of the secret to read. This is specified as part of the URL.
version (int: 0) - Specifies the version to return. If not set the latest version is returned.
depth (int: 0) - Specifies the deepest nesting level to provide in the output. The default value 0 will not impose any limit. If non-zero, keys that reside at the specified depth value will be artificially treated as leaves and will thus be null even if further underlying subkeys exist.

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/subkeys/my-secret?version=1

Sample secret data

{
  "foo": "abc",
  "bar": {
    "baz": "def"
  },
  "quux": {}
}

Sample response

{
  "subkeys": {
    "foo": null,
    "bar": {
      "baz": null
    },
    "quux": null
  },
  "metadata": {
    "created_time": "2021-12-14T20:28:00.773477Z",
    "custom_metadata": null,
    "deletion_time": "",
    "destroyed": false,
    "version": 1
  }
}

Delete latest version of secret

This endpoint issues a soft delete of the secret's latest version at the specified location. This marks the version as deleted and will stop it from being returned from reads, but the underlying data will not be removed. A delete can be undone using the undelete path.

Method	Path
`DELETE`	`/secret/data/:path`

Parameters

path (string: <required>) – Specifies the path of the secret to delete. This is specified as part of the URL.

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request DELETE \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/data/my-secret

Delete secret versions

This endpoint issues a soft delete of the specified versions of the secret. This marks the versions as deleted and will stop them from being returned from reads, but the underlying data will not be removed. A delete can be undone using the undelete path.

Method	Path
`POST`	`/secret/delete/:path`

Parameters

path (string: <required>) – Specifies the path of the secret to delete. This is specified as part of the URL.
versions ([]int: <required>) - The versions to be deleted. The versioned data will not be deleted, but it will no longer be returned in normal get requests.

Sample payload

{
  "versions": [1, 2]
}

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request POST \
    --data @payload.json \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/delete/my-secret

Undelete secret versions

Undeletes the data for the provided version and path in the key-value store. This restores the data, allowing it to be returned on get requests.

Method	Path
`POST`	`/secret/undelete/:path`

Parameters

path (string: <required>) – Specifies the path of the secret to undelete. This is specified as part of the URL.
versions ([]int: <required>) - The versions to undelete. The versions will be restored and their data will be returned on normal get requests.

Sample payload

{
  "versions": [1, 2]
}

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request POST \
    --data @payload.json \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/undelete/my-secret

Destroy secret versions

Permanently removes the specified version data for the provided key and version numbers from the key-value store.

Method	Path
`POST`	`/secret/destroy/:path`

Parameters

path (string: <required>) – Specifies the path of the secret to destroy. This is specified as part of the URL.
versions ([]int: <required>) - The versions to destroy. Their data will be permanently deleted.

Sample payload

{
  "versions": [1, 2]
}

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request POST \
    --data @payload.json \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/destroy/my-secret

List secrets

This endpoint returns a list of key names at the specified location. Folders are suffixed with /. The input must be a folder; list on a file will not return a value. Note that no policy-based filtering is performed on keys; do not encode sensitive information in key names. The values themselves are not accessible via this command.

Method	Path
`LIST`	`/secret/metadata/:path`

Parameters

path (string: <required>) – Specifies the path of the secrets to list. This is specified as part of the URL.

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request LIST \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/metadata/my-secret

Sample response

The example below shows output for a query path of secret/ when there are secrets at secret/foo and secret/foo/bar; note the difference in the two entries.

{
  "data": {
    "keys": ["foo", "foo/"]
  }
}

Read secret metadata

This endpoint retrieves the metadata and versions for the secret at the specified path. Metadata is version-agnostic.

Method	Path
`GET`	`/secret/metadata/:path`

Parameters

path (string: <required>) – Specifies the path of the secret to read. This is specified as part of the URL.

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/metadata/my-secret

Sample response

{
  "data": {
    "cas_required": false,
    "created_time": "2018-03-22T02:24:06.945319214Z",
    "current_version": 3,
    "delete_version_after": "3h25m19s",
    "max_versions": 0,
    "oldest_version": 0,
    "updated_time": "2018-03-22T02:36:43.986212308Z",
    "custom_metadata": {
      "foo": "abc",
      "bar": "123",
      "baz": "5c07d823-3810-48f6-a147-4c06b5219e84"
    },
    "versions": {
      "1": {
        "created_time": "2018-03-22T02:24:06.945319214Z",
        "deletion_time": "",
        "destroyed": false
      },
      "2": {
        "created_time": "2018-03-22T02:36:33.954880664Z",
        "deletion_time": "",
        "destroyed": false
      },
      "3": {
        "created_time": "2018-03-22T02:36:43.986212308Z",
        "deletion_time": "",
        "destroyed": false
      }
    }
  }
}

Create/Update metadata

This endpoint creates or updates the metadata of a secret at the specified location. It does not create a new version.

Method	Path
`POST`	`/secret/metadata/:path`

Parameters

max_versions (int: 0) – The number of versions to keep per key. If not set, the backend’s configured max version is used. Once a key has more than the configured allowed versions, the oldest version will be permanently deleted.
cas_required (bool: false) – If true, the key will require the cas parameter to be set on all write requests. If false, the backend’s configuration will be used.
delete_version_after (string:"0s") – Set the delete_version_after value to a duration to specify the deletion_time for all new versions written to this key. If not set, the backend's delete_version_after will be used. If the value is greater than the backend's delete_version_after, the backend's delete_version_after will be used. Accepts duration format strings.
custom_metadata (map<string|string>: nil) - A map of arbitrary string to string valued user-provided metadata meant to describe the secret.

Sample payload

{
  "max_versions": 5,
  "cas_required": false,
  "delete_version_after": "3h25m19s",
  "custom_metadata": {
    "foo": "abc",
    "bar": "123",
    "baz": "5c07d823-3810-48f6-a147-4c06b5219e84"
  }
}

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request POST \
    --data @payload.json \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/metadata/my-secret

Patch metadata

This endpoint patches an existing metadata entry of a secret at the specified location. The calling token must have an ACL policy granting the patch capability. Currently, only JSON merge patch is supported and must be specified using a Content-Type header value of application/merge-patch+json. It does not create a new version.

Method	Path
`PATCH`	`/secret/metadata/:path`

Parameters

max_versions (int: 0) – The number of versions to keep per key. If not set, the backend’s configured max version is used. Once a key has more than the configured allowed versions, the oldest version will be permanently deleted.
cas_required (bool: false) – If true, the key will require the cas parameter to be set on all write requests. If false, the backend’s configuration will be used.
delete_version_after (string:"0s") – Set the delete_version_after value to a duration to specify the deletion_time for all new versions written to this key. If not set, the backend's delete_version_after will be used. If the value is greater than the backend's delete_version_after, the backend's delete_version_after will be used. Accepts Go duration format string.
custom_metadata (map<string|string>: nil) - A map of arbitrary string to string valued user-provided metadata meant to describe the secret.

Sample payload

{
  "max_versions": 5,
  "custom_metadata": {
    "bar": "123"
  }
}

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --header "Content-Type: application/merge-patch+json"
    --request PATCH \
    --data @payload.json \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/metadata/my-secret

Delete metadata and all versions

This endpoint permanently deletes the key metadata and all version data for the specified key. All version history will be removed.

Method	Path
`DELETE`	`/secret/metadata/:path`

Parameters

path (string: <required>) – Specifies the path of the secret to delete. This is specified as part of the URL.

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request DELETE \
    https://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/metadata/my-secret