Tune the lease time-to-live (TTL)
The benefit of using Vault's dynamic secrets engines and auth methods is the ability to control how long the Vault-managed credentials (leases) remain valid. Often times, you generate short-lived credentials or tokens to reduce the risk of unauthorized attacks caused by leaked credentials or tokens. If you do not explicitly specify the time-to-live (TTL), Vault generates leases with TTL of 32 days by default.
For example, you enabled AppRole auth method at approle, and create a role
named read-only with max lease TTL of 120 days.
$ vault write auth/approle/role/read-only token_policies="read-only" \ token_ttl=90d token_max_ttl=120dThe command returns a warning about the TTL exceeding the mount's max TTL value.
WARNING! The following warnings were returned from Vault: * token_max_ttl is greater than the backend mount's maximum TTL value; issued tokens' max TTL value will be truncatedTherefore, it will return a client token with TTL of 768 hours (32 days) instead of 120 days.
$ vault write auth/approle/login role_id=<ROLE_ID> secret_id=<SECRET_ID>WARNING! The following warnings were returned from Vault: * TTL of "2880h" exceeded the effective max_ttl of "768h"; TTL value is capped accordinglyKey Value--- -----token hvs.CAESIJeVezY3UObHXTvzpI722q0MmaARB1692fT-MmdzcryvGh4KHGh2cy43czViYXVZS3FnSzltWmdVZ3Q0MmFTdkctoken_accessor wXTOvz5xxBi2vvUpTBhemUXrtoken_duration 768htoken_renewable truetoken_policies ["default" "read-only"]identity_policies []policies ["default" "read-only"]token_meta_role_name read-onlyMax lease TTL on an auth mount
You cannot set the TTL for a role to go beyond the max lease TTL set on the
AppRole auth mount (approle in this example). The default lease TTL and max
lease TTL are 32 days (768 hours).
$ vault read sys/auth/approle/tuneOutput:
Key Value--- -----default_lease_ttl 768hdescription n/aforce_no_cache falsemax_lease_ttl 768htoken_type default-serviceIf the desired max lease TTL is 120 days (2880 hours), update the max lease TTL on the mount.
$ vault auth tune -max-lease-ttl=120d approleThe following command lists all available parameters that you can tune.
$ vault auth tune -hNow, the AppRole will generate a lease with token duration of 120 days (2880 hours).
$ vault write auth/approle/login role_id=<ROLE_ID> secret_id=<SECRET_ID>Key Value--- -----token hvs.CAESIOzTpLX4naKw-epzhcb3DneZ9ZuRTx4tKh5mTT1CajLQGh4KHGh2cy5TUFFhY3QzVzdmSTFwQUduOWlrMVRWaUEtoken_accessor blc2MGA4EmmqEROzqlotFbqrtoken_duration 2880htoken_renewable truetoken_policies ["default" "jenkins"]identity_policies []policies ["default" "jenkins"]token_meta_role_name jenkinsMax lease TTL on a secrets mount
Similar to the AppRole auth method example, you can tune the max lease TTL on dynamic secrets.
For example, you enabled database secrets engine at mongodb and create a role
named tester with max lease TTL of 120 days (2880 hours). When you request a
database credential for the tester role, it returns a warning, and its lease
duration is 32 days (768 hours) instead of 120 days.
$ vault read mongodb/creds/testerWARNING! The following warnings were returned from Vault: * TTL of "2880h" exceeded the effective max_ttl of "768h"; TTL value is capped accordinglyKey Value--- -----lease_id mongodb/creds/tester/fVPt15506k3UW9n4pq0kIpBHlease_duration 768hlease_renewable truepassword Eskkx6yRhAN4--H9WL7Busername v-token-tester-6BtY903qOZBpzYa4yQs8-1724715513To set the desired TTL on the role, tune the max lease TTL on the mongodb
mount.
$ vault secrets tune -max-lease-ttl=120d mongodbVerify the configured max lease TTL available on the mount.
$ vault read sys/mounts/mongodb/tuneKey Value--- -----default_lease_ttl 768hdescription n/aforce_no_cache falsemax_lease_ttl 2880hThe following command lists all available parameters that you can tune.
$ vault secrets tune -hWhen you introduce Vault into your existing system, the existing applications may not be able to handle short-lived leases. You can tune the default TTLs on each mount.
On the similar note, if the system default of 32 days is too long, you can tune the default TTL to be shorter to comply with your organization's policy.