Using azure keyvault with lb

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Azure Key Vault is a cloud service that provides a secure store for secrets, keys, and certificates. You can use Key Vault to encrypt keys and small secrets like passwords that use keys stored in hardware security modules (HSMs). When integrating Key Vault with an Azure Load Balancer (LB), you might typically be using Key Vault to store and manage the private keys and certificates used by your load balancer for SSL termination or initiation.

In the context of this explanation, I'm going to show you how to create both an Azure Key Vault and an Azure Load Balancer using Pulumi in TypeScript. We will create a Key Vault instance and then proceed to set up an Azure Load Balancer. However, we will not be configuring the Load Balancer to use the Key Vault in this code as Azure Load Balancer doesn't consume Key Vault directly; instead, it uses the certificates that Key Vault manages.

First, let's start with the Key Vault setup:

1. **Key Vault**: We use the `azure-native.keyvault.Vault` resource to create an instance of the Azure Key Vault. Here we specify the properties such as SKU for the pricing tier, tenant ID which is the Azure Active Directory tenant that should be used for authenticating requests to the key vault, and access policies that determine which users or applications can access the key vault.

2. **Load Balancer**: We'll use the `azure-native.network.LoadBalancer` resource to create an Azure Load Balancer. In the properties, you can specify frontend IP configurations, backend address pools, probes, and load balancing rules.

Below is the TypeScript program that creates resources in Azure using Pulumi:

```typescript
import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as azureNative from "@pulumi/azure-native";

// Create an Azure Resource Group
const resourceGroup = new azureNative.resources.ResourceGroup("myResourceGroup");

// Create an Azure Key Vault
const vault = new azureNative.keyvault.Vault("myVault", {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroup.name,
    location: resourceGroup.location,
    properties: {
        tenantId: "your-azure-ad-tenant-id", // Replace with your Azure Active Directory tenant ID
        sku: {
            family: "A",
            name: "standard",
        },
        accessPolicies: [], // You can specify access policies here
    },
    tags: {
        environment: "production",
    },
});

// Create a public IP for the load balancer
const publicIp = new azureNative.network.PublicIPAddress("myPublicIp", {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroup.name,
    location: resourceGroup.location,
    publicIPAllocationMethod: "Dynamic",
    sku: {
        name: "Basic",
    },
});

// Create an Azure Load Balancer
const lb = new azureNative.network.LoadBalancer("myLoadBalancer", {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroup.name,
    location: resourceGroup.location,
    sku: {
        name: "Basic",
    },
    frontendIPConfigurations: [{
        name: "loadBalancerFrontend",
        publicIPAddress: publicIp.id,
    }],
    // Add other configurations such as backend pools, rules, etc. here
});

// Export the Azure Key Vault URI
export const keyVaultUri = vault.properties.apply(properties => properties.vaultUri);

// Export the Azure Load Balancer public IP address
export const lbPublicIp = publicIp.ipAddress;
```

In this program:

- We create an Azure resource group which provides a way to manage multiple resources as a single entity.
- We then establish an Azure Key Vault to securely store and tightly control access to tokens, passwords, certificates, API keys, and other secrets. 
- Next, we set up an Azure public IP address which the Load Balancer will use to receive traffic. The Load Balancer resource is then created with a reference to this IP in its frontend configuration.
- Lastly, we export the Key Vault's URI and the public IP address of the Load Balancer, so it can be used to interact with these services after deployment.

Replace `"your-azure-ad-tenant-id"` with your actual Azure Active Directory tenant ID. The `accessPolicies` array in the Key Vault should define who and what can access the Key Vault. We've left this empty for simplicity, but in a production scenario, you would populate this with the appropriate policies.

Please note that the creation of a Load Balancer in this script does not yet make it connected to any VMs, network cards, or services. The Load Balancer is created with the most basic configuration and needs to be further configured to distribute traffic to your resources. Also, when it comes to SSL termination, you would need to create a Key Vault secret or certificate and then manually configure your service to use it, as the Azure Load Balancer does not natively integrate with Key Vault for SSL termination as of my last knowledge cut-off date.