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Set up Hashicorp Vault

Overview​

Currently, the Polygon Edge is concerned with keeping 2 major runtime secrets:

  • The validator private key used by the node, if the node is a validator
  • The networking private key used by libp2p, for participating and communicating with other peers

For additional information, please read through the Managing Private Keys Guide

The modules of the Polygon Edge should not need to know how to keep secrets. Ultimately, a module should not care if a secret is stored on a far-away server or locally on the node's disk.

Everything a module needs to know about secret-keeping is knowing to use the secret, knowing which secrets to get or save. The finer implementation details of these operations are delegated away to the SecretsManager, which of course is an abstraction.

The node operator that's starting the Polygon Edge can now specify which secrets manager they want to use, and as soon as the correct secrets manager is instantiated, the modules deal with the secrets through the mentioned interface - without caring if the secrets are stored on a disk or on a server.

This article details the necessary steps to get the Polygon Edge up and running with a Hashicorp Vault server.

previous guides

It is highly recommended that before going through this article, articles on Local Setup and Cloud Setup are read.

Prerequisites​

This article assumes that a functioning instance of the Hashicorp Vault server is already set up.

Additionally, it is required that the Hashicorp Vault server being used for the Polygon Edge should have enabled KV storage.

Required information before continuing:

  • The server URL (the API URL of the Hashicorp Vault server)
  • Token (access token used for access to the KV storage engine)

Step 1 - Generate the secrets manager configuration​

In order for the Polygon Edge to be able to seamlessly communicate with the Vault server, it needs to parse an already generated config file, which contains all the necessary information for secret storage on Vault.

To generate the configuration, run the following command:

polygon-edge secrets generate --dir <PATH> --token <TOKEN> --server-url <SERVER_URL> --name <NODE_NAME>

Parameters present:

  • PATH is the path to which the configuration file should be exported to. Default ./secretsManagerConfig.json
  • TOKEN is the access token previously mentioned in the prerequisites section
  • SERVER_URL is the URL of the API for the Vault server, also mentioned in the prerequisites section
  • NODE_NAME is the name of the current node for which the Vault configuration is being set up as. It can be an arbitrary value. Default polygon-edge-node
Node names

Be careful when specifying node names.

The Polygon Edge uses the specified node name to keep track of the secrets it generates and uses on the Vault instance. Specifying an existing node name can have consequences of data being overwritten on the Vault server.

Secrets are stored on the following base path: secrets/node_name

Step 2 - Initialize secret keys using the configuration​

Now that the configuration file is present, we can initialize the required secret keys with the configuration file set up in step 1, using the --config:

polygon-edge secrets init --config <PATH>

The PATH param is the location of the previously generated secrets manager param from step 1.

Step 3 - Generate the genesis file​

The genesis file should be generated in a similar manner to the Local Setup and Cloud Setup guides, with minor changes.

Since Hashicorp Vault is being used instead of the local file system, validator addresses should be added through the --ibft-validator flag:

polygon-edge genesis --ibft-validator <VALIDATOR_ADDRESS> ...

Step 4 - Start the Polygon Edge client​

Now that the keys are set up, and the genesis file is generated, the final step to this process would be starting the Polygon Edge with the server command.

The server command is used in the same manner as in the previously mentioned guides, with a minor addition - the --secrets-config flag:

polygon-edge server --secrets-config <PATH> ...

The PATH param is the location of the previously generated secrets manager param from step 1.