10. Storing secrets in AKS

All production applications require some sensitive information to function, such as passwords or connection strings. Kubernetes has a pluggable back end to manage these secrets. Kubernetes also provides multiple ways of using the secrets in your deployment. The ability to manage secrets and use them properly will make your applications more secure.

You have already used secrets previously in this book. You used them when connecting to the WordPress site to create blog posts in Chapter 3, Application deployment on AKS, and Chapter 4, Building scalable applications. You also used secrets in Chapter 6, Securing your application with HTTPS, when you were configuring the Application Gateway Ingress Controller with TLS.

Kubernetes has a built-in secret system that stores secrets in a semi-encrypted fashion in the default Kubernetes database. This system works well but isn't the most secure way to deal with secrets in Kubernetes. In AKS...