Managing sensitive configuration with the Secret object

The Secret object is a resource that allows you to configure applications running on Kubernetes. Secrets are extremely similar to ConfigMaps and can be used together. The difference is that Secrets are encoded and intended to store sensitive data such as passwords, tokens, or private API keys, while ConfigMaps are intended to host non-sensitive configuration data. Other than that, Secrets and ConfigMaps mostly behave the same.

Let's start by discovering how to list the Secrets that are available in your Kubernetes cluster.

Listing Secrets

Like any other Kubernetes resource, you can list secrets using the kubectl get command. The resource identifier is a secret here:

$ kubectl get secret

Just like with ConfigMaps, the DATA column tells you the number of sensitive parameters that have been hashed and saved in your secret. When executed, kubectl might display a few default Secrets or issue an error stating that no resources...