Vault enterprise MFA support

Vault Enterprise has support for Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), using different authentication types. MFA is built on top of the Identity system of Vault.

MFA types

MFA in Vault can be of the following types.

• Time-based One-time Password (TOTP) - If configured and enabled on a path, this would require a TOTP passcode along with Vault token, to be presented while invoking the API request. The passcode will be validated against the TOTP key present in the identity of the caller in Vault.

• Okta - If Okta push is configured and enabled on a path, then the enrolled device of the user will get a push notification to approve or deny the access to the API. The Okta username will be derived from the caller identity's alias.

• Duo - If Duo push is configured and enabled on a path, then the enrolled device of the user will get a push notification to approve or deny the access to the API. The Duo username will be derived from the caller identity's alias.

• PingID - If PingID push is configured and enabled on a path, then the enrolled device of the user will get a push notification to approve or deny the access to the API. The PingID username will be derived from the caller identity's alias.

Configuring MFA methods

MFA methods are globally managed within the System Backend using the HTTP API. Please see MFA API for details on how to configure an MFA method.

MFA methods in policies

MFA requirements on paths are specified as mfa_methods along with other ACL parameters.

Sample policy

path "secret/foo" {
  capabilities = ["read"]
  mfa_methods  = ["dev_team_duo", "sales_team_totp"]
}

The above policy grants read access to secret/foo only after both the MFA methods dev_team_duo and sales_team_totp are validated.

Namespaces

All MFA configurations must be configured in the root namespace. They can be referenced from ACL and Sentinel policies in any namespace via the method name and can be tied to a mount accessor in any namespace.

When using Sentinel EGPs, any MFA configuration specified must be satisfied by all requests affected by the policy, which can be difficult if the configured paths spread across namespaces. One way to address this is to use a policy similar to the following, using or operators to allow MFA configurations tied to mount accessors in the various namespaces:

import "mfa"

has_mfa = rule {
    mfa.methods.duons1.valid
}

has_mfa2 = rule {
    mfa.methods.duons2.valid
}

main = rule {
    has_mfa or has_mfa2
}

When using TOTP, any user with ACL permissions can self-generate credentials. Admins can generate or destroy credentials only if the targeted entity is in the same namespace.

Supplying MFA credentials

MFA credentials are retrieved from the X-Vault-MFA HTTP header. The format of the header is mfa_method_name[:key[=value]]. The items in the [] are optional.

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --header "X-Vault-MFA:my_totp:695452" \
    http://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/secret/foo

API

MFA can be managed entirely over the HTTP API. Please see MFA API for more details.