Secrets Manager CLI

The Secrets Manager CLI provides shell access to vault secrets

Overview

The Keeper Secrets Manager CLI ("KSM CLI") provides core Secrets Manager Vault interaction from a terminal, shell script or any software that can be launched from a shell.

Core Features

  • Get Secrets from the Keeper Vault

  • Update Secrets from the Keeper Vault

  • Integrate with 3rd party CI/CD and other dev tools

  • Sync secrets between Keeper and external secrets providers

  • Replace environment variables with Keeper secrets in scripts and containers

Keeper provides 2 different CLI tools. The Secrets Manager CLI is targeted to machine-based secrets management. The Commander CLI is more focused on administrative capabilities.

Application and Client Device Setup

In order to use the Secrets Manager CLI, or environment variable substitutions for accessing secrets stored in the Keeper Vault, you must first have an Application and Client Device configured. Check out the Quick Start Guide to set this up.

Secrets Manager CLI Installation

The KSM CLI is available as a binary application for Windows/Mac/Linux or a pip3 install for any Python environment.

Binary Install Method

The latest binary release can be found on the GitHub repository. Download the installer based on your operating system.

⬇️ Download the Secrets Manager CLI Binary

When launching the CLI in Windows or macOS, the CLI will run in a shell mode. The ksm command is still available via the command line.

The Linux binary is just an executable and should be moved to a directory in the PATH.

Docker Install Method

See the Docker Container page for installation and setup from Keeper's Docker image.

Pip3 and Python3 Install Method

Please ensure that Python 3.x is installed. If not, use your OS-specific package manager to install it.

sudo yum install python3

Make sure your pip3 is up to date:

sudo pip3 install --upgrade pip

Now you can install the Secrets Manager CLI:

sudo pip3 install keeper-secrets-manager-cli

To upgrade to the latest version:

sudo pip3 install -U keeper-secrets-manager-cli keeper-secrets-manager-core

This method will install the CLI into the system Python. If you do not have root or admin permissions, you can install the CLI by setting up a virtualenv. If you do not use virtualenv, the module and binary will be install into your $HOME/.local directory for Linux or macOS. You may need to include a PATH to the bin directory.

Installing KSM using virtualenv

For developers, using virtualenv is a clean way to install KSM in an isolated environment.

sudo pip3 install virtualenv
virtualenv -p python3 my_env
source my_env/bin/activate

Then, install ksm to the virtual environment

pip3 install keeper-secrets-manager-cli

Source Code

Find the Keeper Secrets Manager CLI source code in the GitHub repository.

Usage

The ksm CLI tool can be used for the following purposes:

  • Initialize a configuration file for use in integrations such as Github Actions ("init")

  • Create a local profile to execute commands as a client device ("profile")

  • Query the Keeper vault and retrieve secrets ("secret")

  • Wrap command-line applications for environmental variable substitution ("exec")

ksm
Usage: ksm [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

  Keeper Secrets Manager CLI  Version: X.X.X

Options:
  --ini-file TEXT                INI config file.
  -p, --profile-name TEXT        Config profile
  -o, --output TEXT              Output [stdout|stderr|filename]
  -c, --color / -nc, --no-color  Use color in table views, where applicable.
  --cache / --no-cache           Enable/disable record caching.
  --help                         Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  config   Configure the command line tool
  exec     Wrap an application and replace env variables
  init     Initialize a configuration file for integrations
  profile  Manage local client device profiles
  quit     Quit shell mode
  secret   Query the Keeper vault and retrieve secrets
  folder   Manage folders
  shell    Run KSM in a shell
  version  Get module versions and information.

Create a local Client Device

The CLI is initialized as a client device by passing in the One Time Access Token in the ksm profile init command. After initialization, the CLI can be used to obtain secrets. In the example below, replace "XX:XXXX" with the One Time Access Token for your Client Device.

ksm profile init XX:XXXX
ksm secret list

If you are including the CLI within a container with an automated startup, or do not wish to perform a "profile init", a profile can be auto-created if the KSM_TOKEN is set.

Example:

KSM_TOKEN="XX:XXXX" ksm secret list

Environment variables can be set to reduce the command line flags.

Environment Variable Name

Description

KSM_TOKEN

The one time access token used to initialize the client device

KSM_HOSTNAME

The host of your Keeper environment. Either US, EU, AU, JP, CA, US_GOV or a full URL. The token will contain the hostname, so this variable is not used in most cases.

KSM_INI_DIR

The directory where the INI config file is stored for the CLI.

KSM_INI_FILE

The name of the INI config file for the CLI.

KSM_CLI_PROFILE

The active profile in the CLI.

KSM_CONFIG

A Base64 config string. The CLI will use this for the default profile.

Execution of Commands

Keeper Secrets Manager commands are run using the ksm program from the command line.

ksm <command> <sub-command> <options>

To get help on a particular command, run:

ksm <command> --help

To get help on a sub-command, run:

ksm <command> <sub-command> --help

Command

Explanation

secret

Retrieve secrets from the vault

folder

Manage folders

profile

Manage local configuration profiles

init

Initialize one time access token

exec

Execute scripts with environmental variable substitution

config

Manage CLI configuration

version

Display the CLI version information

shell

Start the CLI in an interactive shell mode

quit

Quit the shell mode

Options

--ini-file </path/to/keeper.ini>

Sets the keeper.ini configuration file. If not set the CLI will check the following directories for the keeper.ini file.

  • The path defined by the environmental variable KSM_INI_DIR

  • The current directory

  • The user's home directory

    • ${HOME}

    • ${HOME}/.config/ksm

    • $env:USERPROFILE

  • Various system directories

    • /etc

    • /etc/ksm

    • /etc/keeper

    • $env:APPDATA/Keeper

    • $env:ProgamData/Keeper

    • $env:ProgramFiles/Keeper

-p, --profile-name <name> use specified configuration profile

-o, --output <{stdout, stderr, filename}> Sets the output destination

  • stdout - Print to stdout (default)

  • stderr - Print to stderr

  • <filename> - Send output to a specified text file

--color/--no-color, -c/-nc Enable or disable color in the output instance.

--cache/--no-cache Enable or disable using the record cache for this command instance.

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