When you’re juggling what feels like a hundred different online accounts, it’s easy to fall into the trap of using weak passwords or, even worse, reusing the same old password everywhere. I mean, who hasn’t been there, right? You get that dreaded “password incorrect” message for the fifth time, and suddenly you’re locked out of everything. But , where data breaches seem to pop up constantly, those old habits are a massive risk. We’re talking about everything from your personal emails to financial accounts and even the critical infrastructure you manage at work.

That’s where a solid password manager comes into play, and honestly, if you’re not using one, you’re making your digital life way harder and less secure than it needs to be. These tools are like having a super-smart, impenetrable vault for all your login details, credit card numbers, secure notes, and more. They generate strong, unique passwords for every single site and app, remember them for you, and even autofill them, saving you a ton of time and hassle. Plus, many offer advanced features like dark web monitoring and two-factor authentication 2FA support, making your online presence a fortress. If you’re looking for a top-tier option that combines robust security with a super user-friendly experience, you absolutely have to check out NordPass. It’s one of the best around, making your digital life not just safer, but genuinely simpler.

Now, while consumer-grade password managers are fantastic for individuals and small teams, what happens when you’re managing complex applications, especially in a Kubernetes environment? That’s where things get a bit more technical, and deploying a password manager or a secrets management solution using Helm charts becomes incredibly powerful. We’re going to break down why password managers are non-negotiable, how to deploy some popular options using Helm, and crucially, how to manage all those sensitive passwords and secrets securely within your Kubernetes clusters. This isn’t just about personal security. it’s about protecting entire infrastructures and workflows.

Why You Absolutely Need a Password Manager in Today’s Digital World

Let’s face it, our lives are almost entirely online now. From banking and shopping to social media and work platforms, we interact with dozens, if not hundreds, of services daily. And each of these needs a login. This explosion of online accounts has created what I like to call “password fatigue” – that feeling of dread when a new site demands yet another complex password, or when you can’t remember the one you set last week.

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It’s no wonder so many people resort to risky shortcuts. Did you know that in 2023, “123456” was the most commonly used password globally, appearing over 4.5 million times? Or that “password” was also right up there with 558,000 occurrences? Even worse, nearly half of Americans 45% manage their passwords by saving them in unencrypted digital notes or writing them down on paper, and a staggering 18% reuse the same password across multiple accounts. These practices are like leaving your front door unlocked with a spare key under the mat – a major invitation for trouble.

The consequences of poor password hygiene are pretty scary. Password-based attacks were the top attack vector in 2024, and over 1 billion credentials were stolen by malware. It’s not just individuals at risk. poor passwords contributed to 81% of corporate data breaches.

This is where password managers shine. They tackle these challenges head-on by offering a suite of benefits:

• Stronger, Unique Passwords: A password manager doesn’t just store your passwords. it generates them. These aren’t your typical “Summer2025!” passwords. We’re talking long, complex, random strings of characters that are nearly impossible for hackers to guess or crack. And because it creates a unique one for every account, if one service gets breached, your other accounts stay safe.
• Autofill Login Credentials: Say goodbye to typing out complex passwords or copying and pasting them which can sometimes be risky. Password managers securely autofill your login details on websites and apps, saving you time and frustration. This also helps protect you from phishing attacks, as the manager will only autofill on legitimate sites.
• Sync Across All Devices: Whether you’re on your phone, laptop, or work desktop, your encrypted vault is accessible and synchronized, ensuring you always have the latest credentials at your fingertips. In fact, 77% of users installed their password manager on multiple devices, up from 71% last year.
• Secure Sharing: Need to share a login with a family member or a colleague for a joint account? Password managers offer secure ways to do this without resorting to insecure methods like emails or sticky notes.
• More Than Just Passwords: Beyond logins, these tools can securely store sensitive information like credit card numbers, secure notes, software licenses, and even Wi-Fi passwords.
• Dark Web Monitoring & Health Checks: Many password managers will scan the dark web for your compromised credentials and alert you if your passwords are weak, reused, or have been exposed in a data breach, prompting you to update them immediately.

Despite these clear benefits, password manager adoption is still surprisingly low. In 2024, only 36% of American adults subscribed to such services, equating to 94 million users. However, the market is growing rapidly, projected to climb from $2.40 billion in 2025 to $8.10 billion by 2030, a clear indicator that more people and organizations are recognizing their importance for credential protection. Password manager for hcl commerce

Stepping Up Your Game: Password Managers in Kubernetes with Helm

we’ve established that password managers are a must-have for personal and team security. But what if your “team” involves a complex, distributed application running on Kubernetes? How do you secure the credentials for your databases, APIs, monitoring tools like Grafana, or even a self-hosted password manager itself, especially when you’re deploying everything using Helm? This is where the world of DevOps meets robust security.

What is Helm and why it’s great for deploying applications

If you’re working with Kubernetes, you’ve probably heard of Helm. Think of Helm as the package manager for Kubernetes. Just like you use apt or yum to install software on Linux, Helm helps you deploy and manage applications on your Kubernetes clusters. It uses something called Helm Charts, which are essentially packages of pre-configured Kubernetes resource files like Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, and yes, Secrets!.

Here’s why Helm is such a big deal, especially for something like a password manager:

• Simplified Deployments: Instead of writing and managing dozens of YAML files for a single application, a Helm chart bundles everything together. You can deploy a complex application with a single helm install command.
• Repeatability and Consistency: Helm charts ensure that your applications are deployed the same way every time, reducing human error and making your deployments more reliable. This is crucial for security-sensitive applications.
• Version Control: Charts can be versioned, allowing you to easily track changes, upgrade to newer versions, or even roll back to a previous stable state if something goes wrong. If you ever need to inspect what changed, the helm history command is your friend.
• Configuration Management: Helm charts use values.yaml files, which act as a centralized place to customize your deployments without touching the raw Kubernetes manifests. This is where we’ll talk a lot about managing passwords.

Self-hosting vs. Cloud-hosted password managers – when to choose self-hosted

When it comes to password managers, you generally have two main flavors: cloud-hosted like NordPass, 1Password, LastPass or self-hosted like Bitwarden, Passbolt. Password manager help prevent phishing attacks

Cloud-hosted options are fantastic for ease of use, zero-maintenance, and typically offer a wide range of features. Most of the market is dominated by these, with Google and Apple’s proprietary services controlling over 55% of the market. They handle all the infrastructure, security updates, and backups for you.

However, for some organizations, especially those with strict compliance requirements, specific security policies, or a strong desire for complete data sovereignty, self-hosting is the preferred route. This means you run the password manager’s server infrastructure yourself, usually on your own servers or within your private cloud. This gives you:

• Complete Data Control: Your data stays entirely within your environment.
• Custom Security Models: You can apply your organization’s specific security policies and integrate with existing infrastructure.
• Open-Source Advantages: Many self-hosted solutions are open-source, offering transparency and allowing for community audits of the codebase, which can build a lot of trust.

When you choose to self-host, especially within a Kubernetes cluster, Helm becomes an indispensable tool. It simplifies the complex process of deploying and managing these applications, making what would otherwise be a daunting task much more manageable.

Choosing the Right Password Manager for Your Helm Deployment

When you’re looking to deploy a password manager using Helm, the game changes a bit compared to just picking a personal tool. You’re not just thinking about an app on your phone. you’re thinking about a critical piece of infrastructure. Finding the Best Password Manager for Your HCL Environment: Your Ultimate Guide

Key considerations:

• Security Model: This is paramount. Look for solutions with a zero-knowledge architecture, meaning only you or your team members can decrypt your vault. The provider itself never has access to your master password or the contents of your vault.
• Open-Source vs. Proprietary: Open-source solutions often offer transparency, allowing security experts to scrutinize the code for vulnerabilities. This can be a huge trust factor for self-hosted deployments.
• Features: Beyond basic password storage, consider features like multi-factor authentication MFA support, secure sharing capabilities for teams, audit logs, and integration with your existing identity providers.
• Community Support & Documentation: A robust community and clear documentation are invaluable when you’re self-hosting and potentially troubleshooting issues.
• Scalability and Resilience: Can the solution scale with your organization’s needs? Does its Helm chart support high availability configurations?

Open-Source Self-Hosted Options with Helm Charts

Let’s look at some popular self-hosted password managers and secrets management tools that play nicely with Helm:

Passbolt

Passbolt is a fantastic open-source, security-first password manager specifically designed for teams and collaboration. It leverages OpenPGP for strong end-to-end encryption and focuses heavily on secure sharing and access control within an organizational context. It’s definitely a solid choice if you prioritize collaboration and a strong security posture.

Bitwarden

Bitwarden is another extremely popular open-source password manager known for its generous free tier, robust security, and wide platform compatibility. One of its biggest draws is the ability to self-host, giving you full control over your data. There’s an official Bitwarden self-host Helm Chart, and the community also maintains a lightweight, open-source server called Vaultwarden formerly bitwarden_rs which is also self-hostable and has Helm charts available. If you want a secure, feature-rich solution with the flexibility of self-hosting, Bitwarden is a strong contender.

HashiCorp Vault for secrets management

While not a traditional “password manager” in the sense of storing your personal logins for websites, HashiCorp Vault is an enterprise-grade solution for centralized secrets management. In a Kubernetes context, Vault is absolutely critical for securely storing and accessing application secrets like API keys, database credentials, and certificates. It provides advanced features like dynamic secrets generating temporary credentials, encryption-as-a-service, and robust access controls. When you’re deploying complex applications with Helm, Vault is often used alongside your services to manage their sensitive data, rather than being the tool your human users log into directly for their personal passwords.

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Deploying Password Managers with Helm: A Practical Guide

Alright, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: how do you actually get these password managers running in your Kubernetes cluster using Helm? I’ll walk you through the general steps, using Passbolt and Bitwarden as concrete examples.

Setting Up Your Environment

Before we dive into deploying, make sure you have the essentials:

1. Kubernetes Cluster: You need a working Kubernetes cluster version 1.19+ or 1.23+ for Passbolt specifically.
2. kubectl: The Kubernetes command-line tool, configured to connect to your cluster.
3. Helm v3.x: The Helm package manager installed on your local machine.

If you’re unsure about any of these, there are plenty of guides out there to get you started.

Adding Helm Repositories

Most applications distributed via Helm charts live in “Helm repositories.” You need to add these to your local Helm client first.

# Example for Passbolt
helm repo add passbolt-repo https://download.passbolt.com/charts/passbolt
helm repo update

# Example for Bitwarden
helm repo add bitwarden https://charts.bitwarden.com/

The helm repo update command ensures your local Helm client has the latest information about all your added repositories. Google password manager for opera gx

Deploying Passbolt using Helm

Deploying Passbolt with its Helm chart is a robust way to get it running in Kubernetes, but it’s considered an advanced installation. Make sure you’re comfortable with Kubernetes concepts.

1. Get the default values.yaml: This file contains all the configurable parameters for the Passbolt chart. It’s best practice to download this and customize it, rather than relying on --set flags for everything.

   curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/passbolt/charts-passbolt/main/values.yaml
   

2. Customize your values.yaml: This is the most crucial step. You must change the default passwords for production workloads. The default values often contain placeholders like ‘CHANGEME’ or use insecure defaults.

   • Look for database passwords e.g., redis.auth.password, mariadb.auth.password and set strong, unique passwords.
   • Configure APP_FULL_BASE_URL to your desired domain e.g., https://passbolt.yourdomain.com. This is especially important if you’re using custom SSL certificates.
   • Set up SMTP settings so Passbolt can send email notifications and password recovery emails.
   • Consider generating and securely providing GPG keys as base64 encoded strings within your values.yaml.

   # Example snippet from values.yaml illustrative, refer to official chart for exact keys
   # values.yaml
   redis:
     auth:
      password: "YOUR_SUPER_STRONG_REDIS_PASSWORD" # <<< CHANGE THIS!
   mariadb:
      password: "YOUR_SUPER_STRONG_MARIADB_PASSWORD" # <<< CHANGE THIS!
   passboltEnv:
     secret:
      # Passbolt application environment secrets, often base64 encoded
       DATASOURCES_DEFAULT_PASSWORD: "YOUR_APP_DB_PASSWORD_BASE64_ENCODED"
       CACHE_CAKE_DEFAULT_PASSWORD: "YOUR_CACHE_PASSWORD_BASE64_ENCODED"
     app:
       APP_FULL_BASE_URL: "https://passbolt.yourdomain.com"
   Remember: Hardcoding sensitive values directly in `values.yaml` is generally discouraged for version control. We'll discuss better secrets management later, but for an initial deployment, customizing this file is the starting point.
   

3. Install the chart: Once your values.yaml is configured, you can install Passbolt.
   helm install my-passbolt passbolt-repo/passbolt -f values.yaml –namespace passbolt
   Replace my-passbolt with your desired release name and passbolt with your target namespace.

4. Create the first user: After deployment, you’ll need to create an administrator user. You can usually do this by executing a command within the Passbolt pod.
   kubectl exec -it — su -c “bin/cake passbolt register_user -u -f -l -r admin” -s /bin/bash www-data
   “` Replace <passbolt-pod-name>, <email>, <firstname>, <lastname> with your details. Password manager for sap gui

Deploying Bitwarden Self-Hosted using Helm

Deploying self-hosted Bitwarden in Kubernetes using a Helm chart is also well-supported.

1. Create a namespace: It’s good practice to deploy Bitwarden into its own namespace.
   kubectl create namespace bitwarden

2. Prepare your my-values.yaml: Similar to Passbolt, you’ll create a custom values.yaml file to configure Bitwarden.

   You might want to get the default values first to see what’s configurable

   helm show values bitwarden/self-host > my-values.yaml
   Then, edit my-values.yaml. Key things to configure include:

   • Database settings if not using the default included SQL container.
   • SMTP for email functionality.
   • Domain name configuration.
   • Crucially, create a Kubernetes secret object for sensitive values like your globalSettings.installation.id and globalSettings.installation.key, and other environment variables.

3. Create a Kubernetes Secret for sensitive values: Instead of putting these directly in my-values.yaml, it’s much better to create a Kubernetes Secret. This is a secure way to store sensitive data in Kubernetes, though the data is only base64 encoded, not truly encrypted by default within the cluster more on this later.
   kubectl create secret generic bitwarden-secrets
   –from-literal=installationId=’YOUR_INSTALLATION_ID’
   –from-literal=installationKey=’YOUR_INSTALLATION_KEY’
   –from-literal=adminToken=’YOUR_ADMIN_TOKEN’
   –namespace bitwarden
   You would then reference this secret in your my-values.yaml or directly in your Helm chart templates. Password manager for gwu

4. Install or upgrade the chart:
   helm upgrade my-bitwarden bitwarden/self-host –install –namespace bitwarden -f my-values.yaml
   Replace my-bitwarden with your release name.

   The Bitwarden chart also supports “rootless mode” deployment if your Kubernetes environment restricts container user IDs, which often requires an external MSSQL database or elevated privileges for the included SQL container.

Mastering Secrets Management in Helm Charts

Now, here’s where we get into the really important stuff for robust security in Kubernetes. Deploying applications with Helm means you’ll invariably deal with sensitive data: database passwords, API keys, TLS certificates, and more. How you handle these “secrets” is crucial.

Why Plaintext Passwords in values.yaml is a Big No-No

You saw how we talked about configuring values.yaml for Passbolt and Bitwarden. While it’s convenient, directly putting plaintext passwords or other sensitive data in your values.yaml file is a huge security risk. If this file gets committed to a Git repository even a private one, anyone with access to the repo can see your secrets. This is a common mistake and a major vulnerability. Password manager g

The goal is to keep sensitive information out of your version control system and out of plain sight.

The Kubernetes Native Way: Secrets

Kubernetes has a built-in object type called Secret specifically for storing sensitive data. These secrets are essentially key-value pairs that can be consumed by pods as environment variables or mounted as files.

However, there’s a critical point to understand: Kubernetes Secrets are only base64 encoded, not encrypted by default. This means anyone with kubectl access to your cluster can easily decode and view the secret’s contents. While they prevent sensitive data from being directly exposed in pod definitions or logs, they don’t provide strong encryption at rest unless you have additional security measures like etcd encryption enabled in your cluster.

Here’s how you typically use them:

1. Create the Secret:
   echo -n “my-super-secret-db-password” | base64 Elevate Your Digital Shield: Understanding the Power of a Password Manager

   Output: bXktc3VwZXItc2VjcmV0LWRiLXBhc3N3b3JkCg==

   kubectl create secret generic my-db-secret
   –from-literal=db-password=’bXktc3VwZXItc2VjcmV0LWRiLXBhc3N3b3JkCg==’
   –namespace my-app-namespace
   Or, you can define it in a YAML file e.g., db-secret.yaml and apply it:

   db-secret.yaml

   apiVersion: v1
   kind: Secret
   metadata:
   name: my-db-secret
   namespace: my-app-namespace
   type: Opaque
   data:
   db-password: bXktc3VwZXItc2VjcmV0LWRiLXBhc3N3b3JkCg== # Base64 encoded password
   Then kubectl apply -f db-secret.yaml.

2. Reference the Secret in your Helm chart: In your deployment manifests which are part of your Helm chart templates, you can then reference this Kubernetes Secret.

   • As an Environment Variable:

     apiVersion: apps/v1
     kind: Deployment
     metadata:
       name: my-app
     spec:
      # ...
       template:
         spec:
           containers:
           - name: my-app-container
             image: my-app-image:latest
             env:
             - name: DATABASE_PASSWORD
               valueFrom:
                 secretKeyRef:
                  name: my-db-secret # Name of the Kubernetes Secret
                  key: db-password    # Key within the Secret
     

   • As a Mounted File:
     volumeMounts:
     – name: db-secret-volume
     mountPath: “/etc/secrets/db”
     readOnly: true
     volumes:
     – name: db-secret-volume
     secret:
     secretName: my-db-secret
     The password would then be accessible at /etc/secrets/db/db-password inside the container.

Elevating Security with Helm Secrets Plugin

Since native Kubernetes Secrets aren’t truly encrypted at rest, many teams turn to solutions that provide stronger encryption for secrets stored alongside their Helm charts, especially if these charts are in a version control system like Git.

The helm-secrets plugin is a popular choice here. It extends Helm’s functionality by integrating with tools like Mozilla SOPS Secrets OPerationS. SOPS allows you to encrypt files like your values.yaml using various Key Management Systems KMS such as AWS KMS, GCP KMS, Azure Key Vault, or PGP keys. Password manager for grapheneos

This means you can:

1. Encrypt your values.yaml: You can have a secrets.yaml file or directly your values.yaml with sensitive data, and helm secrets encrypt will encrypt it, creating a .dec or similar file that contains the encrypted data.
   helm secrets encrypt values.yaml
   The encrypted file is safe to commit to Git, as only authorized individuals those with access to the KMS keys or PGP keys can decrypt it.

2. Deploy with encrypted secrets: When you deploy your Helm chart, helm-secrets automatically decrypts the file at runtime before passing it to Helm, ensuring the sensitive data is only in plaintext in memory during the deployment process, not stored on disk unencrypted.
   helm secrets upgrade –install my-release ./mychart -f values.yaml
   This method provides a good balance between developer workflow and robust security, allowing secrets to be version-controlled securely.

Advanced Secrets Management: External Secrets Operators & HashiCorp Vault

For enterprise-grade secrets management, especially in complex multi-cluster or hybrid cloud environments, a more centralized and automated approach is often necessary. This is where External Secrets Operators and HashiCorp Vault shine.

• HashiCorp Vault Integration: As mentioned earlier, Vault is a dedicated secrets management solution. You can deploy Vault itself using its Helm chart. Once Vault is running, you can use the Vault Secrets Operator or the Vault Agent Injector to seamlessly integrate it with your Kubernetes applications. Best Password Manager: Your Ultimate Guide to Digital Security in 2025

  • The Vault Agent Injector works by modifying pod specifications to inject secrets directly from Vault into your containers at runtime, often without the application even knowing it’s coming from Vault. This is powerful for dynamic secrets, where credentials are short-lived and automatically rotated.
  • The Vault Secrets Operator creates Kubernetes Secrets from data stored in Vault, effectively synchronizing them.
    This setup provides dynamic secrets generation, centralized auditing, and fine-grained access control policies for all your application secrets.

• External Secrets Operator ESO: The External Secrets Operator is a Kubernetes operator that fetches secrets from external secrets management systems like AWS Secrets Manager, Google Secret Manager, Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault, and even Bitwarden through unofficial providers and injects them as native Kubernetes Secrets.

  This is a fantastic solution because it means:

  • Your secrets live in your chosen external secret store which is highly secure and auditable.
  • Your Kubernetes applications consume them as regular Kubernetes Secrets, so no code changes are typically needed.
  • The operator keeps the Kubernetes Secrets synchronized with the external store, even handling rotation.

  For example, if you’re deploying a Grafana Helm chart and need to set the admin password or connect to a database, you wouldn’t hardcode grafana helm chart password in your values.yaml. Instead, you would store that password in your external secrets manager like AWS Secrets Manager or Vault, and the External Secrets Operator would then fetch it and create a Kubernetes Secret that the Grafana pod can consume. This keeps your sensitive credentials safe and out of your Helm chart’s code.

Keeping Tabs: Monitoring Your Helm Deployments with helm list history

Managing applications in Kubernetes isn’t just about deploying them. it’s also about knowing what’s running, what versions are deployed, and what changes have been made over time. Helm provides some excellent commands for this, and they’re especially useful when troubleshooting or performing audits. Your Gmail Security Squad: App Passwords and Why a Password Manager is Your Best Friend

helm list: Seeing What’s Deployed

The helm list command is your go-to for getting an overview of all the Helm releases in your cluster. By default, it shows deployed or failed releases in the current namespace.

helm list

You can make it more powerful with flags:

• helm list --all-namespaces: See releases across all namespaces.
• helm list --all: Shows all releases, including uninstalled and superseded ones.
• helm list --filter "my-app": Filter releases by a regular expression to find specific ones.

This gives you a quick snapshot of your application .

helm history <RELEASE_NAME>: Tracing Changes

This command is invaluable for understanding the lifecycle of a specific application. helm history <RELEASE_NAME> will show you a list of all revisions versions for a given Helm release. Master Your Passwords at GMU and Beyond: Your Ultimate Guide to Staying Secure

helm history my-passbolt

You’ll see output that looks something like this:

REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART APP VERSION DESCRIPTION
1 Mon May 22 10:00:00 2025 superseded passbolt-3.12.2 3.12.2 Initial install
2 Tue May 23 11:30:00 2025 superseded passbolt-3.12.2 3.12.2 Upgrade with new SMTP settings
3 Wed May 24 14:15:00 2025 deployed passbolt-3.13.0 3.13.0 Upgrade to new app version
Each entry tells you the revision number, when it was updated, its status deployed, superseded, failed, etc., the chart version, the application version, and a description. This is super helpful if you need to figure out when a specific change was introduced or if a deployment failed. The default maximum revisions returned is 256, but you can adjust this with --max.

helm get values <RELEASE_NAME> --revision <NUMBER>: Inspecting Past Configurations

When you’re trying to debug an issue or just understand how an application was configured at a specific point in time, helm get values combined with --revision is incredibly useful. This command lets you retrieve the values.yaml that was applied for a particular release revision.

helm get values my-passbolt –revision 2 Best Password Manager: Why Google Sheets Just Isn’t Cutting It (And What Is!)

This will output the exact values that were used when my-passbolt was at revision 2. This is crucial for auditing, understanding configuration drift, or identifying a problematic change.

Best Practices for Helm Chart Password Management

To ensure your Kubernetes deployments are as secure as possible when it comes to passwords and secrets, keep these best practices in mind:

1. Never Hardcode Secrets: I can’t stress this enough. Passwords, API keys, and other sensitive data should never be committed in plaintext to your Helm chart’s values.yaml or any other manifest file that’s version-controlled.
2. Utilize Kubernetes Secrets: For basic secret storage, use native Kubernetes Secrets. But remember their limitation: they are base64 encoded, not encrypted at rest by default. Ensure your Kubernetes cluster’s etcd is encrypted for better security.
3. Employ helm-secrets for Version Control: If you need to store secrets within your Helm chart’s repository, use the helm-secrets plugin with a robust backend like KMS or PGP to encrypt them. This allows for secure version control.
4. Adopt External Secrets Management Vault, ESO: For truly secure, scalable, and dynamic secrets management, integrate with solutions like HashiCorp Vault or leverage the External Secrets Operator. These tools provide centralized control, auditability, dynamic secret generation, and automatic rotation, significantly reducing the risk of credential compromise.
5. Implement Role-Based Access Control RBAC: Strictly limit who can access, create, or modify Kubernetes Secrets and who can interact with your secrets management system. Follow the principle of least privilege.
6. Regularly Rotate Keys and Passwords: Don’t let credentials sit unchanged indefinitely. Automate password and key rotation where possible, especially for dynamic secrets.
7. Audit Your Deployments: Regularly review helm history and helm get values to ensure that deployments adhere to security policies and that no unauthorized changes have occurred. Regularly audit your secrets management configuration and access logs.
8. Lint Your Charts and Write Tests: Use helm lint to catch common issues and ensure your charts follow best practices. Consider unit tests for your chart templates to ensure they render correctly and securely.

By following these guidelines, you’ll not only streamline the deployment of applications like password managers in Kubernetes but also build a much stronger, more resilient security posture for your entire infrastructure.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Helm chart password?

A “Helm chart password” isn’t a single specific thing, but rather refers to any sensitive credential like a database password, API key, or admin login that an application deployed by a Helm chart needs to function. These passwords are configured through the chart’s values.yaml file but should ideally be managed using secure methods like Kubernetes Secrets or external secrets managers, rather than being hardcoded in plaintext.

How do I manage passwords for applications deployed by Helm charts?

The best way to manage passwords for applications deployed with Helm charts is to avoid hardcoding them directly into values.yaml. Instead, you should store these passwords securely as Kubernetes Secrets which are base64 encoded in the cluster or, for higher security, use a helm-secrets plugin to encrypt values.yaml files, or an External Secrets Operator to pull secrets from a dedicated secrets management system like HashiCorp Vault or cloud key management services.

Can I deploy a self-hosted password manager using Helm?

Yes, absolutely! Popular open-source password managers like Passbolt and Bitwarden including Vaultwarden offer official or community-maintained Helm charts that allow you to deploy them as self-hosted instances within your Kubernetes cluster. This gives you greater control over your data and infrastructure.

What is helm list history used for?

The helm list history <RELEASE_NAME> command is used to view the revision history of a specific Helm release in your Kubernetes cluster. It shows details like the revision number, the date of the update, the status of the release e.g., deployed, superseded, the chart version, and a description of the change. This is incredibly useful for auditing changes, debugging deployment issues, or planning rollbacks.

How do I get the admin password for a grafana helm chart deployment?

When deploying a Grafana Helm chart, the admin password is typically set during the initial installation via the values.yaml file e.g., grafana.adminPassword. You should never use the default password if one is provided. For secure deployments, you would configure this password using a Kubernetes Secret, or even better, fetch it from an external secrets manager via an External Secrets Operator, referencing the secret in your values.yaml or directly in the chart’s templates. You can then retrieve the password from the Kubernetes Secret if needed.

Is it safe to store secrets in values.yaml if my repository is private?

No, it is generally not safe to store plaintext secrets directly in values.yaml, even if your Git repository is private. While it reduces public exposure, anyone with access to that repository will be able to view your sensitive credentials. This increases the risk of accidental leaks, compromise during development, or unauthorized access if the repository itself is ever breached. Always use more secure methods like encrypted values.yaml with helm-secrets or external secrets management systems.