1---
2layout: "docs"
3page_title: "Secrets Engines"
4sidebar_title: "Secrets Engines"
5sidebar_current: "docs-secrets"
6description: |-
7  Secrets engines are mountable engines that store or generate secrets in Vault.
8---
9
10# Secrets Engines
11
12Secrets engines are components which store, generate, or encrypt data. Secrets
13engines are incredibly flexible, so it is easiest to think about them in terms
14of their function. Secrets engines are provided some set of data, they take some
15action on that data, and they return a result.
16
17Some secrets engines simply store and read data - like encrypted
18Redis/Memcached. Other secrets engines connect to other services and generate
19dynamic credentials on demand. Other secrets engines provide encryption as a
20service, totp generation, certificates, and much more.
21
22Secrets engines are enabled at a "path" in Vault. When a request comes to Vault,
23the router automatically routes anything with the route prefix to the secrets
24engine. In this way, each secrets engine defines its own paths and properties.
25To the user, secrets engines behave similar to a virtual filesystem, supporting
26operations like read, write, and delete.
27
28## Secrets Engines Lifecycle
29
30Most secrets engines can be enabled, disabled, tuned, and moved via the CLI or
31API. Previous versions of Vault called these "mounts", but that term was
32overloaded.
33
34- **Enable** - This enables a secrets engine at a given path. With few
35  exceptions, secrets engines can be enabled at multiple paths. Each secrets
36  engine is isolated to its path. By default, they are enabled at their "type"
37  (e.g. "aws" enables at "aws/").
38
39- **Disable** - This disables an existing secrets engine. When a secrets engine
40  is disabled, all of its secrets are revoked (if they support it), and all of
41  the data stored for that engine in the physical storage layer is deleted.
42
43- **Move** - This moves the path for an existing secrets engine. This process
44  revokes all secrets, since secret leases are tied to the path they were
45  created at. The configuration data stored for the engine persists through the
46  move.
47
48- **Tune** - This tunes global configuration for the secrets engine such as the
49  TTLs.
50
51Once a secrets engine is enabled, you can interact with it directly at its path
52according to its own API. Use `vault path-help` to determine the paths it
53responds to.
54
55Note that mount points cannot conflict with each other in Vault. There are
56two broad implications of this fact. The first is that you cannot have
57a mount which is prefixed with an existing mount. The second is that you
58cannot create a mount point that is named as a prefix of an existing mount.
59As an example, the mounts `foo/bar` and `foo/baz` can peacefully coexist
60with each other whereas `foo` and `foo/baz` cannot
61
62## Barrier View
63
64Secrets engines receive a _barrier view_ to the configured Vault physical
65storage. This is a lot like a [chroot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroot).
66
67When a secrets engine is enabled, a random UUID is generated. This becomes the
68data root for that engine. Whenever that engine writes to the physical storage
69layer, it is prefixed with that UUID folder. Since the Vault storage layer
70doesn't support relative access (such as `../`), this makes it impossible for a
71enabled secrets engine to access other data.
72
73This is an important security feature in Vault - even a malicious engine
74cannot access the data from any other engine.
75