How to mount secrets as files or environment variables in kubernetes

Gabriel — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 16:25:56 +0000

Introduction

This will be a short article exploring the different ways you can mount secrets in kubernetes and also understand when to use each method, mount means load or expose basically in your Pod either as an env var or as a file, or multiple files even, the decision is up to you and how your app uses or consumes those secrets.

First we will explore how to create and expose secrets as environment variables, this is probably the most used way and is really useful as the format is really easy to follow and maintain, lets see an example:

❯ kubectl create secret generic supersecret -n example --from-literal=MY_SUPER_ENVVAR=a_secret --from-literal=ANOTHER_ENVVAR=just_another_secret
secret/supersecret created

Lets check the contents of the secret, it maintains a similar shape as we defined, be sure to check the help of kubectl as it contains many examples of how to pass data into the actual secret.

❯ kubectl get secret supersecret -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
data:
  ANOTHER_ENVVAR: anVzdF9hbm90aGVyX3NlY3JldA==
  MY_SUPER_ENVVAR: YV9zZWNyZXQ=
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: supersecret
  namespace: example
type: Opaque

All good so far, but how do we actually use that secret? Lets create a spec for it, then we will explore a few options there...

First scenario: single key from a secret

In this example we have a StatefulSet mounting a secret using a specific key as an environment variable, this is pretty common and useful when you don't need all keys to be mounted in all pods for example or when using shared configurations, pay special attention to the valueFrom section, the name indicates the name of the secret and the key how it is stored inside the data block of the same, this also works with ConfigMaps as you might have guessed, instead of secretKeyRef use configMapKeyRef.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  labels:
    app: example
  name: example
  namespace: example
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: example
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: example
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: example
        image: busybox:1.36
        command: ["sh", "-c", "/bin/sleep 3600"]
        env:
          - name: MY_SUPER_ENVVAR
            valueFrom: 
              secretKeyRef:
                name: supersecret
                key: MY_SUPER_ENVVAR

And the result would be:

❯ kubectl -n example exec -ti example-64f956f9c9-fxn28 -- env | grep ENV
MY_SUPER_ENVVAR=a_secret

Second scenario: env vars from a secret

In this second example, we will mount all values from the secret as environment variables, so it is important to have the right format in the secret, and there is a super-handy keyword for that: envFrom and it also works with ConfigMaps, instead of using secretRef you would need to specify: configMapRef.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  labels:
    app: example
  name: example
  namespace: example
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: example
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: example
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: example
        image: busybox:1.36
        command: ["sh", "-c", "/bin/sleep 3600"]
        envFrom:
          - secretRef:
              name: supersecret

And the result would be:

❯ kubectl -n example exec -ti example-584757d47f-gbxgq -- env | grep ENV
ANOTHER_ENVVAR=just_another_secret
MY_SUPER_ENVVAR=a_secret

Third scenario: a secret as files

In some cases your application might need a config file mounted in the pod, in those cases you can mount the entire Secret or ConfigMap or specific keys as specific files (Fourth scenario)

For this case we will use a new secret, with a json file in it stored as the key test.json which is the actual filename, this is pretty handy, there could be multiple files stored there and we could mount all of them at once, or not:

❯ cat test.json
{
  "key1": "value1",
  "key2": "value2"
}

❯ kubectl create secret generic supersecret2 -n example --from-file=test.json
secret/supersecret2 created

❯ kubectl get secret supersecret2 -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
data:
  test.json: ewogICJrZXkxIjogInZhbHVlMSIsCiAgImtleTIiOiAidmFsdWUyIgp9Cg==
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: supersecret2
  namespace: example
type: Opaque

Now lets use our new secret:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  labels:
    app: example
  name: example
  namespace: example
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: example
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: example
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: example
        image: busybox:1.36
        command: ["sh", "-c", "/bin/sleep 3600"]
        volumeMounts:
          - mountPath: "/var/mysecrets"
            name: test.json
            readOnly: true
      volumes:
        - name: test.json
          secret:
            secretName: supersecret2

And the result would be:

❯ kubectl -n example exec -ti example-5b9c58b7f9-zv9nr -- cat /var/mysecrets/test.json
{
  "key1": "value1",
  "key2": "value2"
}

Fourth scenario: a secret key as a single file

Sometimes you just need a specific config as a file in a specific path, imagine some json config or a string that needs to be present in some file for you app to read.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  labels:
    app: example
  name: example
  namespace: example
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: example
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: example
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: example
        image: busybox:1.36
        command: ["sh", "-c", "/bin/sleep 3600"]
        volumeMounts:
          - mountPath: "/var/myapp/server.config"
            name: config
            readOnly: true
            subPath: test.json
      volumes:
        - name: config
          secret:
            secretName: supersecret2
            items:
              - key: test.json
                path: test.json

And the result would be:

❯ kubectl -n example exec -ti example-59f565fbbf-cgk5c -- cat /var/myapp/server.config
{
  "key1": "value1",
  "key2": "value2"
}

Which is incredible useful because you can mount the file as you need as long as you have it properly stored as a Secret or ConfigMap, when debugging issues with your containers and secrets make sure to use kubectl describe pod, as that is a big ally to understand the spec that our pod or workload must comply and it will point us in the direction of any possible error or mistake.

Example with the wrong secret name (do note that I cleaned up the output a bit to make it more readable):

❯ kubectl -n example describe pod example-58bbc5464f-2mcv7
Name:             example-58bbc5464f-2mcv7
Namespace:        example
Priority:         0
Service Account:  default
Containers:
  example:
    Image:         busybox:1.36
    Image ID:
    Port:          <none>
    Host Port:     <none>
      sh
      -c
      /bin/sleep 3600
    State:          Waiting
      Reason:       ContainerCreating
    Ready:          False
    Restart Count:  0
    Mounts:
      /var/mysecrets from config (ro)
Conditions:
  Type                        Status
  PodReadyToStartContainers   False
  Initialized                 True
  Ready                       False
  ContainersReady             False
  PodScheduled                True
Volumes:
  config:
    Type:        Secret (a volume populated by a Secret)
    SecretName:  mysupersecret2
    Optional:    false
Events:
  Type     Reason       Age                 From               Message
  ----     ------       ----                ----               -------
  Warning  FailedMount  6s (x9 over 2m14s)  kubelet            MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume "config" : secret "mysupersecret2" not found

With this we have just scratched the surface of what is possible with Kubernetes, but hopefully it was helpful for you, do you have any questions? drop a comment 👇

DEV Community: Gabriel

How to mount secrets as files or environment variables in kubernetes

Introduction

First scenario: single key from a secret

Second scenario: env vars from a secret

Third scenario: a secret as files

Fourth scenario: a secret key as a single file