Handling Secrets Securely

Secrets are Kubernetes objects that let you store and manage sensitive information such as passwords, tokens, and keys.

Creating a Secret:

kubectl create secret generic db-secret --from-literal=username=admin --from-literal=password=secret123

Using Secrets in Pods:

env:
- name: DB_USERNAME
  valueFrom:
    secretKeyRef:
      name: db-secret
      key: username

You can also mount secrets as volumes. Unlike ConfigMaps, Secrets are base64-encoded and should be protected using RBAC and encryption at rest.