AWS CLI Command Reference

[ aws . secretsmanager ]

update-secret

Description

Modifies many of the details of the specified secret.

To change the secret value, you can also use PutSecretValue .

To change the rotation configuration of a secret, use RotateSecret instead.

We recommend you avoid calling UpdateSecret at a sustained rate of more than once every 10 minutes. When you call UpdateSecret to update the secret value, Secrets Manager creates a new version of the secret. Secrets Manager removes outdated versions when there are more than 100, but it does not remove versions created less than 24 hours ago. If you update the secret value more than once every 10 minutes, you create more versions than Secrets Manager removes, and you will reach the quota for secret versions.

Note

The Secrets Manager console uses only the SecretString parameter and therefore limits you to encrypting and storing only a text string. To encrypt and store binary data as part of the version of a secret, you must use either the Amazon Web Services CLI or one of the Amazon Web Services SDKs.

  • If a version with a VersionId with the same value as the ClientRequestToken parameter already exists, the operation results in an error. You cannot modify an existing version, you can only create a new version.

  • If you include SecretString or SecretBinary to create a new secret version, Secrets Manager automatically attaches the staging label AWSCURRENT to the new version.

Note

  • If you call an operation to encrypt or decrypt the SecretString or SecretBinary for a secret in the same account as the calling user and that secret doesn’t specify a Amazon Web Services KMS encryption key, Secrets Manager uses the account’s default Amazon Web Services managed customer master key (CMK) with the alias aws/secretsmanager . If this key doesn’t already exist in your account then Secrets Manager creates it for you automatically. All users and roles in the same Amazon Web Services account automatically have access to use the default CMK. Note that if an Secrets Manager API call results in Amazon Web Services creating the account’s Amazon Web Services-managed CMK, it can result in a one-time significant delay in returning the result.

  • If the secret resides in a different Amazon Web Services account from the credentials calling an API that requires encryption or decryption of the secret value then you must create and use a custom Amazon Web Services KMS CMK because you can’t access the default CMK for the account using credentials from a different Amazon Web Services account. Store the ARN of the CMK in the secret when you create the secret or when you update it by including it in the KMSKeyId . If you call an API that must encrypt or decrypt SecretString or SecretBinary using credentials from a different account then the Amazon Web Services KMS key policy must grant cross-account access to that other account’s user or role for both the kms:GenerateDataKey and kms:Decrypt operations.

Minimum permissions

To run this command, you must have the following permissions:

  • secretsmanager:UpdateSecret

  • kms:GenerateDataKey - needed only if you use a custom Amazon Web Services KMS key to encrypt the secret. You do not need this permission to use the account’s Amazon Web Services managed CMK for Secrets Manager.

  • kms:Decrypt - needed only if you use a custom Amazon Web Services KMS key to encrypt the secret. You do not need this permission to use the account’s Amazon Web Services managed CMK for Secrets Manager.

Related operations

  • To create a new secret, use CreateSecret .

  • To add only a new version to an existing secret, use PutSecretValue .

  • To get the details for a secret, use DescribeSecret .

  • To list the versions contained in a secret, use ListSecretVersionIds .

See also: AWS API Documentation

See ‘aws help’ for descriptions of global parameters.

Synopsis

  update-secret
--secret-id <value>
[--client-request-token <value>]
[--description <value>]
[--kms-key-id <value>]
[--secret-binary <value>]
[--secret-string <value>]
[--cli-input-json | --cli-input-yaml]
[--generate-cli-skeleton <value>]

Options

--secret-id (string)

Specifies the secret that you want to modify or to which you want to add a new version. You can specify either the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) or the friendly name of the secret.

For an ARN, we recommend that you specify a complete ARN rather than a partial ARN.

--client-request-token (string)

(Optional) If you want to add a new version to the secret, this parameter specifies a unique identifier for the new version that helps ensure idempotency.

If you use the Amazon Web Services CLI or one of the Amazon Web Services SDK to call this operation, then you can leave this parameter empty. The CLI or SDK generates a random UUID for you and includes that in the request. If you don’t use the SDK and instead generate a raw HTTP request to the Secrets Manager service endpoint, then you must generate a ClientRequestToken yourself for new versions and include that value in the request.

You typically only need to interact with this value if you implement your own retry logic and want to ensure that a given secret is not created twice. We recommend that you generate a UUID-type value to ensure uniqueness within the specified secret.

Secrets Manager uses this value to prevent the accidental creation of duplicate versions if there are failures and retries during the Lambda rotation function’s processing.

  • If the ClientRequestToken value isn’t already associated with a version of the secret then a new version of the secret is created.

  • If a version with this value already exists and that version’s SecretString and SecretBinary values are the same as those in the request then the request is ignored (the operation is idempotent).

  • If a version with this value already exists and that version’s SecretString and SecretBinary values are different from the request then an error occurs because you cannot modify an existing secret value.

This value becomes the VersionId of the new version.

--description (string)

(Optional) Specifies an updated user-provided description of the secret.

--kms-key-id (string)

(Optional) Specifies an updated ARN or alias of the Amazon Web Services KMS customer master key (CMK) that Secrets Manager uses to encrypt the protected text in new versions of this secret as well as any existing versions of this secret that have the staging labels AWSCURRENT, AWSPENDING, or AWSPREVIOUS. For more information about staging labels, see Staging Labels in the Amazon Web Services Secrets Manager User Guide .

Warning

You can only use the account’s default CMK to encrypt and decrypt if you call this operation using credentials from the same account that owns the secret. If the secret is in a different account, then you must create a custom CMK and provide the ARN of that CMK in this field. The user making the call must have permissions to both the secret and the CMK in their respective accounts.

--secret-binary (blob)

(Optional) Specifies updated binary data that you want to encrypt and store in the new version of the secret. To use this parameter in the command-line tools, we recommend that you store your binary data in a file and then use the appropriate technique for your tool to pass the contents of the file as a parameter. Either SecretBinary or SecretString must have a value, but not both. They cannot both be empty.

This parameter is not accessible using the Secrets Manager console.

--secret-string (string)

(Optional) Specifies updated text data that you want to encrypt and store in this new version of the secret. Either SecretBinary or SecretString must have a value, but not both. They cannot both be empty.

If you create this secret by using the Secrets Manager console then Secrets Manager puts the protected secret text in only the SecretString parameter. The Secrets Manager console stores the information as a JSON structure of key/value pairs that the default Lambda rotation function knows how to parse.

For storing multiple values, we recommend that you use a JSON text string argument and specify key/value pairs. For more information, see Specifying parameter values for the Amazon Web Services CLI in the Amazon Web Services CLI User Guide.

--cli-input-json | --cli-input-yaml (string) Reads arguments from the JSON string provided. The JSON string follows the format provided by --generate-cli-skeleton. If other arguments are provided on the command line, those values will override the JSON-provided values. It is not possible to pass arbitrary binary values using a JSON-provided value as the string will be taken literally. This may not be specified along with --cli-input-yaml.

--generate-cli-skeleton (string) Prints a JSON skeleton to standard output without sending an API request. If provided with no value or the value input, prints a sample input JSON that can be used as an argument for --cli-input-json. Similarly, if provided yaml-input it will print a sample input YAML that can be used with --cli-input-yaml. If provided with the value output, it validates the command inputs and returns a sample output JSON for that command.

See ‘aws help’ for descriptions of global parameters.

Examples

The following examples show how to modify individual components of the secret. Alternatively, you can combine all of the parameters into a single command to do them all in one operation.

To update the description of a secret

The following example shows how to modify the description of a secret.

aws secretsmanager update-secret --secret-id MyTestDatabaseSecret \
  --description "This is a new description for the secret."

The output shows the following:

{
  "ARN": "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-west-2:123456789012:secret:MyTestDatabaseSecret-a1b2c3",
  "Name": "MyTestDatabaseSecret"
}

To update the KMS key associated with a secret

This example shows how to update the KMS customer managed key (CMK) used to encrypt the secret value. The KMS CMK must be in the same region as the secret.

aws secretsmanager update-secret --secret-id MyTestDatabaseSecret \
  --kms-key-id arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/EXAMPLE1-90ab-cdef-fedc-ba987EXAMPLE

The output shows the following:

{
  "ARN": "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-west-2:123456789012:secret:MyTestDatabaseSecret-a1b2c3",
  "Name": "MyTestDatabaseSecret"
}

To create a new version of the encrypted secret value

The following example shows how to create a new version of the secret by updating the –secret-string field. The secret string is read from the contents of the specified file. Alternatively, you can use the put-secret-value operation.

aws secretsmanager update-secret --secret-id MyTestDatabaseSecret \
  --secret-string file://mycreds.json

The output shows the following, including the VersionId of the new secret version:

{
  "ARN": "aws:arn:secretsmanager:us-west-2:123456789012:secret:MyTestDatabaseSecret-a1b2c3",
  "Name": "MyTestDatabaseSecret",
  "VersionId": "EXAMPLE1-90ab-cdef-fedc-ba987EXAMPLE"
}

Output

ARN -> (string)

The ARN of the secret that was updated.

Note

Secrets Manager automatically adds several random characters to the name at the end of the ARN when you initially create a secret. This affects only the ARN and not the actual friendly name. This ensures that if you create a new secret with the same name as an old secret that you previously deleted, then users with access to the old secret don’t automatically get access to the new secret because the ARNs are different.

Name -> (string)

The friendly name of the secret that was updated.

VersionId -> (string)

If a new version of the secret was created by this operation, then VersionId contains the unique identifier of the new version.

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