create-secret¶

Description¶

Creates a new secret. A secret can be a password, a set of credentials such as a user name and password, an OAuth token, or other secret information that you store in an encrypted form in Secrets Manager. The secret also includes the connection information to access a database or other service, which Secrets Manager doesn’t encrypt. A secret in Secrets Manager consists of both the protected secret data and the important information needed to manage the secret.

For information about creating a secret in the console, see Create a secret .

To create a secret, you can provide the secret value to be encrypted in either the SecretString parameter or the SecretBinary parameter, but not both. If you include SecretString or SecretBinary then Secrets Manager creates an initial secret version and automatically attaches the staging label AWSCURRENT to it.

For database credentials you want to rotate, for Secrets Manager to be able to rotate the secret, you must make sure the JSON you store in the SecretString matches the JSON structure of a database secret .

If you don’t specify an KMS encryption key, Secrets Manager uses the Amazon Web Services managed key 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 Amazon Web Services account automatically have access to use aws/secretsmanager . Creating aws/secretsmanager can result in a one-time significant delay in returning the result.

If the secret is in a different Amazon Web Services account from the credentials calling the API, then you can’t use aws/secretsmanager to encrypt the secret, and you must create and use a customer managed KMS key.

Required permissions: secretsmanager:CreateSecret . If you include tags in the secret, you also need secretsmanager:TagResource . For more information, see IAM policy actions for Secrets Manager and Authentication and access control in Secrets Manager .

To encrypt the secret with a KMS key other than aws/secretsmanager , you need kms:GenerateDataKey and kms:Decrypt permission to the key.

Synopsis¶

  create-secret
--name <value>
[--client-request-token <value>]
[--description <value>]
[--kms-key-id <value>]
[--secret-binary <value>]
[--secret-string <value>]
[--tags <value>]
[--add-replica-regions <value>]
[--force-overwrite-replica-secret | --no-force-overwrite-replica-secret]
[--cli-input-json | --cli-input-yaml]
[--generate-cli-skeleton <value>]

Options¶

--name (string)

The name of the new secret.

The secret name can contain ASCII letters, numbers, and the following characters: /_+=.@-

Do not end your secret name with a hyphen followed by six characters. If you do so, you risk confusion and unexpected results when searching for a secret by partial ARN. Secrets Manager automatically adds a hyphen and six random characters after the secret name at the end of the ARN.

--client-request-token (string)

If you include SecretString or SecretBinary , then Secrets Manager creates an initial version for the secret, and this parameter specifies the unique identifier for the new version.

Note

If you use the Amazon Web Services CLI or one of the Amazon Web Services SDKs to call this operation, then you can leave this parameter empty. The CLI or SDK generates a random UUID for you and includes it as the value for this parameter 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 the new version and include the value in the request.

This value helps ensure idempotency. Secrets Manager uses this value to prevent the accidental creation of duplicate versions if there are failures and retries during a rotation. We recommend that you generate a UUID-type value to ensure uniqueness of your versions within the specified secret.

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 the version SecretString and SecretBinary values are the same as those in the request, then the request is ignored.

If a version with this value already exists and that version’s SecretString and SecretBinary values are different from those in the request, then the request fails because you cannot modify an existing version. Instead, use PutSecretValue to create a new version.

This value becomes the VersionId of the new version.

--description (string)

The description of the secret.

--kms-key-id (string)

The ARN, key ID, or alias of the KMS key that Secrets Manager uses to encrypt the secret value in the secret.

To use a KMS key in a different account, use the key ARN or the alias ARN.

If you don’t specify this value, then Secrets Manager uses the key aws/secretsmanager . If that key doesn’t yet exist, then Secrets Manager creates it for you automatically the first time it encrypts the secret value.

If the secret is in a different Amazon Web Services account from the credentials calling the API, then you can’t use aws/secretsmanager to encrypt the secret, and you must create and use a customer managed KMS key.

--secret-binary (blob)

The binary data to encrypt and store in the new version of the secret. We recommend that you store your binary data in a file and then pass the contents of the file as a parameter.

Either SecretString or SecretBinary must have a value, but not both.

This parameter is not available in the Secrets Manager console.

--secret-string (string)

The text data to encrypt and store in this new version of the secret. We recommend you use a JSON structure of key/value pairs for your secret value.

Either SecretString or SecretBinary must have a value, but not both.

If you create a 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 a Lambda rotation function can parse.

--tags (list)

A list of tags to attach to the secret. Each tag is a key and value pair of strings in a JSON text string, for example:

[{"Key":"CostCenter","Value":"12345"},{"Key":"environment","Value":"production"}]

Secrets Manager tag key names are case sensitive. A tag with the key “ABC” is a different tag from one with key “abc”.

If you check tags in permissions policies as part of your security strategy, then adding or removing a tag can change permissions. If the completion of this operation would result in you losing your permissions for this secret, then Secrets Manager blocks the operation and returns an Access Denied error. For more information, see Control access to secrets using tags and Limit access to identities with tags that match secrets’ tags .

For information about how to format a JSON parameter for the various command line tool environments, see Using JSON for Parameters . If your command-line tool or SDK requires quotation marks around the parameter, you should use single quotes to avoid confusion with the double quotes required in the JSON text.

The following restrictions apply to tags:

Maximum number of tags per secret: 50

Maximum key length: 127 Unicode characters in UTF-8

Maximum value length: 255 Unicode characters in UTF-8

Tag keys and values are case sensitive.

Do not use the aws: prefix in your tag names or values because Amazon Web Services reserves it for Amazon Web Services use. You can’t edit or delete tag names or values with this prefix. Tags with this prefix do not count against your tags per secret limit.

If you use your tagging schema across multiple services and resources, other services might have restrictions on allowed characters. Generally allowed characters: letters, spaces, and numbers representable in UTF-8, plus the following special characters: + - = . _ : / @.

(structure)

A structure that contains information about a tag.

Key -> (string)

The key identifier, or name, of the tag.

Value -> (string)

The string value associated with the key of the tag.

Shorthand Syntax:

Key=string,Value=string ...

JSON Syntax:

[
  {
    "Key": "string",
    "Value": "string"
  }
  ...
]

--add-replica-regions (list)

A list of Regions and KMS keys to replicate secrets.

(structure)

A custom type that specifies a Region and the KmsKeyId for a replica secret.

Region -> (string)

A Region code. For a list of Region codes, see Name and code of Regions .

KmsKeyId -> (string)

The ARN, key ID, or alias of the KMS key to encrypt the secret. If you don’t include this field, Secrets Manager uses aws/secretsmanager .

Shorthand Syntax:

Region=string,KmsKeyId=string ...

JSON Syntax:

[
  {
    "Region": "string",
    "KmsKeyId": "string"
  }
  ...
]

--force-overwrite-replica-secret | --no-force-overwrite-replica-secret (boolean)

Specifies whether to overwrite a secret with the same name in the destination Region.

--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¶

Example 1: To create a secret

The following create-secret example creates a secret with two key-value pairs.

aws secretsmanager create-secret \
    --name MyTestSecret \
    --description "My test secret created with the CLI." \
    --secret-string "{\"user\":\"diegor\",\"password\":\"EXAMPLE-PASSWORD\"}"

Output:

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

For more information, see Create a secret in the Secrets Manager User Guide.

Example 2: To create a secret from credentials in a JSON file

The following create-secret example creates a secret from credentials in a file. For more information, see Loading AWS CLI parameters from a file in the AWS CLI User Guide.

aws secretsmanager create-secret \
    --name MyTestSecret \
    --secret-string file://mycreds.json

Contents of mycreds.json:

{
  "engine": "mysql",
  "username": "saanvis",
  "password": "EXAMPLE-PASSWORD",
  "host": "my-database-endpoint.us-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com",
  "dbname": "myDatabase",
  "port": "3306"
}

Output:

{
  "ARN": "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-west-2:123456789012:secret:MyTestSecret-a1b2c3",
  "Name": "MyTestSecret",
  "VersionId": "a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-EXAMPLE11111"
}

For more information, see Create a secret in the Secrets Manager User Guide.

Output¶

ARN -> (string)

The ARN of the new secret. The ARN includes the name of the secret followed by six random characters. This ensures that if you create a new secret with the same name as a deleted secret, then users with access to the old secret don’t get access to the new secret because the ARNs are different.

Name -> (string)

The name of the new secret.

VersionId -> (string)

The unique identifier associated with the version of the new secret.

ReplicationStatus -> (list)

A list of the replicas of this secret and their status:

Failed , which indicates that the replica was not created.

InProgress , which indicates that Secrets Manager is in the process of creating the replica.

InSync , which indicates that the replica was created.

(structure)

A replication object consisting of a RegionReplicationStatus object and includes a Region, KMSKeyId, status, and status message.

Region -> (string)

The Region where replication occurs.

KmsKeyId -> (string)

Can be an ARN , Key ID , or Alias .

Status -> (string)

The status can be InProgress , Failed , or InSync .

StatusMessage -> (string)

Status message such as “Secret with this name already exists in this region “.

LastAccessedDate -> (timestamp)

The date that you last accessed the secret in the Region.

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