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Authentication with the Azure SDK for Go using a managed identity

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In this tutorial, you'll configure an Azure virtual machine with a managed identity to authenticate to Azure using the Azure SDK for Go.

Managed identities eliminate the need for you to manage credentials by providing an identity directly to an Azure resource. Permissions assigned to the identity grant the resource access to other Azure resources that support managed identities. Removing the need for you to pass credentials to your application.

Follow this tutorial to assign a managed identity to a virtual machine and authenticate to Azure using a managed identity.

Prerequisites

  • Azure subscription: If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.
  • Go installed: Version 1.18 or above

1. Configure your environment

Before you begin, you'll need to configure your environment.

Deploy a virtual machine

Deploy a virtual machine to Azure. You'll run the Go code to create a secret in Azure key vault from that virtual machine.

  1. Create an Azure resource group.

    az group create --name go-on-azure --location eastus

    Change the --location parameter to the appropriate value for your environment.

  2. Create the Azure virtual machine.

    az vm create \
--resource-group go-on-azure \
--name go-on-azure-vm \
--image canonical:ubuntuserver:19.04:latest \
--admin-username azureuser \
--admin-password <password>

    Replace the <password> your password.

To learn more about other services that support managed identities, see Services that support managed identities for Azure resources.

Deploy a key vault instance

Create a new Azure key vault instance by running the following command:

az keyvault create --location eastus --name `<keyVaultName>` --resource-group go-on-azure

Replace <keyVaultName> with a globally unique name.

2. Create a managed identity

Two types of managed identities are supported in Azure; system-assigned and user-assigned.

System-assigned identities are directly attached to an Azure resource and limited to only that resource. User-assigned identities are stand-alone resources that can be assigned to one or more Azure resources.

To learn more about the difference between system-assigned and user-assigned, check out Managed identity types.

Choose one of the following options:

Option 1: Create a system-assigned identity

Run the following commands to create a system-assigned managed identity:

az vm identity assign -g go-on-azure -n go-on-azure-vm

Option 2: Create a user-assigned identity

Run the following commands to create a user-assigned managed identity:

az identity create -g go-on-azure -n GoUserIdentity

az vm identity assign -g go-on-azure -n go-on-azure-vm --identities <UserIdentityId>

Replace <UserIdentityId> with the managed user identity's ID.

To learn more, check out Configure managed identities for Azure resources on an Azure VM using Azure CLI.

3. Assign a role to the managed identity

After a managed identity is created, you assign roles to grant the identity permissions to access other Azure resource. In this tutorial, you'll assign the built-in role of Key Vault Contributor to the managed identity so the Go application can create a secret within the key vault instance.

Choose one of the following options:

Option 1: Assign a role to a system-assigned identity

Run the following commands to assign the Key Vault Contributor role to the system-assigned managed identity:

#output system identity principal ID
az vm identity show --name go-on-azure-vm --resource-group go-on-azure --query 'principalId' -o tsv

#output key vault ID
scope=$(az keyvault show --name go-on-azure-kv --query id -o tsv)

az role assignment create --assignee '<principalId>' --role 'Key Vault Contributor' --scope '<keyVaultId>'

Option 2: Assign a role to a user-assigned identity

Run the following commands to assign the Key Vault Contributor role to the user-assigned managed identity:

#output user identity principal ID
az identity show --resource-group go-on-azure --name GoUserIdentity --query 'principalId' -o tsv

#output key vault ID
az keyvault show --name go-on-azure-kv --query id -o tsv

az role assignment create --assignee '<principalId>' --role 'Key Vault Contributor' --scope '<keyVaultId>'

To learn more about built-in roles, check out Azure built-in roles.

4. Create a key vault secret with Go

Next SSH into the Azure virtual machine, install Go, and built the Go package.

Install Go on the Azure VM

  1. Get the public IP address of the Azure virtual machine.

    az vm show -d -g go-on-azure -n go-on-azure-vm --query publicIps -o tsv

  2. SSH into the Azure VM.

    ssh azureuser@<public-ip>

    Replace <public-ip> with the public IP address of the Azure VM.

  3. Install Go

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:longsleep/golang-backports;
sudo apt update;
sudo apt install golang-go -y

Create the Go package

  1. Make a new directory with the name go-on-azure in your home directory.

    mkidr ~/go-on-azure

  2. Change to the go-on-azure directory.

    cd ~/go-on-azure

  3. Run go mod init to create the go.mod file.

    go mod init go-on-azure

  4. Run go get to install the required Go modules.

    go get "github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/sdk/azidentity"
go get "github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/sdk/keyvault/azsecrets"

  5. Create a main.go file and copy the following code into it.

    package main

import (
    "context"
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "os"

    "github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/sdk/azidentity"
    "github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/sdk/keyvault/azsecrets"
)

func createSecret() {
    keyVaultName := os.Getenv("KEY_VAULT_NAME")
    secretName := "quickstart-secret"
    secretValue := "createdWithGO"
    keyVaultUrl := fmt.Sprintf("https://%s.vault.azure.net/", keyVaultName)

    cred, err := azidentity.NewDefaultAzureCredential(nil)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatalf("failed to obtain a credential: %v", err)
    }

    client, err := azsecrets.NewClient(keyVaultUrl, cred, nil)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatalf("failed to create a client: %v", err)
    }

    resp, err := client.SetSecret(context.TODO(), secretName, secretValue, nil)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatalf("failed to create a secret: %v", err)
    }

    fmt.Printf("Name: %s, Value: %s\n", *resp.ID, *resp.Value)
}

func main() {
    createSecret()
}

Before you run the code, create an environment variable named KEY_VAULT_NAME. Set the environment variable's value to the name of the Azure Key Vault created previously. Replace <KeyVaultName> with the name of your Azure Key Vault instance.

export KEY_VAULT_NAME=<KeyVaultName>

Next, run go run command to create a key vault secret.

go run main.go

Verify the key vault secret was created using Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or the Azure portal.

Next steps

Learn more about using the Azure SDK for Go