Authentication methods using the vault API package

Question

I am trying to use the Vault Golang Package to authenticate using the API.

I created a new client, and then can set my token:

client, err := api.NewClient(&api.Config{Address: vaultAddr, HttpClient: httpClient})

 if err != nil {
   return nil, errors.Wrap(err, "could not create vault client")
 }

client.SetToken(token)

That's great and all, but I want to auth against the API using one of the other auth methods, (LDAP, Userpass etc)

Is this even possible? How can I retrieve a token using the API?

I guess I could just use net/http to retrieve the token using an API call, but is there any method to actually auth in another way?

Answer 1

I managed to figure this out, eventually. It's not totally obvious, but makes sense.

Vault has a generic write method it uses to write data. You can utilise this to perform a login with the API by simply building the URL and sending a PUT request to that endpoint

It looks a bit like this:

// create a vault client
client, err := api.NewClient(&api.Config{Address: url, HttpClient: httpClient})
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}

// to pass the password
options := map[string]interface{}{
   "password": password,        
}

// the login path
// this is configurable, change userpass to ldap etc
path := fmt.Sprintf("auth/userpass/login/%s", username)

// PUT call to get a token
secret, err := client.Logical().Write(path, options)