aws-key-rotation-scripts

Bash scripts for automating AWS EC2 and IAM key rotation.

These bash scripts are used to automate key rotation for AWS. They are the companion code to this blog article: [Strengthen Your AWS Security by Protecting App Credentials and Automating EC2 and IAM Key Rotation] (http://www.randomant.net/strengthen-your-aws-security-by-protecting-app-credentials-and-automating-ec2-and-iam-key-rotation)

rotate-ec2-key.sh is a bash script that rotates EC2 SSH keys. It is has been tested with Ubuntu, Amazon Linux and CoreOS. CoreOS does not support EC2 key rotation if you are using cloud-config. It only works if you use CoreOS's new initialization/provisioning system Ignition. See the blog article referenced above for more details on why Ignition is required.

The script follows the process below to rotate the key:

1. Create a new key pair using ssh-keygen (not using AWS’s key pair functionality.)
2. Add the public key portion of the SSH key pair to the ~./ssh/authorized_keys file for the root/admin account on the EC2 instance.
3. Test by logging into the instance with the new key.
4. For CoreOS instances: If everything works, remove the original key by replacing the SSH key in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/coreos-ignition file and run update-ssh-key to enable the change. For other distros: If everything works, remove the original key from the ~./ssh/authorized_keys file.
5. Re-test to confirm it still works.
6. Create/update a tag called “EC2KeyName” that contains the name of the new SSH key

The rotate-ec2-key.sh script accepts the following command line options:

  usage: rotate-ec2-key.sh [options...]
  options:
  -s --ssh-key-file  Path to EC2 private ssh key file for the key to be replaced. Required.
  -h --host          IP address or DNS name for the EC2 instance. Required.
  -a --aws-key-file  The file for the .csv access key file for an AWS administrator. Optional. The AWS
                     administrator must have the rights to create tags for EC2 instances. The script
                     expects the .csv format used when you download the key from IAM in the AWS console.
                     If you don't specify a key file, the script will use your existing CLI
                     configuration settings.
                     the default credentials in ~/.aws/credentials will be used.
  -u --user          Root/admin user for the EC2 instance. Optional. The default value is 'core' (for
                     the CoreOS distro).
  -j --json          A file to send JSON output to. Optional.
     --help          Prints this help message

rotate-iam-key.sh is a bash script that rotates an IAM user's key. The script follows the process below to rotate the key:

1. Create a new (second) access key for the user.
2. Test the application code with the new key.
3. If nothing breaks, de-activate the old key.
4. Re-test.
5. If nothing breaks, delete the old key.

The script does a fairly simple test in step #4: it merely attempts to get an object from S3, and if it’s successful, the test passes. The actual tests used in your production environment will likely be more extensive and will vary based on your business requirements.

The rotate-iam-key.sh script accepts the following command line options:

usage: rotate-iam-user-key.sh [options...]
options:
 -a --aws-key-file  The file for the .csv access key file for an AWS administrator. Required. The AWS administrator must
                    have the rights to list and update credentials for the IAM user. The script expects the .csv format
                    used when you dowload the key from IAM in the AWS console.
 -s --s3-test-file  Specifies a test text file stored in S3 used for testing. Required. The IAM user must have
                    GET access to this file.
 -c --csv-key-file  The name of the output .csv file containing the new access key information. Optional.
 -u --user          The IAM user whose key you want to rotate. Required.
 -j --json          A file to send JSON output to. Optional.
    --help          Prints this help message