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Authentication with the Azure SDK for Go using a managed identity

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In this tutorial, you 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 in your application. You can use managed identities to authenticate and authorize Azure-hosted apps with other Azure resources.

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.

1. Create Azure resources

Before you begin, you need to create a new resource group, virtual machine, and key vault instance.

Deploy a virtual machine

Deploy a virtual machine to Azure. You 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:0001-com-ubuntu-server-jammy:22_04-lts: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 --enable-rbac-authorization

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 GoUserIdentity

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 assign the built-in role of Key Vault Secrets Officer 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 Secrets Officer 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
az keyvault show --name <keyVaultName> --query id -o tsv

az role assignment create --assignee <principalId> --role "Key Vault Secrets Officer" --scope <keyVaultId>

In the second command, replace <keyVaultName> with the name of your key vault. In the last command, replace <principalId> and <keyVaultId> with the output from the first two commands.

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

Run the following commands to assign the Key Vault Secrets Officer 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 <keyVaultName> --query id -o tsv

az role assignment create --assignee <principalId> --role "Key Vault Secrets Officer" --scope <keyVaultId>

In the second command, replace <keyVaultName> with the name of your key vault. In the last command, replace <principalId> and <keyVaultId> with the output from the first two commands.

To learn more about built-in roles in Azure key vault, see Provide access to Key Vault keys, certificates, and secrets with an Azure role-based access control. To learn more about built-in roles in Azure, see 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.

    mkdir ~/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/security/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/security/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)
    }

    params := azsecrets.SetSecretParameters{Value: &secretValue}
    resp, err := client.SetSecret(context.TODO(), secretName, params, 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()
}

  6. Create an environment variable named KEY_VAULT_NAME. Replace <keyVaultName> with the name of your Azure key vault instance.

    export KEY_VAULT_NAME=<keyVaultName>

  7. Run go run command to create a key vault secret.

    go run main.go

    On success, the output is similar to the following:

    Name: https://<keyVaultName>.vault.azure.net/secrets/quickstart-secret/0e0b941824c4493bb3b83045a31b2bf7, Value: createdWithGO

You can verify the key vault secret was created using Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or the Azure portal.

Note

If you use the Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell, you need to make sure that your Azure user account is assigned a role that permits it to read secrets in the key vault like "Key Vault Secrets Officer" or "Key Vault Secrets User".

5. Clean up resources

If you no longer want to use the Azure resources you created in this article, it's a good practice to delete them. Deleting unused resources helps you avoid incurring ongoing charges and keeps your subscription uncluttered. The easiest way to delete the resources you used in this tutorial is to delete the resource group.

az group delete --name go-on-azure --force-deletion-types Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines --yes

The force-deletion-type argument tells the command to force deletion of VMs in the resource group. The --yes argument tells the command not to ask for confirmation.

The preceding command performs a soft delete on the key vault in the resource group. To permanently remove it from your subscription, enter the following command:

az keyvault purge --name <keyVaultName> --no-wait

Replace <keyVaultName> with the name of your key vault.

Next steps

Learn more about using the Azure SDK for Go