--- title: "Kubernetes Agent Injector" description: "How to use the Infisical Kubernetes Agent Injector to inject secrets directly into Kubernetes pods." --- ## Overview The Infisical Kubernetes Agent Injector allows you to inject secrets directly into your Kubernetes pods. The Injector will create a [Infisical Agent](/integrations/platforms/infisical-agent) container within your pod that syncs secrets from Infisical into a shared volume mount within your pod. The Infisical Agent Injector will patch and modify your pod's deployment to contain an [Infisical Agent](/integrations/platforms/infisical-agent) container which renders your Infisical secrets into a shared volume mount within your pod. The Infisical Agent Injector is built on [Kubernetes Mutating Admission Webhooks](https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/admission-controllers), and will watch for `CREATE` and `UPDATE` events on pods in your cluster. The injector is namespace-agnostic, and will watch for pods in any namespace, but will only patch pods that have the `org.infisical.com/inject` annotation set to `true`. ```mermaid flowchart LR subgraph Secrets Management SS(Infisical) --> INJ(Infisical Injector) end subgraph Pod INJ --> INIT(Agent Init Container) INIT --> V(Volume) V <--> P(Application) end ``` ## Install the Infisical Agent Injector To install the Infisical Agent Injector, you will need to install our helm charts using [Helm](https://helm.sh/). ```bash helm repo add infisical-helm-charts 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/infisical/helm-charts/helm/charts/' helm repo update helm install --generate-name infisical-helm-charts/infisical-agent-injector ``` After installing the helm chart you can verify that the injector is running and working as intended by checking the logs of the injector pod. ```bash $ kubectl logs deployment/infisical-agent-injector 2025/05/19 14:20:05 Starting infisical-agent-injector... 2025/05/19 14:20:05 Generating self-signed certificate... 2025/05/19 14:20:06 Creating directory: /tmp/tls 2025/05/19 14:20:06 Writing cert to: /tmp/tls/tls.crt 2025/05/19 14:20:06 Writing key to: /tmp/tls/tls.key 2025/05/19 14:20:06 Starting HTTPS server on port 8585... 2025/05/19 14:20:06 Attempting to update webhook config (attempt 1)... 2025/05/19 14:20:06 Successfully updated webhook configuration with CA bundle ``` ## Windows support By default the agent injector is built for Linux-based pods, but supports injecting into Windows-based pods. **To inject into Windows-based pods, no extra configuration is needed.** The agent injector will automatically detect and handle injections into Windows-based pods. However, if you are trying to run the agent injector itself on a Windows-based pod, you'll need to configure your helm values.yaml file to point to a Windows-based image. The Agent Injector will only run on and inject into Windows-based pods that are running on the supported Windows versions: - **Windows Server 2022** - **Windows Server 2019** We're looking to add support for other Windows versions in the future. If you're using a different Windows version, please let us know by opening [an issue](https://github.com/Infisical/infisical-agent-injector/issues/new), and we'll look into adding support for your desired version as soon as possible. You will need to set the `nodeSelector.kubernetes.io/os` label to `windows` and set the image tag to a Windows-based image. Below are two examples for Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server 2022. Create your `values.yaml` file and add the following: ```yaml values.yaml image: repository: infisical/infisical-agent-injector tag: "v0.1.4-windows-server-2019" nodeSelector: kubernetes.io/os: windows ``` Install the agent injector using the values.yaml file you created above. ```bash helm install --generate-name infisical-helm-charts/infisical-agent-injector -f values.yaml ``` Create your `values.yaml` file and add the following: ```yaml values.yaml image: repository: infisical/infisical-agent-injector tag: "v0.1.4-windows-server-2022" nodeSelector: kubernetes.io/os: windows ``` Install the agent injector using the values.yaml file you created above. ```bash helm install --generate-name infisical-helm-charts/infisical-agent-injector -f values.yaml ``` Note that Windows support is only supported in version `v0.1.4` and above. If you are using an older version, you will need to upgrade to `v0.1.4` or above to use Windows support. ## Supported annotations The Infisical Agent Injector supports the following annotations: The inject annotation is used to enable the injector on a pod. Set the value to `true` and the pod will be patched with an Infisical Agent container on update or create. The inject mode annotation is used to specify the mode to use to inject the secrets into the pod. - `init`: The init method will create an init container for the pod that will render the secrets into a shared volume mount within the pod. The agent init container will run before any other containers in the pod runs, including other init containers. - `sidecar`: The sidecar method will create a sidecar container for the pod that will render the secrets into a shared volume mount within the pod. The agent sidecar container will run alongside the main container in the pod. This means that the secrets rendered will always be in sync with your Infisical secrets. - `sidecar-init`: The sidecar-init method will create the init container and the sidecar container from the other two methods. The init container will run before any other container and fetch the secrets from the start and the sidecar container will keep the secrets in sync throughout the lifecycle of the deployment. The agent config map annotation is used to specify the name of the config map that contains the configuration for the injector. The config map must be in the same namespace as the pod. ## ConfigMap Configuration ### Supported Fields When you are configuring a pod to use the injector, you must create a config map in the same namespace as the pod you want to inject secrets into. The entire config needs to be of string format and needs to be assigned to the `config.yaml` key in the config map. You can find a full example of the config at the end of this section. The address of your Infisical instance. This field is optional and will default to `https://app.infisical.com` if not provided. Whether to revoke all managed dynamic secret leases and identity access tokens on shutdown. Default: `"false"`. If this is set to `true`, all managed dynamic secret leases and identity access tokens will be revoked when a `SIGTERM` signal is sent to the agents container _(such as when a pod is terminated or when the pod is restarted)_. **Note:** In disaster events such as cluster power outages, a `SIGTERM` signal won't be sent to the agents container, and the credentials will not be revoked. Note that this is currently unsupported on Windows-based pods, and will only work when injecting into Linux-based pods. The authentication type to use to connect to Infisical. Currently only the `kubernetes` authentication type is supported. You can refer to our [Kubernetes Auth](/documentation/platform/identities/kubernetes-auth) documentation for more information on how to create a machine identity for Kubernetes Auth. Please note that the pod's default service account will be used to authenticate with Infisical. The ID of the machine identity to use to connect to Infisical. This field is required if the `infisical.auth.type` is set to `kubernetes`. The templates hold an array of templates that will be rendered and injected into the pod. The path to inject the secrets into within the pod. If not specified, this will default to `/shared/infisical-secrets`. If you have multiple templates and don't provide a destination path, the destination paths will default to `/shared/infisical-secrets-1`, `/shared/infisical-secrets-2`, etc. The content of the template to render. This will be rendered as a [Go Template](https://pkg.go.dev/text/template) and will have access to the following variables. It follows the templating format and supports the same functions as the [Infisical Agent](/integrations/platforms/infisical-agent#quick-start-infisical-agent) ### Authentication The Infisical Agent Injector supports Machine Identity [Kubernetes Auth](/documentation/platform/identities/kubernetes-auth) and [LDAP Auth](/documentation/platform/identities/ldap-auth) authentication. To configure Kubernetes Auth, you need to set the `auth.type` field to `kubernetes` and set the `auth.config.identity-id` to the ID of the machine identity you wish to use for authentication. ```yaml auth: type: "kubernetes" config: identity-id: "" ``` ### Example ConfigMap ```yaml config-map.yaml apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: demo-config-map data: config.yaml: | infisical: address: "https://app.infisical.com" auth: type: "kubernetes" config: identity-id: "" templates: - destination-path: "/path/to/save/secrets/file.txt" template-content: | {{- with secret "" "dev" "/" }} {{- range . }} {{ .Key }}={{ .Value }} {{- end }} {{- end }} ``` ```bash kubectl apply -f config-map.yaml ``` To configure LDAP Auth, you need to set the `auth.type` field to `ldap-auth` and set the `auth.config.identity-id` to the ID of the machine identity you wish to use for authentication. Configure the `auth.config.username` and `auth.config.password` to the username and password of the LDAP user to authenticate with. ```yaml auth: type: "ldap-auth" config: identity-id: "" username: "" password: "" ``` ### Example ConfigMap ```yaml config-map.yaml apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: demo-config-map data: config.yaml: | infisical: address: "https://app.infisical.com" auth: type: "ldap-auth" config: identity-id: "" username: "" password: "" templates: - destination-path: "/path/to/save/secrets/file.txt" template-content: | {{- with secret "" "dev" "/" }} {{- range . }} {{ .Key }}={{ .Value }} {{- end }} {{- end }} ``` ```bash kubectl apply -f config-map.yaml ``` To use the config map in your pod, you will need to add the `org.infisical.com/agent-config-map` annotation to your pod's deployment. The value of the annotation is the name of the config map you created above. ```yaml apiVersion: v1 kind: Pod metadata: name: demo labels: app: demo annotations: org.infisical.com/inject: "true" # Set to true for the injector to patch the pod on create/update events org.infisical.com/inject-mode: "init" # The mode to use to inject the secrets into the pod. init|sidecar org.infisical.com/agent-config-map: "name-of-config-map" # The name of the config map that you created above, which contains all the settings for injecting the secrets into the pod spec: # ... ``` ## Quick Start In this section we'll walk through a full example of how to inject secrets into a pod using the Infisical Agent Injector. In this example we'll create a basic nginx deployment and print a Infisical secret called `API_KEY` to the container logs. ### Create secrets in Infisical First you'll need to create the secret in Infisical. - `API_KEY`: The API key to use for the nginx deployment. Once you've created the secret, save your project ID, environment slug, and secret path, as these will be used in the next step. ### Configuration To use the injector you must create a config map in the same namespace as the pod you want to inject secrets into. In this example we'll create a config map in the `test-namespace` namespace. The agent injector will authenticate with Infisical using a [Kubernetes Auth](/documentation/platform/identities/kubernetes-auth) machine identity. Please follow the [instructions](/documentation/platform/identities/kubernetes-auth) to create a machine identity configured for Kubernetes Auth. The agent injector will use the service account token of the pod to authenticate with Infisical. The `template-content` will be rendered as a [Go Template](https://pkg.go.dev/text/template) and will have access to the following variables. It follows the templating format and supports the same functions as the [Infisical Agent](/integrations/platforms/infisical-agent#quick-start-infisical-agent) The `destination-path` refers to the path within the pod that the secrets will be injected into. In this case we're injecting the secrets into a file called `/infisical/secrets`. Replace the ``, ``, with your project ID and the environment slug of where you created your secrets in Infisical. Replace `` with the ID of your machine identity configured for Kubernetes Auth. ```yaml config-map.yaml apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: nginx-infisical-config-map namespace: test-namespace data: config.yaml: | infisical: address: "https://app.infisical.com" auth: type: "kubernetes" config: identity-id: "" templates: - destination-path: "/infisical/secrets" template-content: | {{- with secret "" "" "/" }} {{- range . }} {{ .Key }}={{ .Value }} {{- end }} {{- end }} ``` Now apply the config map: ```bash kubectl apply -f config-map.yaml ``` ### Injecting secrets into your pod To inject secrets into your pod, you will need to add the `org.infisical.com/inject: "true"` annotation to your pod's deployment. The `org.infisical.com/agent-config-map` annotation will point to the config map we created in the previous step. It's important that the config map is in the same namespace as the pod. We are creating a nginx deployment with a PVC to store the database data. ```yaml nginx.yaml --- apiVersion: v1 kind: Pod metadata: name: nginx-pod namespace: test-namespace labels: app: nginx annotations: org.infisical.com/inject: "true" org.infisical.com/inject-mode: "init" org.infisical.com/agent-config-map: "nginx-infisical-config-map" spec: containers: - name: simple-app-demo image: nginx:alpine command: ["/bin/sh", "-c"] args: - | export $(cat /infisical/secrets | xargs) echo "API_KEY is set to: $API_KEY" nginx -g "daemon off;" ``` ### Applying the deployment To apply the deployment, you can use the following command: ```bash kubectl apply -f nginx.yaml ``` It may take a few minutes for the pod to be ready and for the Infisical secrets to be injected. You can check the status of the pod by running: ```bash kubectl get pods -n test-namespace ``` ### Verifying the secrets are injected To verify the secrets are injected, you can check the pod's logs: ```bash $ kubectl exec -it pod/nginx-pod -n test-namespace -- cat /infisical/secrets Defaulted container "simple-app-demo" out of: simple-app-demo, infisical-agent-init (init) API_KEY=sk_api_... # The secret you created in Infisical ``` Additionally you can now check that the `API_KEY` secret is being logged to the nginx container logs: ```bash $ kubectl logs pod/nginx-pod -n test-namespace Defaulted container "simple-app-demo" out of: simple-app-demo, infisical-agent-init (init) API_KEY is set to: sk_api_... # The secret you created in Infisical ``` ## Troubleshooting If the pod is stuck in `Init` state, it means the Agent init container is failing to start or is stuck in a restart loop. This could be due to a number of reasons, such as the machine identity not having the correct permissions, or trying to fetch secrets from a non-existent project/environment. You can check the logs of the infisical init container by running: ```bash # For deployments kubectl logs deployment/your-deployment-name -c infisical-agent-init -n "" # For pods kubectl logs pod/your-pod-name -c infisical-agent-init -n "" ``` You can also check the logs of the pod by running: ```bash kubectl logs deployment/postgres-deployment -n test-namespace ``` When checking the logs of the agent init container, you may see something like the following: ```bash Starting infisical agent... 11:10AM INF starting Infisical agent... 11:10AM INF Infisical instance address set to https://daniel1.tunn.dev 11:10AM INF template engine started for template 1... 11:10AM INF attempting to authenticate... 11:10AM INF new access token saved to file at path '/home/infisical/config/identity-access-token' 11:10AM ERR unable to process template because template: literalTemplate:1:9: executing "literalTemplate" at : error calling secret: CallGetRawSecretsV3: Unsuccessful response [GET https://daniel1.tunn.dev/api/v3/secrets/raw?environment=dev&expandSecretReferences=true&include_imports=true&secretPath=%2F&workspaceId=3c0d3ff6-165c-4dc9-b52c-ff3ffaedfce311111] [status-code=404] [response={"reqId":"req-ljqNq567jchFrK","statusCode":404,"message":"Project with ID '3c0d3ff6-165c-4dc9-b52c-ff3ffaedfce311111' not found during bot lookup. Are you sure you are using the correct project ID?","error":"NotFound"}] + echo 'Agent failed with exit code 1' + exit 1 Agent failed with exit code 1 ``` In the above error, the project ID was invalid in the config map.