Description

N8N HashiCorp Vault Node

This is a security-hardened version of the N8N HashiCorp Vault integration node. Created after discovering security vulnerabilities in the original n8n-nodes-hashicorp-vault package.

⚠️ Security Notice

This package was created as a secure alternative after identifying:

• Critical vulnerabilities in dependencies (form-data CVE)
• Missing source repository for original package
• Potential supply chain attack indicators

🚀 Features

• AppRole Authentication: Secure authentication using HashiCorp Vault's AppRole method
• Token Authentication: Direct token-based authentication
• KV v1 & v2 Support: Works with both Key-Value secret engines
• Namespace Support: Enterprise Vault namespace functionality
• SSL Configuration: Flexible SSL certificate validation options
• Security Hardened: Updated dependencies to resolve CVE vulnerabilities

📦 Installation

# Install from local package (recommended)
npm install file:./path/to/this/package

# Or from npm
npm install n8n-nodes-hashi-vault

🔧 Configuration

Credentials Setup

1. Vault URL: Your Vault instance URL (e.g., https://vault.example.com:8200)
2. Authentication Method: Choose between AppRole or Token
3. AppRole Configuration (if selected):
   • Role ID: Your AppRole Role ID
   • Secret ID: Your AppRole Secret ID
4. Token Configuration (if selected):
   • Token: Your Vault token
5. Optional Settings:
   • Namespace: Vault namespace (Enterprise feature)
   • API Version: KV engine version (v1 or v2)
   • Ignore SSL Issues: Skip SSL certificate validation

⚙️ Vault Configuration Examples

Token Authentication

Best for: Development, testing, or when you need simple setup.
Advantages: Quick setup, no additional Vault configuration needed.

# Create a token with KV access policy
vault policy write n8n-kv-policy - <<EOF
path "secret/data/*" {
  capabilities = ["create", "read", "update", "delete", "list"]
}
path "secret/metadata/*" {
  capabilities = ["list"]
}
EOF

# Generate token (expires in 24h)
vault token create -policy=n8n-kv-policy -ttl=24h

AppRole Authentication

Best for: Production, automated workflows, enhanced security.
Advantages: Token rotation, audit trails, granular permissions, no long-lived tokens in N8N.

# Enable AppRole auth method
vault auth enable approle

# Create policy
vault policy write n8n-kv-policy - <<EOF
path "secret/data/*" {
  capabilities = ["create", "read", "update", "delete", "list"]
}
path "secret/metadata/*" {
  capabilities = ["list"]
}
EOF

# Create AppRole
vault write auth/approle/role/n8n-role \
    token_policies="n8n-kv-policy" \
    token_ttl=1h \
    token_max_ttl=4h

# Get Role ID and Secret ID for N8N configuration
vault read auth/approle/role/n8n-role/role-id
vault write -f auth/approle/role/n8n-role/secret-id

Node Operations

Read Secret

{
  "secretEngine": "secret",
  "secretPath": "myapp/database",
  "version": 0
}

Write Secret

{
  "secretEngine": "secret",
  "secretPath": "myapp/database",
  "secretData": "{\"username\": \"myuser\", \"password\": \"mypassword\"}"
}

Delete Secret

{
  "secretEngine": "secret",
  "secretPath": "myapp/database"
}

List Secrets

{
  "secretEngine": "secret",
  "listPath": "myapp/"
}

🔒 Security Changes Made

Dependency Updates

• ✅ axios: Updated to ^1.7.9 (fixes form-data CVE)
• ✅ form-data: Resolved critical vulnerability (CWE-330)
• ✅ Development dependencies: Updated to latest secure versions

Code Integrity

• ✅ Source verification: Full code review completed
• ✅ No external endpoints: Confirmed communication only with configured Vault
• ✅ TypeScript conversion: Improved type safety
• ✅ Clean package: No suspicious dependencies or scripts

🧪 Testing

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

# Run tests
npm test

# Security audit
npm audit

📋 Development

# Development mode
npm run dev

# Format code
npm run format

# Lint code
npm run lint

🚨 Security Audit Results

npm audit
# Expected: 0 vulnerabilities found

🤝 Contributing

This is a security-focused fork. When contributing:

1. Security first: All changes must maintain or improve security posture
2. Dependency management: Keep dependencies minimal and up-to-date
3. Code review: All changes require security review
4. Testing: Include security tests for new features

📋 TODO – Performance Optimizations

🚀 Token Management

• Token Caching: Implement AppRole token caching with TTL to reduce authentication requests
• Token Renewal: Add automatic token renewal before expiration
• Connection Pooling: Reuse HTTP connections to Vault

🗄️ Secret Caching

• Secure Secret Caching: Implement encrypted in-memory or Redis-based secret caching
• TTL Management: Configurable TTL for cached secrets with automatic expiration
• Cache Invalidation: Manual and automatic cache clearing mechanisms
• Memory Security: Implement secure memory handling and cleanup for cached secrets

⚡ Performance Monitoring

• Metrics Collection: Track response times, cache hit ratios, and authentication frequency
• Memory Usage: Monitor cache memory consumption and implement LRU eviction

📜 License

MIT License – See LICENSE file for details

🛡️ Security

• Report vulnerabilities: Create an issue with [SECURITY] prefix
• Response time: Security issues will be addressed within 24 hours
• Disclosure: Coordinated disclosure preferred

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Original concept from the n8n-nodes-hashicorp-vault package
• Security improvements by @luisra51
• N8N community for the excellent automation platform

⚠️ Always verify package integrity and run security audits before deployment in production environments.