identity Block

The identity block allows a task access to its Workload Identity via an environment variable or file. Nomad will create a default identity for all workloads, but it is not exposed to a task. You may also set additional identities intended for use with external applications such as Vault, Consul, or OIDC authentication.

For example, the following will expose the default Workload Identity as an environment variable and file to the task, and a second Workload Identity configured for a third-party OIDC provider:

job "docs" {  group "example" {    task "api" {      identity {        env         = true        file        = true        # Restart on token renewal to get the new env var        change_mode = "restart"      }      identity {        name        = "example"        aud         = ["oidc.example.com"]        file        = true        ttl         = "1h"        # Send a HUP signal when the token file is updated        change_mode   = "signal"        change_signal = "SIGHUP"      }      # ...    }  }}

identity Parameters

• name (string: "default") - The name of the workload identity, which must be unique per task. Only one identity block in a task can omit the name field.

• aud ([]string: nil) - The audience field for the workload identity. This should always be set for non-default identities.

• change_mode (string: "noop") - Specifies the behavior Nomad should take when the token changes.

  • "noop" - take no action. The default since tasks may choose to reload tokens only when their current token gets rejected or implement their own change detection.
  • "restart" - restart the task.
  • "signal" - send a configurable signal to the task. Must set change_signal.

• change_signal (string: "") - Specifies the signal to send to the task as a string like "SIGHUP" or "SIGUSR1". This option is required if the change_mode is signal.

• env (bool: false) - If true the workload identity will be available in the task's NOMAD_TOKEN environment variable.

• file (bool: false) - If true the workload identity will be available in the task's filesystem via the path secrets/nomad_token. If the task.user parameter is set, the token file will only be readable by that user. Otherwise the file is readable by everyone but is protected by parent directory permissions.

• ttl (string: "") - The lifetime of the identity before it expires. The client will renew the identity at roughly half the TTL. This is specified using a label suffix like "30s" or "1h". You may not set a TTL on the default identity. You should always set a TTL for non-default identities.

Task API

It can be convenient to combine workload identity with Nomad's Task API for enabling tasks to access the Nomad API.

Workload Identities for Consul

Jobs that need access to Consul can use Nomad workload identities for authentication. These identities are specified as additional identity blocks inside the task or service that will access Consul.

You can configure Nomad servers to automatically add default identities for Consul using the consul.service_identity and consul.task_identity agent configuration. Upon job registration, the Nomad server updates tasks that have a consul or template block and services that use the Consul service provider to include the default identities.

You can also specify these identities directly in the job. When provided, they override the default identities configured in the Nomad servers. Identities for tasks must have a name that follows the pattern consul_<cluster name>. Identities for services do not need to specify a name.

In Nomad Community Edition, <cluster_name> is always default, so the task identity name should be consul_default.

Refer to Nomad Workload Identities section of the Consul integration documentation for more information.

job "httpd" {  group "httpd" {    consul {}    network {      port "http" {}    }    service {      provider = "consul"      name     = "httpd"      port     = "http"      identity {        aud = ["consul.io"]        ttl = "1h"      }    }    task "httpd" {      driver = "docker"      config {        image   = "busybox:1.36"        command = "httpd"        args    = ["-f", "-p", "${NOMAD_PORT_http}"]        ports   = ["http"]      }      identity {        name = "consul_default"        aud  = ["consul.io"]        ttl  = "1h"      }    }  }}

job "httpd" {  group "httpd" {    consul {      cluster = "prod"    }    network {      port "http" {}    }    service {      provider = "consul"      name     = "httpd"      port     = "http"      identity {        aud = ["consul.io"]        ttl = "1h"      }    }    task "httpd" {      driver = "docker"      config {        image   = "busybox:1.36"        command = "httpd"        args    = ["-f", "-p", "${NOMAD_PORT_http}"]        ports   = ["http"]      }      identity {        name = "consul_prod"        aud  = ["consul.io"]        ttl  = "1h"      }    }  }}

Workload Identities for Vault

Jobs that need access to Vault can use Nomad workload identities for authentication. These identities are specified as additional identity blocks inside the task that will access Vault.

You can configure Nomad servers to automatically add default identities for Vault using the vault.default_identity agent configuration. Upon job registration, the Nomad server updates tasks that have a vault block to include the default identity.

You can also specify these identities directly in the job. When provided, they override the default identity configured in the Nomad servers. The identity name must follow the pattern vault_<cluster name>.

In Nomad Community Edition, <cluster_name> is always default, so the identity name should be vault_default.

Refer to Nomad Workload Identities section of the Vault integration documentation for more information.

job "mongo" {  namespace = "default"  group "db" {    network {      port "db" {        to = 27017      }    }    task "mongo" {      driver = "docker"      config {        image = "mongo:7"        ports = ["db"]      }      vault {}      identity {        name = "vault_default"        aud  = ["vault.io"]        ttl  = "1h"      }      template {        data        = <<EOF{{with secret "kv/data/default/mongo/config"}}MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME=rootMONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD={{.Data.data.root_password}}{{end}}EOF        destination = "secrets/env"        env         = true      }    }  }}

job "mongo" {  namespace = "default"  group "db" {    network {      port "db" {        to = 27017      }    }    task "mongo" {      driver = "docker"      config {        image = "mongo:7"        ports = ["db"]      }      vault {        cluster = "prod"      }      identity {        name = "vault_prod"        aud  = ["vault.io"]        ttl  = "1h"      }      template {        data        = <<EOF{{with secret "kv/data/default/mongo/config"}}MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME=rootMONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD={{.Data.data.root_password}}{{end}}EOF        destination = "secrets/env"        env         = true      }    }  }}