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AWS Secrets Manager API Reference
AWS Secrets Manager API Reference Guide (API Version 2017-10-17)

AWS Documentation » AWS Secrets Manager » AWS Secrets Manager API Reference Guide » Actions » GetSecretValue

GetSecretValue

Retrieves the contents of the encrypted fields SecretString or SecretBinary from the specified version of a secret, whichever contains content.

Minimum permissions

To run this command, you must have the following permissions:

  • secretsmanager:GetSecretValue

  • kms:Decrypt - required only if you use a customer-managed AWS KMS key to encrypt the secret. You do not need this permission to use the account's default AWS managed CMK for Secrets Manager.

Related operations

  • To create a new version of the secret with different encrypted information, use PutSecretValue.

  • To retrieve the non-encrypted details for the secret, use DescribeSecret.

Request Syntax

{
   "SecretId": "string",
   "VersionId": "string",
   "VersionStage": "string"
}

Request Parameters

For information about the parameters that are common to all actions, see Common Parameters.

The request accepts the following data in JSON format.

SecretId

Specifies the secret containing the version that you want to retrieve. You can specify either the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) or the friendly name of the secret.

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 2048.

Required: Yes

VersionId

Specifies the unique identifier of the version of the secret that you want to retrieve. If you specify this parameter then don't specify VersionStage. If you don't specify either a VersionStage or VersionId then the default is to perform the operation on the version with the VersionStage value of AWSCURRENT.

This value is typically a UUID-type value with 32 hexadecimal digits.

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 32. Maximum length of 64.

Required: No

VersionStage

Specifies the secret version that you want to retrieve by the staging label attached to the version.

Staging labels are used to keep track of different versions during the rotation process. If you use this parameter then don't specify VersionId. If you don't specify either a VersionStage or VersionId, then the default is to perform the operation on the version with the VersionStage value of AWSCURRENT.

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 256.

Required: No

Response Syntax

{
   "ARN": "string",
   "CreatedDate": number,
   "Name": "string",
   "SecretBinary": blob,
   "SecretString": "string",
   "VersionId": "string",
   "VersionStages": [ "string" ]
}

Response Elements

If the action is successful, the service sends back an HTTP 200 response.

The following data is returned in JSON format by the service.

ARN

The ARN of the secret.

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 20. Maximum length of 2048.

CreatedDate

The date and time that this version of the secret was created.

Type: Timestamp

Name

The friendly name of the secret.

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 256.

SecretBinary

The decrypted part of the protected secret information that was originally provided as binary data in the form of a byte array. The response parameter represents the binary data as a base64-encoded string.

This parameter is not used if the secret is created by the Secrets Manager console.

If you store custom information in this field of the secret, then you must code your Lambda rotation function to parse and interpret whatever you store in the SecretString or SecretBinary fields.

Type: Base64-encoded binary data object

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 0. Maximum length of 4096.

SecretString

The decrypted part of the protected secret information that was originally provided as a string.

If you create this secret by using the Secrets Manager console then only the SecretString parameter contains data. Secrets Manager stores the information as a JSON structure of key/value pairs that the Lambda rotation function knows how to parse.

If you store custom information in the secret by using the CreateSecret, UpdateSecret, or PutSecretValue API operations instead of the Secrets Manager console, or by using the Other secret type in the console, then you must code your Lambda rotation function to parse and interpret those values.

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 0. Maximum length of 4096.

VersionId

The unique identifier of this version of the secret.

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 32. Maximum length of 64.

VersionStages

A list of all of the staging labels currently attached to this version of the secret.

Type: Array of strings

Array Members: Minimum number of 1 item. Maximum number of 20 items.

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 256.

Errors

For information about the errors that are common to all actions, see Common Errors.

DecryptionFailure

Secrets Manager can't decrypt the protected secret text using the provided KMS key.

HTTP Status Code: 400

InternalServiceError

An error occurred on the server side.

HTTP Status Code: 500

InvalidParameterException

You provided an invalid value for a parameter.

HTTP Status Code: 400

InvalidRequestException

You provided a parameter value that is not valid for the current state of the resource.

Possible causes:

  • You tried to perform the operation on a secret that's currently marked deleted.

  • You tried to enable rotation on a secret that doesn't already have a Lambda function ARN configured and you didn't include such an ARN as a parameter in this call.

HTTP Status Code: 400

ResourceNotFoundException

We can't find the resource that you asked for.

HTTP Status Code: 400

Example

The following example shows how to retrieve the secret string value from the version of the secret that has the AWSPREVIOUS staging label attached. If you want to retrieve the AWSCURRENT version of the secret, then omit the VersionStage parameter because it defaults to AWSCURRENT. The JSON request string input and response output are shown formatted with white space and line breaks for better readability. Submit your input as a single line JSON string.

Sample Request

POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: secretsmanager.region.domain
Accept-Encoding: identity
X-Amz-Target: secretsmanager.GetSecretValue
Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.1
User-Agent: <user-agent-string>
X-Amz-Date: <date>
Authorization: AWS4-HMAC-SHA256 Credential=<credentials>,SignedHeaders=<headers>, Signature=<signature>
Content-Length: <payload-size-bytes>

{
  "SecretId": "MyTestDatabaseSecret",
  "VersionStage": "AWSPREVIOUS"
}

Sample Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: <date>
Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.1
Content-Length: <response-size-bytes>
Connection: keep-alive
x-amzn-RequestId: <request-id-guid>

{
  "ARN":"arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-west-2:123456789012:secret:MyTestDatabaseSecret-a1b2c3",
  "CreatedDate":1.523477145713E9,
  "Name":"MyTestDatabaseSecret",
  "SecretString":"{\n  \"username\":\"david\",\n  \"password\":\"BnQw&XDWgaEeT9XGTT29\"\n}\n",
  "VersionId":"EXAMPLE1-90ab-cdef-fedc-ba987SECRET1",
  "VersionStages":["AWSPREVIOUS"]
}

See Also

For more information about using this API in one of the language-specific AWS SDKs, see the following: