Write to Secret file in pod - kubernetes

Question

I define a Secret:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: mysecret
type: Opaque
stringData:
config.yaml: |-
apiUrl: "https://my.api.com/api/v1"
username: Administrator
password: NewPasswdTest11
And then creating volume mount in Deployment:
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: k8s-webapp-test
labels:
name: k8s-webapp-test
version: 1.0.4
spec:
replicas: 2
selector:
matchLabels:
name: k8s-webapp-test
version: 1.0.4
template:
metadata:
labels:
name: k8s-webapp-test
version: 1.0.4
spec:
nodeSelector:
kubernetes.io/os: windows
volumes:
- name: secret-volume
secret:
secretName: string-data-secret
containers:
- name: k8s-webapp-test
image: dockerstore/k8s-webapp-test:1.0.4
ports:
- containerPort: 80
volumeMounts:
- name: secret-volume
mountPath: "/secrets"
readOnly: false
So, after the deployment, I have 2 pods with volume mounts in C:\secrets (I do use Windows nodes). When I try to edit config.yaml that is located in C:\secrets folder, I get following error:
Access to the path 'c:\secrets\config.yaml' is denied.
Although I marked file as readOnly false I cannot write to it. How can I modify the file?

Answer 1

As you can see here it is not possible by intention:
Secret, configMap, downwardAPI and projected volumes will be mounted as read-only volumes. Applications that attempt to write to these volumes will receive read-only filesystem errors. Previously, applications were allowed to make changes to these volumes, but those changes were reverted at an arbitrary interval by the system. Applications should be re-configured to write derived files to another location
You can look into using an init container which maps the secret and then copies it to the desired location where you might be able to modify it.
As an alternative to the init container you might also use a container lifecycle hook i.e. a PostStart-hook which executes immediately after a container is created.
lifecycle:
postStart:
exec:
command:
- "/bin/sh"
- "-c"
- >
cp -r /secrets ~/secrets;

Answer 2

You can create secrets from within a Pod but it seems you need to utilize the Kubernetes REST API to do so:
https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/kubernetes-api/