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HashiCorp

VAULT-ASSOCIATE-002 · Question #87

An organization wants to authenticate an AWS EC2 virtual machine with Vault to access a dynamic database secret. The only authentication method which they can use in this case is AWS.

The correct answer is B. False. It is false that AWS is the only authentication method an EC2 instance can use with Vault; other methods like AppRole are also viable.

Submitted by mateo_ar· Apr 18, 2026Understand Vault Concepts

Question

An organization wants to authenticate an AWS EC2 virtual machine with Vault to access a dynamic database secret. The only authentication method which they can use in this case is AWS.

Options

  • ATrue
  • BFalse

How the community answered

(40 responses)
  • A
    5% (2)
  • B
    95% (38)

Why each option

It is false that AWS is the *only* authentication method an EC2 instance can use with Vault; other methods like AppRole are also viable.

ATrue

This statement is false because Vault offers multiple authentication methods, such as AppRole, which are suitable for machine-to-machine authentication for EC2 instances, not just the AWS auth method.

BFalseCorrect

While the AWS authentication method is commonly used for EC2 instances to authenticate with Vault by leveraging AWS IAM roles, it is not the *only* option. AppRole is another robust authentication method that could be used, where an EC2 instance securely fetches a RoleID and SecretID to authenticate, providing flexibility in authentication strategy.

Concept tested: Vault authentication methods for compute instances

Source: https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/auth/aws

Topics

#AWS EC2 authentication#Vault authentication methods#AWS auth method#AppRole

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