Deploy HashiCorp Vault in five minutes

HashiCorp Vault is the open-source standard for secrets management. It stores API keys, database credentials, certificates, and any other secret — then serves them to your applications via a single HTTPS API. Here is how to go from “we need a secrets manager” to a live Vault cluster on Indian infrastructure in under five minutes.

Before you start

You need:

• A container plan that supports apps. Vault requires at least the Apps-t5 plan (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 80 GB storage); live pricing is on /pricing.
• Free SSL is issued automatically after provisioning.
• An understanding of your secrets workflow — Vault serves JSON over HTTPS, so any language with an HTTP client can talk to it.

Step 1 - Open the apps catalog

From our home page, click Apps, then pick the Vault card. The install screen opens.

Step 2 - Name your Vault instance

Pick a slug. That becomes part of your Vault API endpoint: https://your-slug.webhost24.in. If you want to use your own domain, type it into the Custom domain field and we will show you the DNS records to add.

Step 3 - Pick a plan

Vault needs a minimum of the Apps-t5 plan (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 80 GB storage) for stable single-node operation. This is pre-selected on the Vault install screen. We provision a single-node Raft cluster — production-grade consensus without the multi-node overhead for most use cases.

Step 4 - Wait for the deploy

We provision a container with Vault (latest upstream stable), pre-configured Raft storage backend, and a managed certificate for the Vault UI and API. This takes three to five minutes. You will see the status live in your dashboard.

Step 5 - Initialise Vault

Once the status flips to Live, open the Vault URL. The first visit shows the Vault initialisation screen. You need 3 of 5 key shares to unseal Vault after every restart — we store these shares in your WebHost24 dashboard so you do not have to manage them manually. Click Initialise, save the key shares, and you are in.

What you get out of the box

• Free Let’s Encrypt SSL with auto-renewal
• Daily encrypted snapshots of the Vault data, retained for 7 days
• Single-node Raft storage backend (production-grade consistency)
• India-based data centre in Palitana, Gujarat — no cross-border data
• INR pricing, billed monthly

What to do next

• Enable the secrets engine you need (KV v2 is the default and works for most use cases)
• Create policies that give each application only the secrets it needs
• Point your applications at the Vault HTTP API using the VAULT_ADDR environment variable
• Set up dynamic database credentials if you are running PostgreSQL or MySQL on the same account

When to upgrade

The Apps-t5 plan handles dozens of applications reading secrets comfortably. The next tier doubles RAM and storage, giving you more headroom for the audit log, additional secrets engines, and PKI certificate management.

That is the whole flow. Five minutes from signup to a live Vault cluster, hosted in Gujarat, with free SSL and daily snapshots. If you get stuck, our WhatsApp is open.