If you have not yet installed Hashicorp Vault, check out my article Install Hashicorp Vault on Docker.

The very first thing you do after installing Hashicorp Vault is to initialize the vault.

• Initialize the vault using the vault operator init command (this article)
• Initialize the vault using the vault UI
• Initialize the vault using Python hvac

Let's say you are running the Hashicorp Vault in a Docker container named hashicorp_vault.

~]$ sudo docker container ls
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE             COMMAND                  CREATED          STATUS            PORTS                                              NAMES
01c8540eba06   vault:1.13.3      "docker-entrypoint.s…"   12 minutes ago   Up 12 minutes     0.0.0.0:8200->8200/tcp, :::8200->8200/tcp          hashicorp_vault

In this scenario, you would use the docker exec command to issue the vault operator init command in the hashicorp_vault container.

~]# sudo docker exec hashicorp_vault vault operator init

The vault status command should then have Initialized true.

~]# sudo docker exec hashicorp_vault vault status
Key             Value
---             -----
Seal Type       shamir
Initialized     true
Sealed          true
Total Shares    5
Threshold       3
Unseal Progress 0/3
Unseal Nonce    n/a
Version         1.8.1
Storage Type    raft
HA Enabled      true