> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://astronomer.io/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Configure secrets backend

> Configure AWS, Azure, GCP, or HashiCorp secrets backends for Remote Execution Agents.

Remote Execution Agents require a secrets backend to securely access Airflow connections and variables. A secrets backend stores sensitive information like passwords, API keys, and database credentials outside of your Deployment and agent configuration files.

`secretBackend` is the Airflow secrets backend class to use for the Agent. Each supported integration includes the Remote Execution Agent-specific implementation steps:

* [AWS Secrets Manager](/docs/astro/secrets-backend/aws-secretsmanager#remote-execution)
* [AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Parameter Store](/docs/astro/secrets-backend/aws-paramstore#remote-execution)
* [Azure Key Vault](/docs/astro/secrets-backend/azure-key-vault#remote-execution)
* [Google Cloud Secret Manager](/docs/astro/secrets-backend/gcp-secretsmanager#remote-execution)
* [HashiCorp Vault](/docs/astro/secrets-backend/hashicorp-vault#remote-execution)

It is not recommended for production use cases, but you can also use Airflow’s local filesystem backend as a simpler alternative to an external secrets provider by setting:

```yaml title="values.yaml" wrap theme={null}
secretBackend: "airflow.secrets.local_filesystem.LocalFilesystemBackend"
```

and setting the following environment variable in the Remote Execution Agent's Helm chart:

```yaml title="values.yaml" wrap theme={null}
AIRFLOW__SECRETS__BACKEND_KWARGS: '{"variables_file_path": "/files/var.json", "connections_file_path": "/files/conn.json"}'
```

<Note>The rest of the configuration should be passed as environment variables to the Agent components.</Note>