Question 497 of 1,511
DOP-C02 Configuration Management and IaC Practice Question
A DevOps team uses Ansible for configuration management of EC2 instances. They want to ensure that the Ansible control node can connect to managed nodes securely without storing SSH keys in plaintext. Which AWS service should they integrate with Ansible to securely manage SSH keys?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
AWS Secrets Manager to store the SSH private keys and retrieve them dynamically.
AWS Secrets Manager can store SSH private keys securely and Ansible can retrieve them via API. Option A is wrong because AWS KMS is for encryption keys, not for storing secrets directly. Option C is wrong because IAM roles are for permissions, not storing keys. Option D is wrong because Systems Manager Parameter Store can store secrets but is less feature-rich for secret rotation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS KMS to encrypt the SSH keys at rest.
Why it's wrong here
KMS does not store the keys; it only encrypts them.
- ✓
AWS Secrets Manager to store the SSH private keys and retrieve them dynamically.
Why this is correct
Secrets Manager stores secrets securely and supports automatic retrieval.
- ✗
AWS IAM roles to grant Ansible access to the instances.
Why it's wrong here
IAM roles do not store SSH keys.
- ✗
AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store to store the keys.
Why it's wrong here
Parameter Store can store secrets but is less suited for SSH key management compared to Secrets Manager.
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Last reviewed: Jun 20, 2026
This DOP-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DOP-C02 exam.
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