VA-003 Create Vault policies Practice Question
An administrator wants to create a policy that grants the ability to list all authentication methods enabled on the Vault server. Which path and capability are required?
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
✓
path "sys/auth" { capabilities = ["list"] }
Option A. To list all enabled authentication methods, the required path is 'sys/auth' with the 'list' capability. The 'list' action returns the names of all auth methods. Option B is incorrect because it includes 'read', which is unnecessary and not required for listing. Option C is also incorrect because it only has 'read', which would only retrieve a specific method if the name is known. Option D uses a wildcard 'auth/*', which would grant list capability on all sub-paths under 'auth/', but the standard path for listing auth methods is 'sys/auth'. Therefore, option A is the most precise and correct.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
path "sys/auth" { capabilities = ["list"] }
Why this is correct
List on sys/auth returns the names of all enabled auth methods.
- ✗
path "sys/auth" { capabilities = ["read", "list"] }
Why it's wrong here
Read is not needed for simply listing auth methods.
- ✗
path "sys/auth" { capabilities = ["read"] }
Why it's wrong here
Read provides details about a specific auth method, not a list.
- ✗
path "auth/*" { capabilities = ["list"] }
Why it's wrong here
This would list items under each auth method, not the methods themselves.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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