VA-003 Manage Vault leases Practice Question
What happens when a lease reaches its TTL?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often mistakenly think that a lease reaching its TTL triggers revocation of the underlying secret, when in fact Vault only marks the lease as expired and relies on separate revocation logic for the actual secret.
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
✓
The lease is marked as expired and can no longer be renewed.
When a lease reaches its Time-To-Live (TTL), it becomes expired and cannot be renewed. Vault does not automatically delete the lease from storage at the moment of TTL expiry; rather, the lease is marked as expired and is eventually garbage-collected. This cleanup is separate from revocation of the underlying secret, which must be performed explicitly or via a different mechanism.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
The lease is marked as expired and can no longer be renewed.
Why this is correct
Once a lease hits its TTL, the system transitions it to an expired state, and renewal is no longer permitted. This satisfies the stem's constraint by ensuring stale leases cannot be extended, forcing the holder to acquire a fresh lease instead.
- ✗
The lease is automatically renewed.
Why it's wrong here
Renewal happens before expiry, when a client requests an extension within the lease's renewable window; reaching TTL without renewal ends the lease instead. It is tempting because clients normally renew proactively, which is the correct behaviour when a valid client keeps a lease alive across its lifetime.
- ✗
The secret is automatically revoked.
Why it's wrong here
Revocation applies to the lease and its dynamic credentials, not to the static secret itself, which persists in the secrets engine. It is tempting because revoking a secret's leases is the correct operation when invalidating issued credentials, but that is distinct from the secret's own lifecycle.
- ✗
The lease is deleted from storage.
Why it's wrong here
Vault revokes the lease and its associated credentials at TTL; the underlying secret engine data is not removed from storage. It is tempting because deleting data is what happens when an operator explicitly destroys a secret version, which is the correct action when permanent removal is genuinely intended.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This VA-003 practice question is part of Courseiva's free HashiCorp 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 VA-003 exam.