Authentication

Different users in Kubernetes

In a Kubernetes cluster, we have different users, for example,

administrators - who manage the cluster
developers - who deploy or test applications
end-users - who access the application running in the cluster
third-party applications or bots - that interact with the cluster for integration purpose

Authentication in Kubernetes

All user access is managed by the kube-apiserver. As mentioned before, the kube-apiserver is the front-end of the Kubernetes control plane. It authenticates the user and authorizes the user to perform the requested operation.

We have different ways to authenticate users in Kubernetes.

Client certificates
Static password file (Deprecated) - Contains a list of usernames and passwords
Static token file - Containers a list of usernames and tokens
Connect to an identity provider (third-party) - Like LDAP or Kerberos
Service account tokens

Static password file (Deprecated)

In this method, we will create a csv file with password, username, and user Id. This file will be passed to the kube-apiserver using the --basic-auth-file flag. You can find your kube-apiserver configuration file in /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-apiserver.yaml.

passwords.csv

# password, username, user Id, group (optional)
password1,joe_user,joe_userID
password1,joe_user,joe_userID,group1

You can also specify the fourth column as the group to which the user belongs, but it is optional.

To authenticate users, you can use the following command.

curl -v -k https://master-node-ip:6443/api/v1/pods -u "username:password"

Static token file

The concept is similar to the static password file. In this method, we will create a csv file with token, username, and user Id. This file will be passed to the kube-apiserver using the --token-auth-file flag.

tokens.csv

# token, username, user Id, group (optional)
mjpuauwabcnIXBicj12cnXoaS,joe_user,joe_userID
ajpuauwabcnIXBicj12cnXoaS,joe_user,joe_userID,group1

To authenticate users, you can use the following command.

curl -v -k https://master-node-ip:6443/api/v1/pods --header "Authorization: Bearer <replace-your-token>"

Authenticate using kubeconfig

Refer to kubeconfig for more information.

Authenticate using kubectl proxy

Refer to api-groups for more information.

kubectl proxy

Authenticate using bootstrap token

Reference (opens in a new tab)

Boostrap token is a token that is used to authenticate with the kube-apiserver when creating a new cluster or joining a new node to the cluster. The bootstrap token is valid for 24 hours by default.

Once a node has successfully joined the Kubernetes cluster using a bootstrap token, the expiration of the bootstrap token does not affect the node's membership in the cluster. Bsc, the node will use a client certificate for authentication after joining the cluster.
Bootstrap token is used only for the initial join process.

Step 1: Create a bootstrap token

There are two ways to create a bootstrap token.

Using kubeadm (opens in a new tab). Remember run this command on the node that has installed kubeadm tool.
- kubeadm token generate - Generate and print a bootstrap token, but do not create it on the server.
- kubeadm token create - Create bootstrap tokens on the server
  - You can append --dry-run --print-join-command to get the secret YAML content and join command.
Manually

The bootstrap token format must match the following regex: ^[a-z0-9]{6}\.[a-z0-9]{16}$

Step 2: Store the bootstrap token into Kubernetes secret

The bootstrap token must exist in the kube-system namespace.

bootstrap-token-07401b.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  # Name MUST be of form "bootstrap-token-<token id>"
  name: bootstrap-token-07401b
  namespace: kube-system
type: bootstrap.kubernetes.io/token
stringData:
  # Human readable description. Optional.
  description: "The default bootstrap token generated by 'kubeadm init'."
 
  token-id: 07401b
  token-secret: f395accd246ae52d
  usage-bootstrap-authentication: "true"
  usage-bootstrap-signing: "true"
 
  # Extra groups to authenticate the token as. Must start with "system:bootstrappers:"
  auth-extra-groups: system:bootstrappers:worker,system:bootstrappers:ingress,system:bootstrappers:kubeadm:default-node-token

usage-bootstrap-authentication - indicates that the token can be used to authenticate to the kube-apiserver as a bearer token
usage-bootstrap-signing - indicates that the token may be used to sign the cluster-info ConfigMap.
auth-extra-groups
- system:bootstrappers:worker - This group is typically used for worker nodes that are joining the cluster. Nodes in this group have permissions necessary to register themselves with the control plane and start running workloads.
- system:bootstrappers:ingress - This group is used for nodes that are specifically joining the cluster to run ingress controllers. Nodes in this group have permissions tailored for ingress-related operations.
- system:bootstrappers:kubeadm:default-node-token (default) - This group is used by kubeadm during the node join process. Nodes in this group have the default permissions required to join the cluster using a bootstrap token created by kubeadm.

Step 3: Get the worker node join command

On the control plane node, use kubeadm with the token-id and token-secret that you generated in the previous steps to get the worker node join command.

kubeadm token create <token-id>.<token-secret> --dry-run --print-join-command

Step 4: Join the worker node to the cluster

On the worker node or ssh into the worker node, run the join command that you got from the previous step. In this example, I am using ssh to connect to the worker node.

Ensure that the worker node has kubeadm, kubelet, and kubectl installed.

# ssh into the worker node
ssh node1
 
# run the join command
kubeadm join kind-cluster-control-plane:6443 --token joisdm.akqtwa3n4swya2ol --discovery-token-ca-cert-hash sha256:dae81a955efb64d6e568d1dafc6ad7a3c2afc6be65345c9bb86a3429440e4c07

Step 5: Verify the worker node already joined the cluster

You can verify the result from the master node (control plane node).

kubectl get nodes

Step 6: Authenticate using the bootstrap secrets (Optional)

This step is optional. You can further authenticate using the secrets.

# Get the kube-apiserver address
kubectl cluster-info
kubectl config view
 
# Get and decode the token id and secret from Kubernetes secrets
kubectl get secret bootstrap-token-07401b -n kube-system -o jsonpath='{.data.token-id}' | base64 --decode
kubectl get secret bootstrap-token-07401b -n kube-system -o jsonpath='{.data.token-secret}' | base64 --decode
 
export TOKEN=<decoded-token-id>.<decoded-token-secret>
curl -v -k -X GET https://kind-cluster-control-plane:6443/api/v1/pods --header "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

Authenticate using service account token

Step 1: Create a service account

data-sa.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: data-sa

Step 2: Associate the secret with the service account

data-sa-secret.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: data-sa-secret
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/service-account.name: data-sa # service account name
type: kubernetes.io/service-account-token

Step 3: View the secret

kubectl get secret/data-sa-secret -o jsonpath='{.data.token}' | base64 -d
export TOKEN=<decoded-token>

Step 4: Create a Role and RoleBinding

We need to create a Role and RoleBinding to grant permissions to the service account. Let's said we only allow this service account to list pods in the default namespace.

kubectl create role pod-reader --verb=list --resource=pods
kubectl create rolebinding pod-reader-binding --role=pod-reader --serviceaccount=default:data-sa

Step 5: Authenticate using the service account token

curl -v -k -X GET https://kind-cluster-control-plane:6443/api/v1/namespaces/default/pods --header "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

Benchmarks Pull image with secret