Table of Contents

• kubectl sudo
  • TL;DR
  • Why
  • How
  • Installation
  • Plugin Compatibility
  • Configuration
  • Similar projects

kubectl sudo

TL;DR

This plugin allows users to run kubernetes commands with the security privileges of another user:

$ kubectl get nodes
Error from server (Forbidden): nodes is forbidden: User "bofh" cannot list nodes at the cluster scope

$ kubectl sudo get nodes
NAME                     STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION
kubelet1.example.com     Ready    <none>   96d   v1.11.2
kubelet2.example.com     Ready    <none>   96d   v1.11.2

With audit log containing the origin and the impersonated user and group, if configured correctly:

{
  "kind": "Event",
  "apiVersion": "audit.k8s.io/v1beta1",
  "level": "Metadata",
  "stage": "ResponseComplete",
  "requestURI": "/api/v1/nodes?limit=500",
  "verb": "list",
  "user": {
    "username": "bofh",
    "groups": [
      "bofh_accounts",
      "system:authenticated"
    ]
  },
  "impersonatedUser": {
    "username": "bofh",
    " groups": [
      "system:masters"
    ]
  },
  "objectRef": {
    "resource": "nodes",
    "apiVersion": "v1"
  },
}

Why

Kubernetes cluster administrators have great power. A mistake could cause the cluster to become unhealthy or insecure and, as such, could impact any or all tenants sharing the cluster. A simple kubectl -f with the wrong namespace can end badly.

How

This project does not really introduce a kubectl plugin, but a concept of how to provide a sudo like system for kubernetes access.

To reduce the surface of unwanted or unexpected actions you can reduce the default priviledges a cluster administrator has to the level of an unprivileged account and give them the ability to impersonate users and groups. When cluster administrators need to do more priviledged actions, they can switch the group to system:masters or another group or user according to the needed privilidge level.

In order to implement that concept, you need to declare a ClusterRole for impersonation:

---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: impersonator
rules:
- apiGroups: [""]
  verbs: ["impersonate"]
  resources: ["users", "groups", "serviceaccounts"]

Now you can assign this ClusterRole to the cluster administrators (e.g. group bofh_accounts):

---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: cluster-administrators
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: impersonator
subjects:
- apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: Group
  name: bofh_accounts

Any user which has the group bofh_accounts can now do administration tasks with:

kubectl --as=$USER --as-group=system:masters delete node kubelet3.example.com

The provided kubectl plugin is just a wrapper for kubectl to shorten the --as and --as-group part.

Installation

Place kubectl-sudo anywhere in your $PATH with execute permissions. For further information, see the offical plugin documentation.

Plugin Compatibility

Works on systems with /bin/sh and kubectl >= 1.12. kubectl must be inside $PATH.

Configuration

This plugin can be configured using environment variables:

• KUBECTL_SUDO_PROMPT=true whether or not the plugin prompts the user before executing the kubectl command. Default value is false.

Similar projects

• cloudogu/helm-sudo: Same functionality as kubectl-sudo for helm
• cloudogu/sudo-kubeconfig: Create a sudo kubeconfig for your current kubernetes context.