Managing Cluster Access and Permissions

This topic describes how to grant Kubernetes cluster access and namespace permissions to Kubernetes users in VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition.

Overview

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition admin users can grant Kubernetes users, such as developers, permissions to specific clusters.

If you are an Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition admin user, you can do the following:

• Grant user access to a cluster with a ClusterRole or a namespace within a cluster with a Role. See Grant Cluster Access to a User below.
• Grant group access to a cluster with a ClusterRole or a namespace within a cluster with a Role. See Grant Cluster Access to a Group below.

After you grant user or group access to an Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition-provisioned cluster, Kubernetes users can connect to the cluster through the Kubernetes CLI (kubectl). Kubernetes users cannot create, resize, or delete clusters.

Example Workflow

The following diagram outlines the workflow to grant cluster access to users who belong to an identity provider group:

For more information, see RoleBinding and ClusterRoleBinding and Default Roles and Role Bindings in the Kubernetes documentation.

Prerequisites

Before setting up cluster access for users in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition, you must have the following:

• Access to an Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition admin user account. For information about how to create Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition admin users, see Managing Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition Users with UAA.
• Fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of your TKGI deployment.
• OpenID Connect (OIDC) provider for your Kubernetes clusters, configured using one or both of the following:
  • Global OIDC provider configuration for all clusters in Ops Manager Installation Dashboard > Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition > Settings > UAA > Configure created clusters to use UAA as the OIDC provider. For instructions, see UAA in the Installing topic for your IaaS.
  • Custom OIDC provider configuration for individual clusters through a Kubernetes profile. For instructions, see Adding an OIDC Provider.

Grant Cluster Access to a User

To grant cluster access to a user, do the following:

1. Log in to Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition by running following command:

   tkgi login -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD -a TKGI-API --ca-cert CERT-PATH
   

   Where:

   • USERNAME is your cluster admin username.
   • PASSWORD is your cluster admin password.
   • TKGI-API is the FQDN you use to access the TKGI API.
   • CERT-PATH is the path to your root CA certificate. Provide the certificate to validate the TKGI API certificate with SSL.

   Note: If your operator has configured Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition to use a SAML identity provider, you must include an additional SSO flag to use the above command. For information about the SSO flags, see the section for the above command in TKGI CLI. For information about configuring SAML, see Connecting Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition to a SAML Identity Provider

2. Confirm that you can successfully connect to a cluster and use kubectl as a cluster admin by running the following command:

   tkgi get-credentials CLUSTER-NAME
   

   This step creates a ClusterRoleBinding for the cluster admin.

   Note: If your operator has configured Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition to use a SAML identity provider, you must include an additional SSO flag to use the above command. For information about the SSO flags, see the section for the above command in TKGI CLI. For information about configuring SAML, see Connecting Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition to a SAML Identity Provider

3. When prompted, re-enter your password.

4. Create a YAML file for either Role or ClusterRole. Use the following example as a template:

   kind: ROLE-TYPE
   apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
   metadata:
     namespace: NAMESPACE
     name: ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-NAME
   rules:
   - apiGroups:
     resources: RESOURCE
     verbs: API-REQUEST-VERB
   

   Where:

   • ROLE-TYPE is the type of role you are creating. This must be either Role or ClusterRole.
   • NAMESPACE is the namespace within the cluster. This is omitted when creating a ClusterRole.
   • ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-NAME is the name of the Role or ClusterRole you are creating. This name is created by the cluster admin.
   • RESOURCE is the resource you are granting access to. It must be specified in a comma-separated array. For example: ["pod-reader"]
   • API-REQUEST-VERB is the request verb used to specify resource requests. For more information, see Determine the Request Verb in the Kubernetes documentation.

5. Create the Role or ClusterRole resource defined in your YAML file by running the following command:

   kubectl create -f ROLE-CONFIGURATION.yml
   

   Where ROLE-CONFIGURATION.yml is the YAML file you created in the above step.

6. Create a YAML file containing either a ClusterRoleBinding or a RoleBinding for the Kubernetes end user. Use the following example as a template:

   kind: ROLE-BINDING-TYPE
   apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
   metadata:
     name: ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-BINDING-NAME
     namespace: NAMESPACE
   subjects:
   - kind: User
     name: USERNAME
     apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
   roleRef:
     kind: ROLE-TYPE
     name: ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-BINDING-NAME
     apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
   

   Where:

   • ROLE-BINDING-TYPE is the type of role binding you are creating. This must be either RoleBinding or ClusterRoleBinding.
   • ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-BINDING-NAME is the name of the role binding. This is given by the cluster admin.
   • NAMESPACE is the namespace within the cluster. This is omitted when creating a ClusterRole.

   • USERNAME is the Kubernetes end user username. This is the username created for your organization’s LDAP or SAML identity provider.

     Note: If you configured an OIDC username prefix in Ops Manager Installation Dashboard > Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition > Settings > UAA or in a Kubernetes profile, you must prepend USERNAME with the prefix you configured. For more information, see UAA in the Installing topic for your IaaS and Adding an OIDC Provider.

   • ROLE-TYPE is the type of role you created in the previous step. This must be either Role or ClusterRole.
   • ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-NAME is the name of the Role or ClusterRole you created in the previous step.

7. Create the RoleBinding or ClusterRoleBinding resource defined in your YAML file by running following command:

   kubectl apply -f ROLE-BINDING-CONFIGURATION.yml
   

   Where ROLE-BINDING-CONFIGURATION.yml is the YAML file you created in the above step.

8. Share the following information with your Kubernetes end users:

   • TKGI API FQDN
   • Cluster name

Obtain Cluster Access as a User

To obtain access to a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition-provisioned cluster, the end user must do the following:

1. Fetch the kubeconfig file by running one of the following command:

   • If you want to validate the TKGI API certificate with SSL, run the following command:

     tkgi get-kubeconfig CLUSTER-NAME -u USERNAME -a TKGI-API --ca-cert CERT-PATH
     

     Where:

     • CLUSTER-NAME is the cluster name provided by the cluster admin.
     • USERNAME is the Kubernetes end user username. This is the username created for your organization’s LDAP or SAML identity provider.
     • TKGI-API is the FQDN you use to access the TKGI API.
     • CERT-PATH is the path to your root CA certificate. Provide the certificate to validate the TKGI API certificate with SSL.

     For example:

     $ tkgi get-kubeconfig my-cluster -u naomi -a api.tkgi.example.com 
     
     –ca-cert /var/tempest/workspaces/default/root_ca_certificate

   • If your CA is trusted and you want to skip SSL validation, run the following command:

     tkgi get-kubeconfig CLUSTER-NAME -u USERNAME -a TKGI-API -k
     

     Where -k is the shortcut flag to skip SSL validation.

     For example:

     $ tkgi get-kubeconfig my-cluster -u naomi -a api.tkgi.example.com -k

   Note: If your operator has configured Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition to use a SAML identity provider, you must include an additional SSO flag to use the above command. For information about the SSO flags, see the section for the above command in TKGI CLI. For information about configuring SAML, see Connecting Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition to a SAML Identity Provider

2. When prompted, enter your password.

3. The TKGI CLI generates a kubeconfig for the cluster you have access to. Review the following example kubeconfig file:

   apiVersion: v1
   clusters:
   - cluster:
       certificate-authority-data: PROVIDED-BY-ADMIN
       server: PROVIDED-BY-ADMIN
     name: PROVIDED-BY-ADMIN
   contexts:
   - context:
       cluster: PROVIDED-BY-ADMIN
       user: PROVIDED-BY-USER
     name:  PROVIDED-BY-ADMIN
   current-context: PROVIDED-BY-ADMIN
   kind: Config
   preferences: {}
   users:
   - name: PROVIDED-BY-USER
     user:
       auth-provider:
         config:
           client-id: pks_cluster_client
           cluster_client_secret: ""
           id-token: PROVIDED-BY-USER
           idp-issuer-url: https://PROVIDED-BY-ADMIN:8443/oauth/token
           refresh-token:  PROVIDED-BY-USER
         name: oidc
   

4. Access the cluster using kubectl. For more information about kubectl commands, see Overview of kubectl in the Kubernetes documentation.

Grant Cluster Access to a Group

Cluster admins can grant access to an identity provider group by creating a ClusterRoleBinding or RoleBinding for that group. You can grant access to an identity provider group only if you use a LDAP or SAML identity provider for UAA. You can configure a LDAP or SAML identity provider in Ops Manager Installation Dashboard > Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition > Settings > UAA.

Note: If you are using a LDAP group, you must confirm that the LDAP group you are giving access is in the allowlist in the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition tile. To do this, review External Groups Whitelist in Ops Manager Installation Dashboard > Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition > Settings > UAA.

To grant cluster access to an identity provider group, do the procedure in Grant Cluster Access to a User above and replace step 6 with the following:

1. In the YAML file for a ClusterRoleBinding or a RoleBinding, replace the subjects section with the following:

   subjects:
   - kind: Group
     name: NAME-OF-GROUP
     apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
   

   Use the following example as a template:

   kind: ROLE-BINDING-TYPE
   apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
   metadata:
     name: ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-BINDING-NAME
     namespace: NAMESPACE
   subjects:
   - kind: Group
     name: NAME-OF-GROUP
     apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
   roleRef:
     kind: ROLE-TYPE
     name: ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-NAME
     apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
   

   Where:

   • ROLE-BINDING-TYPE is the type of role binding you are creating. This must be either RoleBinding or ClusterRoleBinding.
   • ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-BINDING-NAME is the name of the role binding. This is given by the cluster admin.
   • NAMESPACE is the namespace within the cluster. This is omitted when creating a ClusterRole.

   • NAME-OF-GROUP is the identity provider group name. This name is case sensitive.

     Note: If you configured an OIDC groups prefix in Ops Manager Installation Dashboard > Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition > Settings > UAA or in a Kubernetes profile, you must prepend NAME-OF-GROUP with the prefix you configured. For more information, see UAA in the Installing topic for your IaaS and Adding an OIDC Provider.

   • ROLE-TYPE is the type of role you created in the previous step. This must be either Role or ClusterRole.
   • ROLE-OR-CLUSTER-ROLE-NAME is the name of the Role or ClusterRole you are binding the Group to.