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Proxy

Improve the User-Experience with teh capsule-proxy

Capsule Proxy is an add-on for Capsule Operator addressing some RBAC issues when enabling multi-tenancy in Kubernetes since users cannot list the owned cluster-scoped resources. One solution to this problem would be to grant all users LIST permissions for the relevant cluster-scoped resources (eg. Namespaces). However, this would allow users to list all cluster-scoped resources, which is not desirable in a multi-tenant environment and may lead to security issues. Kubernetes RBAC cannot list only the owned cluster-scoped resources since there are no ACL-filtered APIs. For example:

Error from server (Forbidden): namespaces is forbidden:
User "alice" cannot list resource "namespaces" in API group "" at the cluster scope

The reason, as the error message reported, is that the RBAC list action is available only at Cluster-Scope and it is not granted to users without appropriate permissions.

To overcome this problem, many Kubernetes distributions introduced mirrored custom resources supported by a custom set of ACL-filtered APIs. However, this leads to radically change the user’s experience of Kubernetes by introducing hard customizations that make it painful to move from one distribution to another.

With Capsule, we took a different approach. As one of the key goals, we want to keep the same user experience on all the distributions of Kubernetes. We want people to use the standard tools they already know and love and it should just work.

Integrations

Capsule Proxy is a strong addition for Capsule and works well with other CNCF kubernetes based solutions. It allows any user facing solutions, which make impersonated requests as the users, to proxy the request and show the results Correctly.

1 - ProxySettings

Configure proxy settings for your tenants

Primitives

Namespaces are treated specially. A users can list the namespaces they own, but they cannot list all the namespaces in the cluster. You can’t define additional selectors.

Primitives are strongly considered for tenants, therefor

The proxy setting kind is an enum accepting the supported resources:

EnumDescriptionEffective Operations
TenantUsers are able to LIST this tenant- LIST
StorageClassesPerform operations on the allowed StorageClasses for the tenant- LIST
  • Nodes: Based on the NodeSelector and the Scheduling Expressions nodes can be listed

  • StorageClasses: Perform actions on the allowed StorageClasses for the tenant

  • IngressClasses: Perform actions on the allowed IngressClasses for the tenant

  • PriorityClasses: Perform actions on the allowed PriorityClasses for the tenant PriorityClasses

  • RuntimeClasses: Perform actions on the allowed RuntimeClasses for the tenant

  • PersistentVolumes: Perform actions on the PersistentVolumes owned by the tenant

    GatewayClassesProxy ProxyServiceKind = “GatewayClasses” TenantProxy ProxyServiceKind = “Tenant”

Each Resource kind can be granted with several verbs, such as:

  • List
  • Update
  • Delete

Cluster Resources

This approach is for more generic cluster scoped resources.

TBD

Proxy Settings

Tenants

The Capsule Proxy is a multi-tenant application. Each tenant is a separate instance of the Capsule Proxy. The tenant is identified by the tenantId in the URL. The tenantId is a unique identifier for the tenant. The tenantId is used to identify the tenant in the Capsule Proxy.

2 - Installation

Installation guide for the capsule-proxy

Capsule Proxy is an optional add-on of the main Capsule Operator, so make sure you have a working instance of Capsule before attempting to install it. Use the capsule-proxy only if you want Tenant Owners to list their Cluster-Scope resources.

The capsule-proxy can be deployed in standalone mode, e.g. running as a pod bridging any Kubernetes client to the APIs server. Optionally, it can be deployed as a sidecar container in the backend of a dashboard.

Running outside a Kubernetes cluster is also viable, although a valid KUBECONFIG file must be provided, using the environment variable KUBECONFIG or the default file in $HOME/.kube/config.

A Helm Chart is available here.

Exposure

Depending on your environment, you can expose the capsule-proxy by:

  • Ingress
  • NodePort Service
  • LoadBalance Service
  • HostPort
  • HostNetwork

Here how it looks like when exposed through an Ingress Controller:

Distribute CA within the Cluster

The capsule-proxy requires the CA certificate to be distributed to the clients. The CA certificate is stored in a Secret named capsule-proxy in the capsule-system namespace, by default. In most cases the distribution of this secret is required for other clients within the cluster (e.g. the Tekton Dashboard). If you are using Ingress or any other endpoints for all the clients, this step is probably not required.

Here’s an example of how to distribute the CA certificate to the namespace tekton-pipelines by using kubectl and jq:

 kubectl get secret capsule-proxy -n capsule-system -o json \
 | jq 'del(.metadata["namespace","creationTimestamp","resourceVersion","selfLink","uid"])' \
 | kubectl apply -n tekton-pipelines -f -

This can be used for development purposes, but it’s not recommended for production environments. Here are solutions to distribute the CA certificate, which might be useful for production environments:

3 - Controller Options

Configure the Capsule Proxy Controller

You can customize the Capsule Proxy with the following configuration

Flags

Feature Gates

Feature Gates are a set of key/value pairs that can be used to enable or disable certain features of the Capsule Proxy. The following feature gates are available:

Feature GateDefault ValueDescription
ProxyAllNamespacedfalseProxyAllNamespaced allows to proxy all the Namespaced objects. When enabled, it will discover apis and ensure labels are set for resources in all tenant namespaces resulting in increased memory. However this feature helps with user experience.
SkipImpersonationReviewfalseSkipImpersonationReview allows to skip the impersonation review for all requests containing impersonation headers (user and groups). DANGER: Enabling this flag allows any user to impersonate as any user or group essentially bypassing any authorization. Only use this option in trusted environments where authorization/authentication is offloaded to external systems.
ProxyClusterScopedfalseProxyClusterScoped allows to proxy all clusterScoped objects for all tenant users. These can be defined via ProxySettings

4 - Integrations

Integrate Capsule with other platforms and solutions

4.1 - Kubernetes Dashboard

Capsule Integration with Kubernetes Dashboard

This guide works with the kubernetes dashboard v2.0.0 (Chart 6.0.8). It has not yet been tested successfully with with v3.x version of the dashboard.

This guide describes how to integrate the Kubernetes Dashboard and Capsule Proxy with OIDC authorization.

OIDC Authentication

Your cluster must also be configured to use OIDC Authentication for seemless Kubernetes RBAC integration. In a such scenario, you should have in the kube-apiserver.yaml manifest the following content:

spec:
  containers:
  - command:
    - kube-apiserver
    ...
    - --oidc-issuer-url=https://${OIDC_ISSUER}
    - --oidc-ca-file=/etc/kubernetes/oidc/ca.crt
    - --oidc-client-id=${OIDC_CLIENT_ID}
    - --oidc-username-claim=preferred_username
    - --oidc-groups-claim=groups
    - --oidc-username-prefix=-

Where ${OIDC_CLIENT_ID} refers to the client ID that all tokens must be issued.

For this client we need: 1. Check Valid Redirect URIs: in the oauth2-proxy configuration we set redirect-url: “https://${DASHBOARD_URL}/oauth2/callback”, it needs to add this path to the Valid Redirect URIs 2. Create a mapper with Mapper Type ‘Group Membership’ and Token Claim Name ‘groups’. 3. Create a mapper with Mapper Type ‘Audience’ and Included Client Audience and Included Custom Audience set to your client name (${OIDC_CLIENT_ID}).

OAuth2 Proxy

To enable the proxy authorization from the Kubernetes dashboard to Keycloak, we need to use an OAuth proxy. In this article, we will use oauth2-proxy and install it as a pod in the Kubernetes Dashboard namespace. Alternatively, we can install oauth2-proxy in a different namespace or use it as a sidecar container in the Kubernetes Dashboard deployment.

Prepare the values for oauth2-proxy:

cat > values-oauth2-proxy.yaml <<EOF
config:
  clientID: "${OIDC_CLIENT_ID}"
  clientSecret: ${OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET}

extraArgs:
  provider: "keycloak-oidc"
  redirect-url: "https://${DASHBOARD_URL}/oauth2/callback"
  oidc-issuer-url: "https://${KEYCLOAK_URL}/auth/realms/${OIDC_CLIENT_ID}"
  pass-access-token: true
  set-authorization-header: true
  pass-user-headers: true

ingress:
  enabled: true
  path: "/oauth2"
  hosts:
    - ${DASHBOARD_URL}
  tls:
    - hosts:
      - ${DASHBOARD_URL}
EOF

More information about the keycloak-oidc provider can be found on the oauth2-proxy documentation. We’re ready to install the oauth2-proxy:

helm repo add oauth2-proxy https://oauth2-proxy.github.io/manifests
helm install oauth2-proxy oauth2-proxy/oauth2-proxy -n ${KUBERNETES_DASHBOARD_NAMESPACE} -f values-oauth2-proxy.yaml

Configuring Keycloak

The Kubernetes cluster must be configured with a valid OIDC provider: for our guide, we’re giving for granted that Keycloak is used, if you need more info please follow the OIDC Authentication section.

In a such scenario, you should have in the kube-apiserver.yaml manifest the following content:

spec:
  containers:
  - command:
    - kube-apiserver
    ...
    - --oidc-issuer-url=https://${OIDC_ISSUER}
    - --oidc-ca-file=/etc/kubernetes/oidc/ca.crt
    - --oidc-client-id=${OIDC_CLIENT_ID}
    - --oidc-username-claim=preferred_username
    - --oidc-groups-claim=groups
    - --oidc-username-prefix=-

Where ${OIDC_CLIENT_ID} refers to the client ID that all tokens must be issued.

For this client we need:

  1. Check Valid Redirect URIs: in the oauth2-proxy configuration we set redirect-url: "https://${DASHBOARD_URL}/oauth2/callback", it needs to add this path to the Valid Redirect URIs
  2. Create a mapper with Mapper Type ‘Group Membership’ and Token Claim Name ‘groups’.
  3. Create a mapper with Mapper Type ‘Audience’ and Included Client Audience and Included Custom Audience set to your client name(OIDC_CLIENT_ID).

Configuring Kubernetes Dashboard

If your Capsule Proxy uses HTTPS and the CA certificate is not the Kubernetes CA, you need to add a secret with the CA for the Capsule Proxy URL.

cat > ca.crt<< EOF
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
...
...
...
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
EOF

kubectl create secret generic certificate --from-file=ca.crt=ca.crt -n ${KUBERNETES_DASHBOARD_NAMESPACE}

Prepare the values for the Kubernetes Dashboard:

cat > values-kubernetes-dashboard.yaml <<EOF
extraVolumes:
  - name: token-ca
    projected:
      sources:
        - serviceAccountToken:
            expirationSeconds: 86400
            path: token
        - secret:
            name: certificate
            items:
              - key: ca.crt
                path: ca.crt
extraVolumeMounts:
  - mountPath: /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount
    name: token-ca

ingress:
  enabled: true
  annotations:
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-signin: https://${DASHBOARD_URL}/oauth2/start?rd=$escaped_request_uri
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-url: https://${DASHBOARD_URL}/oauth2/auth
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-response-headers: "authorization"
  hosts:
    - ${DASHBOARD_URL}
  tls:
    - hosts:
      - ${DASHBOARD_URL}

extraEnv:
  - name: KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST
    value: '${CAPSULE_PROXY_URL}'
  - name: KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT
    value: '${CAPSULE_PROXY_PORT}'
EOF

To add the Certificate Authority for the Capsule Proxy URL, we use the volume token-ca to mount the ca.crt file. Additionally, we set the environment variables KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST and KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT to route requests to the Capsule Proxy.

Now you can install the Kubernetes Dashboard:

helm repo add kubernetes-dashboard https://kubernetes.github.io/dashboard/
helm install kubernetes-dashboard kubernetes-dashboard/kubernetes-dashboard -n ${KUBERNETES_DASHBOARD_NAMESPACE} -f values-kubernetes-dashboard.yaml

4.2 - Lens

With Capsule extension for Lens, a cluster administrator can easily manage from a single pane of glass all resources of a Kubernetes cluster, including all the Tenants created through the Capsule Operator.

Features

Capsule extension for Lens provides these capabilities:

  • List all tenants
  • See tenant details and change through the embedded Lens editor
  • Check Resources Quota and Budget at both the tenant and namespace level

Please, see the README for details about the installation of the Capsule Lens Extension.

4.3 - Tekton

With Capsule extension for Lens, a cluster administrator can easily manage from a single pane of glass all resources of a Kubernetes cluster, including all the Tenants created through the Capsule Operator.

Prerequisites

Tekton must be already installed on your cluster, if that’s not the case consult the documentation here:

Cluster Scoped Permissions

Tekton Dashboard

Now for the enduser experience we are going to deploy the tekton dashboard. When using oauth2-proxy we can deploy one single dashboard, which can be used for all tenants. Refer to the following guide to setup the dashboard with the oauth2-proxy:

Once that is done, we need to make small adjustments to the tekton-dashboard service account.

kustomization.yaml

apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization
resources:
  - https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/dashboard/latest/release.yaml
patches:
  # Adjust the service for the capsule-proxy according to your installation
  # The used values are compatbile with the default installation values
  - target:
      version: v1
      kind: Deployment
      name: tekton-dashboard
    patch: |-
      - op: add
        path: /spec/template/spec/containers/0/env/-
        value:
          name: KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST
          value: "capsule-proxy.capsule-system.svc"
      - op: add
        path: /spec/template/spec/containers/0/env/-
        value:
          name: KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT
          value: "9001"      

  # Adjust the CA certificate for the capsule-proxy according to your installation
  - target:
      version: v1
      kind: Deployment
      name: tekton-dashboard
    patch: |-
      - op: add
        path: /spec/template/spec/containers/0/volumeMounts
        value: []
      - op: add
        path: /spec/template/spec/containers/0/volumeMounts/-
        value:
          mountPath: "/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount"
          name: token-ca
      - op: add
        path: /spec/template/spec/volumes
        value: []
      - op: add
        path: /spec/template/spec/volumes/-
        value:
          name: token-ca
          projected:
            sources:
              - serviceAccountToken:
                  expirationSeconds: 86400
                  path: token
              - secret:
                  name: capsule-proxy
                  items:
                    - key: ca
                      path: ca.crt      

This patch assumes there’s a secret called capsule-proxy with the CA certificate for the Capsule Proxy URL.

Apply the given kustomization:

extraEnv:

  • name: KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST value: ‘${CAPSULE_PROXY_URL}’
  • name: KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT value: ‘${CAPSULE_PROXY_PORT}’

Tekton Operator

When using the Tekton Operator, you need to add the following to the TektonConfig:

apiVersion: operator.tekton.dev/v1alpha1
kind: TektonConfig
metadata:
  name: config
spec:
  dashboard:
    readonly: false
    options:
      disabled: false
      deployments:
        tekton-dashboard:
          spec:
            template:
              spec:
                volumes:
                  - name: token-ca
                    projected:
                      sources:
                        - serviceAccountToken:
                            expirationSeconds: 86400
                            path: token
                        - secret:
                            name: capsule-proxy
                            items:
                              - key: ca
                                path: ca.crt
                containers:
                  - name: tekton-dashboard
                    volumeMounts:
                      - mountPath: "/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount"
                        name: token-ca
                    env:
                      - name: KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST
                        value: "capsule-proxy.capsule-system.svc"
                      - name: KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT
                        value: "9001"

See for reference the options spec

4.4 - Teleport

With Capsule extension for Lens, a cluster administrator can easily manage from a single pane of glass all resources of a Kubernetes cluster, including all the Tenants created through the Capsule Operator.

Features

Capsule extension for Lens provides these capabilities:

  • List all tenants
  • See tenant details and change through the embedded Lens editor
  • Check Resources Quota and Budget at both the tenant and namespace level

Please, see the README for details about the installation of the Capsule Lens Extension.