Getting password prompted when running kubectl commands - kubernetes

Question

I inherited a couple server running Kubernetes. And one of the things secops wants me to do is install an agent on the server. One of the first commands to run is
kubectl create secret generic
Running this, I am prompted for username and password. No one here knows what this is b/c the dev who set up the server is gone. So I don't know how to run this command and get passed the username/password. An obvious suggestion from someone else was using default user/pass but I can't even find that online. Found this to help get info on the server:
kubectl config view
Output of this command:
apiVersion: v1
clusters: null
contexts: null
current-context: ""
kind: Config
preferences: {}
users: null
Server:
CentOS Linux release 7.9.2009
Kernel - 5.17.2-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64
Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

It is plausible that the kubeconfig file you are using is corrupt. You can reproduce similar symptoms(user/pass prompt) by editing the user name in your kubeconfig file. You need to find out(or create) the right kubeconfig file for the user. If you are an admin, you can find it at /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf in the master node.
Here are steps to reproduce the issue:
// This is my kubeconfig file, working fine
kubectl config view
apiVersion: v1
clusters:
- cluster:
certificate-authority-data: DATA+OMITTED
server: https://127.0.0.1:6443
name: default
contexts:
- context:
cluster: default
user: default
name: default
current-context: default
kind: Config
preferences: {}
users:
- name: default
user:
client-certificate-data: REDACTED
client-key-data: REDACTED
// I searched for the user name
kubectl config view |grep 'user: default'
user: default
// corrupted the user name from default to default1
sed -i.bak 's/user: default/user: default1/g' ~/.kube/config
// now getting prompted for user/password
kubectl get pod --kubeconfig .kube/config
Please enter Username:
^C
//reverted the changes done earlier
sed -i 's/user: default1/user: default/g' ~/.kube/config
// commands working fine now
kubectl get pod --kubeconfig .kube/config
No resources found in default namespace.