RBAC (Role Based Access Control) on K3s - kubernetes

Question

after watching a view videos on RBAC (role based access control) on kubernetes (of which this one was the most transparent for me), I've followed the steps, however on k3s, not k8s as all the sources imply. From what I could gather (not working), the problem isn't with the actual role binding process, but rather the x509 user cert which isn't acknowledged from the API service
$ kubectl get pods --kubeconfig userkubeconfig
error: You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized)
Also not documented on Rancher's wiki on security for K3s (while documented for their k8s implementation)?, while described for rancher 2.x itself, not sure if it's a problem with my implementation, or a k3s <-> k8s thing.
$ kubectl version --short
Client Version: v1.20.5+k3s1
Server Version: v1.20.5+k3s1
With duplication of the process, my steps are as follows:
Get k3s ca certs
This was described to be under /etc/kubernetes/pki (k8s), however based on this seems to be at /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/tls/ (server-ca.crt & server-ca.key).
Gen user certs from ca certs
#generate user key
$ openssl genrsa -out user.key 2048
#generate signing request from ca
openssl req -new -key user.key -out user.csr -subj "/CN=user/O=rbac"
# generate user.crt from this
openssl x509 -req -in user.csr -CA server-ca.crt -CAkey server-ca.key -CAcreateserial -out user.crt -days 365
... all good:
Creating kubeConfig file for user, based on the certs:
# Take user.crt and base64 encode to get encoded crt
cat user.crt | base64 -w0
# Take user.key and base64 encode to get encoded key
cat user.key | base64 -w0
Created config file:
apiVersion: v1
clusters:
- cluster:
certificate-authority-data: <server-ca.crt base64-encoded>
server: https://<k3s masterIP>:6443
name: home-pi4
contexts:
- context:
cluster: home-pi4
user: user
namespace: rbac
name: user-homepi4
current-context: user-homepi4
kind: Config
preferences: {}
users:
- name: user
user:
client-certificate-data: <user.crt base64-encoded>
client-key-data: <user.key base64-encoded>
Setup role & roleBinding (within specified namespace 'rbac')
role
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: Role
metadata:
name: user-rbac
namespace: rbac
rules:
- apiGroups:
- "*"
resources:
- pods
verbs:
- get
- list
roleBinding
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: RoleBinding
metadata:
name: user-rb
namespace: rbac
roleRef:
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
kind: Role
name: user-rbac
subjects:
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
kind: User
name: user
After all of this, I get fun times of...
$ kubectl get pods --kubeconfig userkubeconfig
error: You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized)
Any suggestions please?
Apparently this stackOverflow question presented a solution to the problem, but following the github feed, it came more-or-less down to the same approach followed here (unless I'm missing something)?

Answer 1

As we can find in the Kubernetes Certificate Signing Requests documentation:
A few steps are required in order to get a normal user to be able to authenticate and invoke an API.
I will create an example to illustrate how you can get a normal user who is able to authenticate and invoke an API (I will use the user john as an example).
First, create PKI private key and CSR:
# openssl genrsa -out john.key 2048
NOTE: CN is the name of the user and O is the group that this user will belong to
# openssl req -new -key john.key -out john.csr -subj "/CN=john/O=group1"
# ls
john.csr john.key
Then create a CertificateSigningRequest and submit it to a Kubernetes Cluster via kubectl.
# cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
> apiVersion: certificates.k8s.io/v1
> kind: CertificateSigningRequest
> metadata:
> name: john
> spec:
> groups:
> - system:authenticated
> request: $(cat john.csr | base64 | tr -d '\n')
> signerName: kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client
> usages:
> - client auth
> EOF
certificatesigningrequest.certificates.k8s.io/john created
# kubectl get csr
NAME AGE SIGNERNAME REQUESTOR CONDITION
john 39s kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client system:admin Pending
# kubectl certificate approve john
certificatesigningrequest.certificates.k8s.io/john approved
# kubectl get csr
NAME AGE SIGNERNAME REQUESTOR CONDITION
john 52s kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client system:admin Approved,Issued
Export the issued certificate from the CertificateSigningRequest:
# kubectl get csr john -o jsonpath='{.status.certificate}' | base64 -d > john.crt
# ls
john.crt john.csr john.key
With the certificate created, we can define the Role and RoleBinding for this user to access Kubernetes cluster resources. I will use the Role and RoleBinding similar to yours.
# cat role.yml
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: Role
metadata:
name: john-role
rules:
- apiGroups:
- ""
resources:
- pods
verbs:
- get
- list
# kubectl apply -f role.yml
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/john-role created
# cat rolebinding.yml
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: RoleBinding
metadata:
name: john-binding
roleRef:
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
kind: Role
name: john-role
subjects:
- apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
kind: User
name: john
# kubectl apply -f rolebinding.yml
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/john-binding created
The last step is to add this user into the kubeconfig file (see: Add to kubeconfig)
# kubectl config set-credentials john --client-key=john.key --client-certificate=john.crt --embed-certs=true
User "john" set.
# kubectl config set-context john --cluster=default --user=john
Context "john" created.
Finally, we can change the context to john and check if it works as expected.
# kubectl config use-context john
Switched to context "john".
# kubectl config current-context
john
# kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
web 1/1 Running 0 30m
# kubectl run web-2 --image=nginx
Error from server (Forbidden): pods is forbidden: User "john" cannot create resource "pods" in API group "" in the namespace "default"
As you can see, it works as expected (user john only has get and list permissions).

Answer 2

Thank you matt_j for the example | answer provided to my question. Marked that as the answer, as it was an direct answer to my question regarding RBAC via certificates. In addition to that, I'd also like to provide the an example for RBAC via service accounts, as a variation (for those whom prefer with specific use case).
Service account creation
//kubectl create serviceaccount name -n namespace
$ kubectl create serviceaccount udef -n rbac
This creates the service account + automatically a corresponding secret (udef-token-lhvm8). See with yaml output:
Get token from created secret:
// kubectl describe secret secretName -o yaml
$ kubectl describe secret udef-token-lhvm8 -o yaml
secret will contain 3 objects, (1) ca.crt (2) namespace (3) token
# ... other secret context
Data
====
ca.crt: x bytes
namespace: x bytes
token: xxxx token xxxx
Put token into config file
Can start by getting your 'admin' config file and output to file
// location of **k3s** kubeconfig
$ sudo cat /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml > /home/{userHomeFolder}/userKubeConfig
Under users section, can replace certificate data with token:
apiVersion: v1
clusters:
- cluster:
certificate-authority-data: xxx root ca cert content xxx
server: https://<host IP>:6443
name: home-pi4
contexts:
- context:
cluster: home-pi4
user: nametype
namespace: rbac
name: user-homepi4
current-context: user-homepi4
kind: Config
preferences: {}
users:
- name: nametype
user:
token: xxxx token xxxx
The roles and rolebinding manifests can be created as required, like previously specified (nb within the same namespace), in this case linking to the service account:
# role manifest
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: Role
metadata:
name: user-rbac
namespace: rbac
rules:
- apiGroups:
- "*"
resources:
- pods
verbs:
- get
- list
---
# rolebinding manifest
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: RoleBinding
metadata:
name: user-rb
namespace: rbac
roleRef:
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
kind: Role
name: user-rbac
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
name: udef
namespace: rbac
With this being done, you will be able to test remotely:
// show pods -> will be allowed
$ kubectl get pods --kubeconfig
..... valid response provided
// get namespaces (or other types of commands) -> should not be allowed
$ kubectl get namespaces --kubeconfig
Error from server (Forbidden): namespaces is forbidden: User bla-bla