Pod Security admission (PSA) is enabled by default in v1.23 and later, as it has graduated to beta. Pod Security is an admission controller that carries out checks against the Kubernetes Pod Security Standards when new pods are created. This tutorial shows you how to enforce the baseline
Pod Security Standard at the cluster level which applies a standard configuration to all namespaces in a cluster.
To apply Pod Security Standards to specific namespaces, refer to Apply Pod Security Standards at the namespace level.
Install the following on your workstation:
Pod Security Admission lets you apply built-in Pod Security Standards with the following modes: enforce
, audit
, and warn
.
To gather information that helps you to choose the Pod Security Standards that are most appropriate for your configuration, do the following:
Create a cluster with no Pod Security Standards applied:
kind create cluster --name psa-wo-cluster-pss --image kindest/node:v1.23.0
The output is similar to this:
Creating cluster "psa-wo-cluster-pss" ...
â Ensuring node image (kindest/node:v1.23.0) đŧ
â Preparing nodes đĻ
â Writing configuration đ
â Starting control-plane đšī¸
â Installing CNI đ
â Installing StorageClass đž
Set kubectl context to "kind-psa-wo-cluster-pss"
You can now use your cluster with:
kubectl cluster-info --context kind-psa-wo-cluster-pss
Thanks for using kind! đ
Set the kubectl context to the new cluster:
kubectl cluster-info --context kind-psa-wo-cluster-pss
The output is similar to this:
Kubernetes control plane is running at https://127.0.0.1:61350
CoreDNS is running at https://127.0.0.1:61350/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy
To further debug and diagnose cluster problems, use 'kubectl cluster-info dump'.
Get a list of namespaces in the cluster:
kubectl get ns
The output is similar to this:
NAME STATUS AGE
default Active 9m30s
kube-node-lease Active 9m32s
kube-public Active 9m32s
kube-system Active 9m32s
local-path-storage Active 9m26s
Use --dry-run=server
to understand what happens when different Pod Security Standards are applied:
kubectl label --dry-run=server --overwrite ns --all \
pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce=privileged
The output is similar to this:
namespace/default labeled
namespace/kube-node-lease labeled
namespace/kube-public labeled
namespace/kube-system labeled
namespace/local-path-storage labeled
kubectl label --dry-run=server --overwrite ns --all \
pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce=baseline
The output is similar to this:
namespace/default labeled
namespace/kube-node-lease labeled
namespace/kube-public labeled
Warning: existing pods in namespace "kube-system" violate the new PodSecurity enforce level "baseline:latest"
Warning: etcd-psa-wo-cluster-pss-control-plane (and 3 other pods): host namespaces, hostPath volumes
Warning: kindnet-vzj42: non-default capabilities, host namespaces, hostPath volumes
Warning: kube-proxy-m6hwf: host namespaces, hostPath volumes, privileged
namespace/kube-system labeled
namespace/local-path-storage labeled
kubectl label --dry-run=server --overwrite ns --all \
pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce=restricted
The output is similar to this:
namespace/default labeled
namespace/kube-node-lease labeled
namespace/kube-public labeled
Warning: existing pods in namespace "kube-system" violate the new PodSecurity enforce level "restricted:latest"
Warning: coredns-7bb9c7b568-hsptc (and 1 other pod): unrestricted capabilities, runAsNonRoot != true, seccompProfile
Warning: etcd-psa-wo-cluster-pss-control-plane (and 3 other pods): host namespaces, hostPath volumes, allowPrivilegeEscalation != false, unrestricted capabilities, restricted volume types, runAsNonRoot != true
Warning: kindnet-vzj42: non-default capabilities, host namespaces, hostPath volumes, allowPrivilegeEscalation != false, unrestricted capabilities, restricted volume types, runAsNonRoot != true, seccompProfile
Warning: kube-proxy-m6hwf: host namespaces, hostPath volumes, privileged, allowPrivilegeEscalation != false, unrestricted capabilities, restricted volume types, runAsNonRoot != true, seccompProfile
namespace/kube-system labeled
Warning: existing pods in namespace "local-path-storage" violate the new PodSecurity enforce level "restricted:latest"
Warning: local-path-provisioner-d6d9f7ffc-lw9lh: allowPrivilegeEscalation != false, unrestricted capabilities, runAsNonRoot != true, seccompProfile
namespace/local-path-storage labeled
From the previous output, you'll notice that applying the privileged
Pod Security Standard shows no warnings for any namespaces. However, baseline
and restricted
standards both have warnings, specifically in the kube-system
namespace.
In this section, you apply the following Pod Security Standards to the latest
version:
baseline
standard in enforce
mode.restricted
standard in warn
and audit
mode.The baseline
Pod Security Standard provides a convenient middle ground that allows keeping the exemption list short and prevents known privilege escalations.
Additionally, to prevent pods from failing in kube-system
, you'll exempt the namespace from having Pod Security Standards applied.
When you implement Pod Security Admission in your own environment, consider the following:
Based on the risk posture applied to a cluster, a stricter Pod Security Standard like restricted
might be a better choice.
Exempting the kube-system
namespace allows pods to run as privileged
in this namespace. For real world use, the Kubernetes project strongly recommends that you apply strict RBAC policies that limit access to kube-system
, following the principle of least privilege. To implement the preceding standards, do the following:
Create a configuration file that can be consumed by the Pod Security Admission Controller to implement these Pod Security Standards:
mkdir -p /tmp/pss
cat <<EOF > /tmp/pss/cluster-level-pss.yaml
apiVersion: apiserver.config.k8s.io/v1
kind: AdmissionConfiguration
plugins:
- name: PodSecurity
configuration:
apiVersion: pod-security.admission.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: PodSecurityConfiguration
defaults:
enforce: "baseline"
enforce-version: "latest"
audit: "restricted"
audit-version: "latest"
warn: "restricted"
warn-version: "latest"
exemptions:
usernames: []
runtimeClasses: []
namespaces: [kube-system]
EOF
Configure the API server to consume this file during cluster creation:
cat <<EOF > /tmp/pss/cluster-config.yaml
kind: Cluster
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
nodes:
- role: control-plane
kubeadmConfigPatches:
- |
kind: ClusterConfiguration
apiServer:
extraArgs:
admission-control-config-file: /etc/config/cluster-level-pss.yaml
extraVolumes:
- name: accf
hostPath: /etc/config
mountPath: /etc/config
readOnly: false
pathType: "DirectoryOrCreate"
extraMounts:
- hostPath: /tmp/pss
containerPath: /etc/config
# optional: if set, the mount is read-only.
# default false
readOnly: false
# optional: if set, the mount needs SELinux relabeling.
# default false
selinuxRelabel: false
# optional: set propagation mode (None, HostToContainer or Bidirectional)
# see https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/storage/volumes/#mount-propagation
# default None
propagation: None
EOF
/tmp
as a Shared Directory under the menu item Preferences > Resources > File Sharing. Create a cluster that uses Pod Security Admission to apply these Pod Security Standards:
kind create cluster --name psa-with-cluster-pss --image kindest/node:v1.23.0 --config /tmp/pss/cluster-config.yaml
The output is similar to this:
Creating cluster "psa-with-cluster-pss" ...
â Ensuring node image (kindest/node:v1.23.0) đŧ
â Preparing nodes đĻ
â Writing configuration đ
â Starting control-plane đšī¸
â Installing CNI đ
â Installing StorageClass đž
Set kubectl context to "kind-psa-with-cluster-pss"
You can now use your cluster with:
kubectl cluster-info --context kind-psa-with-cluster-pss
Have a question, bug, or feature request? Let us know! https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/#community đ
Point kubectl to the cluster
kubectl cluster-info --context kind-psa-with-cluster-pss
The output is similar to this:
Kubernetes control plane is running at https://127.0.0.1:63855
CoreDNS is running at https://127.0.0.1:63855/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy
To further debug and diagnose cluster problems, use 'kubectl cluster-info dump'.
Create the following Pod specification for a minimal configuration in the default namespace:
cat <<EOF > /tmp/pss/nginx-pod.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: nginx
spec:
containers:
- image: nginx
name: nginx
ports:
- containerPort: 80
EOF
Create the Pod in the cluster:
kubectl apply -f /tmp/pss/nginx-pod.yaml
The output is similar to this:
Warning: would violate PodSecurity "restricted:latest": allowPrivilegeEscalation != false (container "nginx" must set securityContext.allowPrivilegeEscalation=false), unrestricted capabilities (container "nginx" must set securityContext.capabilities.drop=["ALL"]), runAsNonRoot != true (pod or container "nginx" must set securityContext.runAsNonRoot=true), seccompProfile (pod or container "nginx" must set securityContext.seccompProfile.type to "RuntimeDefault" or "Localhost")
pod/nginx created
Run kind delete cluster --name psa-with-cluster-pss
and kind delete cluster --name psa-wo-cluster-pss
to delete the clusters you created.
Š 2022 The Kubernetes Authors
Documentation Distributed under CC BY 4.0.
https://kubernetes.io/docs/tutorials/security/cluster-level-pss/