Configure Identity Management

This topic explains how to enable and configure identity management in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) with a standalone management cluster.

About Enabling and Configuring Identity Management

You can enable identity management during or after management cluster deployment, by configuring an LDAPS or OIDC identity provider. Any workload clusters that you create after enabling identity management are automatically configured to use the same identity provider as the management cluster. To retroactively configure existing workload clusters with newly-enabled identity management, follow Enable Identity Management on Workload Clusters.

Enabling and configuring identity management includes the following steps. If you want to use standard, non-admin kubeconfig files for access to management and workload clusters, after completing the steps in this topic, you must also configure role-based access control (RBAC) by following the instructions in Configure RBAC.

(Recommended) Enabling and configuring identity management during management cluster deployment:

  1. Obtain your identity provider details.
  2. Use the obtained details to configure LDAPS or OIDC in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.
  3. After the management cluster has been created, confirm that the authentication service is running correctly and complete its configuration.

For instructions, see (Recommended) Enable and Configure Identity Management During Management Cluster Deployment below.

Enabling and configuring identity management after management cluster deployment:

  1. Obtain your identity provider details.
  2. Generate the Pinniped add-on secret for the management cluster.
  3. Confirm that the authentication service is running correctly and complete its configuration.
  4. If the management cluster manages any workload clusters, generate the Pinniped add-on secret for each workload cluster that was created before you enabled identity management.

For instructions, see Enable and Configure Identity Management in an Existing Deployment below.

(Recommended) Enable and Configure Identity Management During Management Cluster Deployment

This section explains how to enable and configure identity management during management cluster deployment.

Obtain Your Identity Provider Details

Before you can enable identity management, you must have an identity provider. Tanzu Kubernetes Grid supports LDAPS and OIDC identity providers.

  • To use your company’s internal LDAPS server as the identity provider, obtain LDAPS information from your LDAP administrator.
  • To use OIDC as the identity provider, you must have an account with an identity provider that supports the OpenID Connect standard, for example, Okta.

Example: Register a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Application in Okta

To use Okta as your OIDC provider, you must create an account with Okta and register an application for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid with your account:

  1. If you do not have one, create an Okta account.
  2. Go to the Admin portal by clicking the Admin button.
  3. Go to Applications and click Create App Integration.
  4. For Sign-in method, select OIDC - OpenID Connect and for Application type, select Web Application, and then click Next.
  5. Give your application a name.
  6. Under Grant Type, under Client acting on behalf of a user, make sure that both Authorization Code and Refresh Token are selected.
  7. Enter a placeholder Sign-in redirect URI. For example, enter http://localhost:8080/authorization-code/callback. You will update this with the real URL after you deploy the management cluster.
  8. Under Assignments, assign people and groups to the application. The people and groups that you assign to the application will be the users who can access the management cluster and the workload clusters that you use it to deploy.
  9. Click Save.
  10. In the General tab for your application, copy and save the Client ID and Client secret. You will need these credentials when you deploy the management cluster.
Important

All OIDC providers must be configured to issue Refresh Tokens in order to use TKG 2.3 or greater.

Configure LDAPS or OIDC Settings in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid

Use the obtained above details to configure LDAPS or OIDC in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid:

  • If you are deploying your management cluster using the installer interface, configure LDAPS or OIDC in the Identity Management section. For instructions, see Configure Identity Management in Deploy Management Clusters with the Installer Interface.

  • If you are deploying your management cluster from a configuration file, set the LDAP_* or OIDC_* variables in the configuration file.

    For example:

    LDAP:

    IDENTITY_MANAGEMENT_TYPE: ldap
LDAP_BIND_DN: "cn=bind-user,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com"
LDAP_BIND_PASSWORD: "example-password"
LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_BASE_DN: dc=example,dc=com
LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_FILTER: &(objectClass=posixGroup)(memberUid={})
LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_NAME_ATTRIBUTE: cn
LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_USER_ATTRIBUTE: uid
LDAP_HOST: ldaps.example.com:636
LDAP_ROOT_CA_DATA_B64: ""
LDAP_USER_SEARCH_BASE_DN: ou=people,dc=example,dc=com
LDAP_USER_SEARCH_FILTER: &(objectClass=posixAccount)(uid={})
LDAP_USER_SEARCH_NAME_ATTRIBUTE: uid

    OIDC:

    IDENTITY_MANAGEMENT_TYPE: oidc
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_CLIENT_ID: 0oa2i[...]NKst4x7
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_CLIENT_SECRET: 331!b70[...]60c_a10-72b4
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_GROUPS_CLAIM: groups
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_ISSUER_URL: https://dev-[...].okta.com
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_SCOPES: openid,groups,email,offline_access
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_USERNAME_CLAIM: email

    For instructions on how to prepare a management cluster configuration file, see Create a Management Cluster Configuration File.

Complete the Configuration of Identity Management

After the management cluster has been deployed, finish configuring identity management by following these procedures, described in the sections below:

  1. Connect kubectl to the management cluster.
  2. Confirm that the authentication service is running correctly by checking its status, as described in Check the Status of the Identity Management Service.
  3. (OIDC Only) Provide the Callback URI to the OIDC Provider.
  4. To support using standard, non-admin kubeconfig files to access the management cluster, Configure RBAC for a Management Cluster.

Connect kubectl to the Management Cluster

To configure identity management, you must obtain and use the admin context of the management cluster:

  1. Get the admin context of the management cluster. The procedures in this topic use a management cluster named id-mgmt-test.

    tanzu mc kubeconfig get id-mgmt-test --admin

    If your management cluster is named id-mgmt-test, you should see the confirmation Credentials of workload cluster 'id-mgmt-test' have been saved. You can now access the cluster by running 'kubectl config use-context id-mgmt-test-admin@id-mgmt-test'. The admin context of a cluster gives you full access to the cluster without requiring authentication with your IDP.

  2. Set kubectl to the admin context of the management cluster:

    kubectl config use-context id-mgmt-test-admin@id-mgmt-test

Check the Status of the Identity Management Service

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid uses Pinniped to integrate clusters with OIDC and LDAP identity providers. When you enable identity management, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid creates the pinniped-supervisor service in the pinniped-supervisor namespace and pinniped-concierge in the pinniped-concierge namespace. Follow the steps below to check the status of the Pinniped service and note the EXTERNAL-IP address at which the service is exposed.

  1. Get information about the services that are running in the management cluster. The identity management service runs in the pinniped-supervisor namespace:

    kubectl get services -n pinniped-supervisor

    You see the following entry in the output:

    vSphere with NSX Advanced Load Balancer (ALB):

    NAME                          TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP    PORT(S)          AGE
service/pinniped-supervisor   LoadBalancer   100.70.70.12   20.52.230.18   5556:31234/TCP   84m

    vSphere without NSX ALB:

    NAME                          TYPE       CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)          AGE
service/pinniped-supervisor   NodePort   100.70.70.12   <none>        5556:31234/TCP   84m

  2. Note the following information:

    • vSphere with NSX ALB: Note the external address of the pinniped-supervisor service, as listed under EXTERNAL-IP.
    • vSphere without NSX ALB: Note the port on which the pinniped-supervisor service is running. In the example above, this port is 31234.

  3. Check that all services in the management cluster are running.

    kubectl get pods -A

    It can take several minutes for the Pinniped service to be up and running. Wait until you see that pinniped-post-deploy-job is completed before you proceed to the next steps.

    NAMESPACE             NAME                                   READY  STATUS      RESTARTS  AGE
[...]
pinniped-supervisor   pinniped-post-deploy-job-hq8fc         0/1    Completed   0         85m
Note

You are able to run kubectl get pods because you are using the admin context for the management cluster. Users who attempt to connect to the management cluster with the regular context will not be able to access its resources because they are not yet authorized to do so.

Check the Status of an LDAP Identity Management Service

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid uses Pinniped to integrate clusters with an LDAP identity service to expose the service endpoint. When you enable LDAP, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid creates the pinniped-supervisor service in the pinniped-supervisor namespace and the pinniped-concierge service in the pinniped-concierge namespace.

  1. Check that all services in the management cluster are running:

    kubectl get services -A

    It can take several minutes for the Pinniped service to be up and running. Wait until you see that pinniped-post-deploy-job is completed before you proceed to the next steps.

    NAMESPACE             NAME                                   READY  STATUS      RESTARTS  AGE
[...]
pinniped-supervisor   pinniped-post-deploy-job-hq8fc         0/1    Completed   0         85m
    Note

    You are able to run kubectl get pods because you are using the admin context for the management cluster. Users who attempt to connect to the management cluster with the regular context will not be able to access its resources because they are not yet authorized to do so.

  2. Proceed to Configure RBAC for the Management Cluster.

(OIDC Only) Provide the Callback URI to the OIDC Provider

If you configured the management cluster to use OIDC authentication, you must provide the callback URI for that management cluster to your OIDC identity provider. For example, if you are using OIDC and your IDP is Okta, perform the following steps:

  1. Log in to your Okta account.
  2. In the main menu, go to Applications.
  3. Select the application that you created for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.
  4. In the General Settings panel, click Edit.

  5. Under Login, update Login redirect URIs to include the address of the node in which the pinniped-supervisor is running:

    • vSphere with NSX ALB: Add the external IP address and port number of the pinniped-supervisor service that you noted in the previous procedure:

      https://EXTERNAL-IP/callback

    • vSphere without NSX ALB: Add the IP address that you set as the API endpoint and the pinniped-supervisor port number that you noted in the previous procedure:

      https://API-ENDPOINT-IP:31234/callback

      In all cases, you must specify https, not http.

  6. Click Save.

Configure RBAC for the Management Cluster

If you plan to use standard, non-admin kubeconfig files for access to the management cluster, after completing the configuration of identity management, configure RBAC by following the instructions in Configure RBAC for a Management Cluster.

Enable and Configure Identity Management in an Existing Deployment

This section explains how to enable and configure identity management in an existing deployment.

Obtain Your Identity Provider Details

Follow the instructions in Obtain Your Identity Provider Details above.

Generate the Pinniped Add-on Secret for the Management Cluster

This procedure configures the Pinniped add-on and deploys the authentication components in your management cluster. To generate a Kubernetes secret for the Pinniped add-on:

  1. Set the context of kubectl to your management cluster. For example, with a management cluster named id-mgmt-test:

    kubectl config use-context id-mgmt-test-admin@id-mgmt-test

  2. Create a cluster configuration file by copying the configuration settings that you defined when you deployed your management cluster into a new file. Add the following settings to the management cluster configuration file, including the OIDC or LDAP identity provider details:

    Note

    You need to set these variables only for management clusters.

    # Identity management type. This must be "oidc" or "ldap".

IDENTITY_MANAGEMENT_TYPE:

# Explicitly set the namespace, which for management clusters is "tkg-system".

NAMESPACE: tkg-system

# Set these variables if you want to configure OIDC.

OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_CLIENT_ID:
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_CLIENT_SECRET:
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_GROUPS_CLAIM:
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_ISSUER_URL:
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_SCOPES: "email,profile,groups,offline_access"
OIDC_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_USERNAME_CLAIM:

# Set these variables if you want to configure LDAP.

LDAP_BIND_DN:
LDAP_BIND_PASSWORD:
LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_BASE_DN:
LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_FILTER:
LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_NAME_ATTRIBUTE: dn
LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_USER_ATTRIBUTE: dn
LDAP_HOST:
LDAP_ROOT_CA_DATA_B64:
LDAP_USER_SEARCH_BASE_DN:
LDAP_USER_SEARCH_FILTER:
LDAP_USER_SEARCH_ID_ATTRIBUTE: dn
LDAP_USER_SEARCH_NAME_ATTRIBUTE:

# Set these variables if you want to configure certificate duration

CERT_DURATION: 2160h
CERT_RENEW_BEFORE: 360h

    To see which of these variables are optional and can be omitted, go to Variables for Configuring Identity Providers - OIDC and Variables for Configuring Identity Providers - LDAP.

    If your management cluster is behind a proxy, make sure the new configuration file includes your proxy configuration details:

    TKG_HTTP_PROXY:
TKG_HTTPS_PROXY:
TKG_NO_PROXY:

    For more information about these variables, see Proxy Configuration.

    vSphere: Change the VSPHERE_CONTROL_PLANE_ENDPOINT configuration setting to an unused IP address, as a dummy value to pass internal checks.

  3. Make sure your local environment has IDENTITY_MANAGEMENT_TYPE set to either oidc or ldap, and not none:

    echo $IDENTITY_MANAGEMENT_TYPE

    If this variable is set to none, run an export command to re-set it to oidc or ldap.

  4. Set the FILTER_BY_ADDON_TYPE environment variable to authentication/pinniped so that tanzu management-cluster create operates only on Pinniped-related objects:

    export FILTER_BY_ADDON_TYPE="authentication/pinniped"

  5. Generate a secret for the Pinniped add-on:

    tanzu management-cluster create CLUSTER-NAME --dry-run -f CLUSTER-CONFIG-FILE > CLUSTER-NAME-example-secret.yaml

    Where:

    • CLUSTER-NAME is the name of your target management cluster.
    • CLUSTER-CONFIG-FILE is the configuration file that you created above.

    The environment variable settings cause tanzu management-cluster create --dry-run to generate a Kubernetes secret, not a full cluster manifest.

  6. Review the secret and then apply it to the management cluster. For example:

    kubectl apply -f CLUSTER-NAME-example-secret.yaml

  7. After applying the secret, check the status of the Pinniped add-on by running the kubectl get app command:

    $ kubectl get app CLUSTER-NAME-pinniped -n tkg-system
NAME           DESCRIPTION             SINCE-DEPLOY    AGE
pinniped       Reconcile succeeded     3m23s           7h50m

    If the returned status is Reconcile failed, run the following command to get details on the failure:

    kubectl get app CLUSTER-NAME-pinniped -n tkg-system -o yaml

Complete the Configuration of Identity Management

Follow the instructions in Complete the Configuration of Identity Management above.

Enable Identity Management on Workload Clusters

Any workload clusters that you create when you enable identity management in the management cluster are automatically configured to use the same identity management service.

Authenticate Users on a Machine Without a Browser (LDAP)

If your bootstrap machine is a jumpbox or other machine with no display, you can authenticate to a cluster using LDAP from a browser running on your local machine.

Note

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid does not currently support browserless CLI login using OIDC identity providers.

  1. From a terminal window on your local machine, run ssh to remotely log in to your bootstrap machine.

  2. Set the TANZU_CLI_PINNIPED_AUTH_LOGIN_SKIP_BROWSER=true environment variable. This adds the --skip-browser option to the kubeconfig for the cluster.

    # Linux
export TANZU_CLI_PINNIPED_AUTH_LOGIN_SKIP_BROWSER=true
# Windows
set TANZU_CLI_PINNIPED_AUTH_LOGIN_SKIP_BROWSER=true

  3. For LDAP identity provider, set the PINNIPED_UPSTREAM_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_FLOW=cli_password, and PINNIPED_USERNAME, PINNIPED_PASSWORD environments for browserless CLI login.

    # Linux
export PINNIPED_UPSTREAM_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_FLOW=cli_password
export PINNIPED_USERNAME=<LDAP-USER>
export PINNIPED_PASSWORD=<LDAP-PASSWORD>
# Windows
set PINNIPED_UPSTREAM_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_FLOW=cli_password
set PINNIPED_USERNAME=<LDAP-USER>
set PINNIPED_PASSWORD=<LDAP-PASSWORD>
``

  4. Export the standard kubeconfig for the cluster to a local file. Note that the command does not include the --admin option, so the kubeconfig that is exported is the standard kubeconfig, not the admin version. For example, to export the kubeconfig file to /tmp/my-cluster-kubeconfig:

    • For a management cluster, run:

      tanzu mc kubeconfig get --export-file /tmp/my-cluster-kubeconfig

      You should see confirmation that You can now access the cluster by specifying '--kubeconfig /tmp/my-mgmt-cluster-kubeconfig' flag when using 'kubectl' command.

    • For a workload cluster, run:

      tanzu cluster kubeconfig get my-cluster --export-file /tmp/my-cluster-kubeconfig

  5. Connect to the cluster by using the newly-created kubeconfig file:

    kubectl get pods -A --kubeconfig /tmp/my-cluster-kubeconfig

    The CLI outputs a login link for your identity provider. For example:

    Log in by visiting this link:

   https://10.180.105.166:31234/oauth2/authorize?access_type=offline&client_id=pinniped-cli&code_challenge=-aJ617vJZXZeEnHPab1V2_VHPmc5VwspFig5QQKyTwg&code_challenge_method=S256&nonce=cafaf8f4d2cb714ef8fb3320c1b088ba&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2F127.0.0.1%3A33087%2Fcallback&response_mode=form_post&response_type=code&scope=offline_access+openid+pinniped%3Arequest-audience&state=fff3d4d46b36359d5ba2f24fad471dd8

   Optionally, paste your authorization code:

  6. Copy the link and paste it into a browser on your local machine.

  7. In the browser, log in to your identity provider. A page appears prompting you to paste an authorization code into the CLI:

    Finish your login

  8. Copy the authorization code and paste it into the CLI, after the Optionally, paste your authorization code: prompt.

  9. Connect to the cluster again by using the same kubeconfig file as you used previously:

    kubectl get pods -A --kubeconfig FILE-PATH

    • If you already configured a role binding on the cluster for the authenticated user, the output shows the pod information.

    • If you have not configured a role binding on the cluster, you will see a message denying the user account access to the pods: Error from server (Forbidden): pods is forbidden: User "user@example.com" cannot list resource "pods" in API group "" at the cluster scope. This happens because the user has been successfully authenticated, but they are not yet authorized to access any resources on the cluster. To authorize the user to access the cluster resources, you must configure RBAC on the cluster by creating a cluster role binding:

Deactivate Identity Management in an Existing Deployment

To deactivate identity management in an existing deployment in which identity management is enabled:

  1. Set the context of kubectl to your management cluster. For example, with a management cluster named id-mgmt-test:

    kubectl config use-context id-mgmt-test-admin@id-mgmt-test

  2. Retrieve the management cluster configuration file and edit it to set IDENTITY_MANAGEMENT_TYPE: none.

  3. Generate a Pinniped Secret definition by running tanzu management-cluster create with --dry-run and filtering for Pinniped-related objects.

    FILTER_BY_ADDON_TYPE=authentication/pinniped tanzu management-cluster create --dry-run CLUSTER-CONFIG > PINNIPED-SECRET

    Where CLUSTER-CONFIG is the cluster configuration file and PINNIPED-SECRET is what you name the generated Pinniped Secret definition, such as mc-no-idp.yaml.

  4. Apply the new secret to deactivate Pinniped on the management cluster:

    kubectl apply -f PINNIPED-SECRET

  5. After you deactivate Pinniped on the management cluster, its class-based clusters automatically deactivate, but you need to deactivate its legacy clusters manually:

    1. List any Pinniped secrets remaining in the management cluster context:

      kubectl get secret -A | grep pinniped-addon

    2. Investigate the secrets in the kubectl get secret output, if any, using the secret name and namespace listed:

      kubectl get secret SECRET-NAME -n SECRET-NAMESPACE -o yaml

    3. Delete secrets that contain either:

      • type: tkg.tanzu.vmware.com/addon - these are legacy cluster secrets
      • any OIDC or LDAP configurations
      kubectl delete secret SECRET-NAME

      Where SECRET-NAME is the value of metadata.name set in the Secret spec.

What to Do Next

If you intend to use standard, non-admin kubeconfig files to give users access to your management and workload clusters, you must configure RBAC authorization:

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