In the diagram below you can see the full authentication flow with all options, starting with the browser on the lower left hand side.
Kubernetes Workstation
+---------------------------------------------------+ +------------------+
| | | |
| +-----------+ apiserver +------------+ | | +------------+ |
| | | proxy | | | | | | |
| | apiserver | | ingress | | | | ingress | |
| | | | controller | | | | controller | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | service account/ | | | | | | |
| | | kubeconfig | | | | | | |
| | +<-------------------+ | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| +------+----+ kubeconfig +------+-----+ | | +------+-----+ |
| |<--------------------------------------------------------| |
| | | |
+---------------------------------------------------+ +------------------+
If using a service account to connect to the API server, Dashboard expects the file
/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token
to be present. It provides a secret
token that is required to authenticate with the API server.
Verify with the following commands:
# start a container that contains curl
$ kubectl run test --image=tutum/curl -- sleep 10000
# check that container is running
$ kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
test-701078429-s5kca 1/1 Running 0 16s
# check if secret exists
$ kubectl exec test-701078429-s5kca ls /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/
ca.crt
namespace
token
# get service IP of master
$ kubectl get services
NAME CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
kubernetes 10.0.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 1d
# check base connectivity from cluster inside
$ kubectl exec test-701078429-s5kca -- curl -k https://10.0.0.1
Unauthorized
# connect using tokens
$ TOKEN_VALUE=$(kubectl exec test-701078429-s5kca -- cat /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token)
$ echo $TOKEN_VALUE
eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3Mi....9A
$ kubectl exec test-701078429-s5kca -- curl --cacert /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/ca.crt -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN_VALUE" https://10.0.0.1
{
"paths": [
"/api",
"/api/v1",
"/apis",
"/apis/apps",
"/apis/apps/v1alpha1",
"/apis/authentication.k8s.io",
"/apis/authentication.k8s.io/v1beta1",
"/apis/authorization.k8s.io",
"/apis/authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1",
"/apis/autoscaling",
"/apis/autoscaling/v1",
"/apis/batch",
"/apis/batch/v1",
"/apis/batch/v2alpha1",
"/apis/certificates.k8s.io",
"/apis/certificates.k8s.io/v1alpha1",
"/apis/extensions",
"/apis/extensions/v1beta1",
"/apis/policy",
"/apis/policy/v1alpha1",
"/apis/rbac.authorization.k8s.io",
"/apis/rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1alpha1",
"/apis/storage.k8s.io",
"/apis/storage.k8s.io/v1beta1",
"/healthz",
"/healthz/ping",
"/logs",
"/metrics",
"/swaggerapi/",
"/ui/",
"/version"
]
}
If it is not working, there are two possible reasons:
-
The contents of the tokens are invalid. Find the secret name with
kubectl get secrets | grep service-account
and delete it withkubectl delete secret <name>
. It will automatically be recreated. -
You have a non-standard Kubernetes installation and the file containing the token may not be present. The API server will mount a volume containing this file, but only if the API server is configured to use the ServiceAccount admission controller. If you experience this error, verify that your API server is using the ServiceAccount admission controller. If you are configuring the API server by hand, you can set this with the
--admission-control
parameter. Please note that you should use other admission controllers as well. Before configuring this option, you should read about admission controllers.