1.2.5 Ensure that the --kubelet-client-certificate and --kubelet-client-key arguments are set as appropriate - certificate

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Information

Enable certificate based kubelet authentication.

Rationale:

The apiserver, by default, does not authenticate itself to the kubelet's HTTPS endpoints. The requests from the apiserver are treated anonymously. You should set up certificate-based kubelet authentication to ensure that the apiserver authenticates itself to kubelets when submitting requests.

Solution

Follow the Kubernetes documentation and set up the TLS connection between the apiserver and kubelets. Then, edit API server pod specification file /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-apiserver.yaml on the master node and set the kubelet client certificate and key parameters as below.

--kubelet-client-certificate=<path/to/client-certificate-file>
--kubelet-client-key=<path/to/client-key-file>

Impact:

You require TLS to be configured on apiserver as well as kubelets.

Default Value:

By default, certificate-based kubelet authentication is not set.

References:

https://kubernetes.io/docs/admin/kube-apiserver/

https://kubernetes.io/docs/admin/kubelet-authentication-authorization/

https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/master-node-communication/#apiserver---kubelet

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/2662

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(2), CSCv6|3.4, CSCv7|4.5

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: f28a727d94e225b962b1f7275872a503cf91c618604c43b28eb0112f707aa66b