Elastisys Compliant Kubernetes Apps

Overview

This repository is part of the Compliant Kubernetes (compliantkubernetes) platform. The platform consists of the following repositories:

• compliantkubernetes-kubespray - Code for managing Kubernetes clusters and the infrastructure around them.
• compliantkubernetes-apps - Code, configuration and tools for running various services and applications on top of Kubernetes clusters.

The Elastisys Compliant Kubernetes (compliantkubernetes) platform runs two Kubernetes clusters. One called "service" and one called "workload".

The service cluster provides observability, log aggregation, private container registry with vulnerability scanning and authentication using the following services:

• Prometheus and Grafana
• OpenSearch and OpenSearch Dashboards
• Harbor
• Dex

The workload cluster manages the user applications as well as providing intrusion detection, security policies, log forwarding and monitoring using the following services:

• Falco
• Open Policy Agent
• Fluentd
• Prometheus

This repository installs all the applications of ck8s on top of already created clusters. To setup the clusters see compliantkubernetes-kubespray. A service-cluster (sc) or workload-cluster (wc) can be created separately but all of the applications will not work correctly unless both are running.

All config files will be located under CK8S_CONFIG_PATH. There will be four config files: common-config.yaml, wc-config.yaml, sc-config.yaml and secrets.yaml. See Quickstart for instructions on how to initialize the repo

☁️ Cloud providers ☁️

Currently we support the following cloud providers:

• AWS
• Azure
• Citycloud/Cleura
• Elastx
• Exoscale
• Openstack
• Safespring
• UpCloud
• In addition to this we support running Compliant Kubernetes on bare metal (beta).

Setup

The apps are installed using a combination of helm charts and manifests with the help of helmfile and some bash scripts.

🔧 Requirements 🔧

To operate compliantkubernetes-apps some tools need to be installed. They are declared in the file REQUIREMENTS as PURLs.

Install the requirements to use compliantkubernetes-apps:

./bin/ck8s install-requirements

Note that you will need a service and workload cluster.

Developer requirements and guidelines

See DEVELOPMENT.md.

🔐 PGP 🔐

Configuration secrets in ck8s are encrypted using SOPS. We currently only support using PGP when encrypting secrets. Because of this, before you can start using ck8s, you need to generate your own PGP key:

gpg --full-generate-key

Note that it's generally preferable that you generate and store your primary key and revocation certificate offline. That way you can make sure you're able to revoke keys in the case of them getting lost, or worse yet, accessed by someone that's not you.

Instead create subkeys for specific devices such as your laptop that you use for encryption and/or signing.

If this is all new to you, here's a link worth reading!

Usage

Quickstart

You probably want to check the compliantkubernetes-kubespray repository first, since compliantkubernetes-apps depends on having two clusters already set up. In addition to this, you will need to set up the following DNS entries (replace example.com with your domain).

There are two options when managing DNS records, manually or ExternalDNS.

• Manually point these domains to the workload cluster ingress controller:

  • *.example.com

• Manually point these domains to the service cluster ingress controller:

  • *.ops.example.com
  • dex.example.com
  • grafana.example.com
  • harbor.example.com
  • opensearch.example.com

Assuming you already have everything needed to install the apps, this is what you need to do.

The other option is to let ExternalDNS manage your DNS records, currently only AWS Route 53 is supported. You configure ExternalDNS later in the process.

1. Decide on a name for this environment, the cloud provider to use as well as the flavor and set them as environment variables: Note that these will be later kept as global values in the common defaults config to prevent them from being inadvertently changed, as they will affect the default options of the configuration when generated or updated. To change them remove the common defaults config, set the new environment variables, and then generate a new configuration.

   export CK8S_ENVIRONMENT_NAME=my-ck8s-cluster
   export CK8S_FLAVOR=[dev|prod|air-gapped] # defaults to dev
   
   #
   # If 'none', no infra provider tailored configuration will be performed!
   #
   export CK8S_CLOUD_PROVIDER=[exoscale|safespring|citycloud|elastx|upcloud|azure|aws|baremetal|openstack|none]
   export CK8S_K8S_INSTALLER=[kubespray|capi] # set this to whichever installer was used for the kubernetes layer

   [!NOTE] The air-gapped flavor has a lot of the same settings as the prod flavor but with some additional variables that you need to configure yourself (these are set to set-me).

2. Then set the path to where the ck8s configuration should be stored and the PGP fingerprint of the key(s) to use for encryption:

   export CK8S_CONFIG_PATH=${HOME}/.ck8s/my-ck8s-cluster
   export CK8S_PGP_FP=<PGP-fingerprint1,PGP-fingerprint2,...>

3. Initialize your environment and configuration: Note that the configuration is split between read-only default configs found in the defaults/ directory, and the override configs common-config.yaml, sc-config.yaml and wc-config.yaml which are editable and will override any default value. The common-config.yaml will be applied to both the service and workload cluster, although it will be overridden by the any value set in the sc-config.yaml or wc-config.yaml respectively. When new configs are created this will generate new random passwords for all services. When configs are updated this will not overwrite existing values in the override configs. It will create a backup of the old override configs placed in backups/, generate new default configs in defaults/, merge common values into common-config.yaml, and clear out redundant values set in the override configs that matches the default values. See compliantkubernetes.io if you are uncertain about what order you should do things in.

   ./bin/ck8s init both

   [!NOTE] It is possible to initialize wc and sc clusters separately by replacing both when running the init command:

   ./bin/ck8s init wc
   ./bin/ck8s init sc

4. Edit the configuration files that have been initialized in the configuration path. Make sure that the objectStorage values are set in common-config.yaml or sc-config.yaml and wc-config.yaml, as well as required credentials in secrets.yaml according to your objectStorage.type. The type may already be set in the default configuration found in the defaults/ directory depending on your selected cloud provider. Set objectStorage.s3.* if you are using S3 or objectStorage.gcs.* if you are using GCS. Enable ExternalDNS externalDns.enabled and set the required variables, if you want ExternalDNS to manage your records from inside your cluster. It requires credentials to route53, txtOwnerId, endpoints if externalDns.sources.crd is enabled.

5. Create S3 buckets - optional If you have set objectStorage.type: s3, then you need to create the buckets specified under objectStorage.buckets in your configuration files. You can run the script scripts/S3/entry.sh create to create the buckets required. The script uses s3cmd in the background and it uses the ${HOME}/.s3cfg file for configuration and authentication for your S3 provider. There's also a helper script scripts/S3/generate-s3cfg.sh that will allow you to generate an appropriate s3cfg config file for a few providers.

   # Use your s3cmd config file.
   scripts/S3/entry.sh create
   
   # Use custom config file for s3cmd.
   scripts/S3/generate-s3cfg.sh aws ${AWS_ACCESS_KEY} ${AWS_ACCESS_SECRET_KEY} s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com eu-north-1 > s3cfg-aws
   scripts/S3/entry.sh --s3cfg s3cfg-aws create

6. Test S3 configuration - optional If you enable object storage you also need to make sure that the buckets specified in objecStorage.buckets exist. You can run the following snippet to ensure that you've configured S3 correctly:

   (
     access_key=$(sops exec-file ${CK8S_CONFIG_PATH}/secrets.yaml 'yq r {} "objectStorage.s3.accessKey"')
     secret_key=$(sops exec-file ${CK8S_CONFIG_PATH}/secrets.yaml 'yq r {} "objectStorage.s3.secretKey"')
     sc_config=$(yq m ${CK8S_CONFIG_PATH}/defaults/common-config.yaml ${CK8S_CONFIG_PATH}/defaults/sc-config.yaml ${CK8S_CONFIG_PATH}/common-config.yaml ${CK8S_CONFIG_PATH}/sc-config.yaml -a overwrite -x)
     region=$(echo ${sc_config} | yq r - 'objectStorage.s3.region')
     host=$(echo ${sc_config} | yq r -  'objectStorage.s3.regionEndpoint')
   
     for bucket in $(echo ${sc_config} | yq r -  'objectStorage.buckets.*'); do
         s3cmd --access_key=${access_key} --secret_key=${secret_key} \
             --region=${region} --host=${host} \
             ls s3://${bucket} > /dev/null
         [ ${?} = 0 ] && echo "Bucket ${bucket} exists!"
     done
   )

7. Note, for this step each cluster need to be up and running already. Deploy the apps:

   ./bin/ck8s apply sc
   ./bin/ck8s apply wc

8. Test that the cluster is running correctly with:

   ./bin/ck8s test sc
   ./bin/ck8s test wc

9. You should now have a fully working environment. Check the next section for some additional steps to finalize it and set up user access.

On-boarding and final touches

If you followed the steps in the quickstart above, you should now have deployed the applications and have a fully functioning environment. However, there are a few steps remaining to make all applications ready for the user.

User access

After the cluster setup has completed RBAC resources and namespaces will have been created for the user. You can configure what namespaces should be created and which users that should get access using the following configuration options in wc-config.yaml:

user:
  namespaces:
    - demo1
    - demo2
  adminUsers:
    - admin1@example.com
    - admin2@example.com"

A kubeconfig file for the user (${CK8S_CONFIG_PATH}/user/kubeconfig.yaml) can be created by running the script bin/ck8s kubeconfig user. The user kubeconfig will be configured to use the first namespace by default.

OpenSearch Dashboards access for the user can be provided either by setting up OIDC or using the internal user database in OpenSearch:

• OIDC:

  • Set opensearch.sso.enabled=true in sc-config.yaml.

  • Configure extra role mappings under opensearch.extraRoleMappings to give the users the necessary roles.

    extraRoleMappings:
      - mapping_name: kibana_user
        definition:
          users:
            - "configurer"
            - "User Name"
      - mapping_name: kubernetes_log_reader
        definition:
          users:
            - "User Name"

• Internal user database:

  • Log in to OpenSearch Dashboards using the admin account.
  • Create an account for the user.
  • Give the kibana_user and kubernetes_log_reader roles to the user.

Users will be able to log in to Grafana using dex, but they will have read only access by default. To give them more privileges, you need to first ask them to log in (so that they show up in the users list) and then change their roles.

Harbor works in a multi-tenant way so that each logged in user will be able to create their own projects and manage them as admins (including adding more users as members). However, users will not be able to see each others (private) projects (unless explicitly invited) and won't have global admin access in Harbor. This also naturally means that container images uploaded to these private registries cannot automatically be pulled in to the Kubernetes cluster. The user will first need to add pull secrets that gives some ServiceAccount access to them before they can be used.

For more details and a list of available services see the user guide.

Harbor HA - work in progress

It is possible to run harbor in HA mode. This section describes the necessary configuration needed to setup harbor in HA mode. More information about harbor ha can be found here.

Both Postgres and Redis needs to be external, as harbor does not handle HA deployment of postgres and redis. It is up to the operator to set these up in a HA mode.

Postgres requirements

The following list is requirements on the external postgres

• Password encryption: none or md5
  • scram-sha-256 is not supported.
• Initial empty databases must be created before harbor starts
  • registry

Config:

Harbor backup is not designed to work with a external database. You will have to provide your own backup solution.

In $CK8S_CONFIG_PATH/sc-config.yaml set the following configs

harbor:
  ...
  backup:
    enabled: false
  database:
    type: external
    external:
      host: "set-me"
      port: "5432"
      username: "set-me"
      # "disable" - No SSL
      # "require" - Always SSL (skip verification)
      # "verify-ca" - Always SSL (verify that the certificate presented by the
      # server was signed by a trusted CA)
      # "verify-full" - Always SSL (verify that the certification presented by the
      # server was signed by a trusted CA and the server host name matches the one
      # in the certificate)
      sslmode: "disable"

In $CK8S_CONFIG_PATH/secrets.yaml add the postgres user password

harbor:
  external:
    databasePassword: set-me

Also configure network policies to access database

networkPolicies:
    database:
      internal:
        ingress:
          peers: []
      externalEgress:
        peers:
          - namespaceSelectorLabels:
              kubernetes.io/metadata.name: postgres-system
            podSelectorLabels:
              cluster-name: harbor-cluster
        ports:
          - 5432

Redis

Config:

In $CK8S_CONFIG_PATH/sc-config.yaml set the following configs

harbor:
  redis:
    type: external
    external:
      addr: "rfs-redis-harbor.redis-system:26379"
      sentinelMasterSet: "mymaster"

Also configure network policies to access redis

networkPolicies:
    redis:
      internalIngress:
        peers:
          - namespaceSelectorLabels:
              kubernetes.io/metadata.name: redis-system
            podSelectorLabels:
              app.kubernetes.io/name: redis-harbor
        ports:
          - 26379
          - 6379

Capacity Management

For capacity management, compliantkubernetes-apps comes with some Prometheus alerts and a Grafana dashboard, which facilitate monitoring on a per Node as well as Node Group basis. The Node Group is meant to represent a logical grouping of Nodes, e.g., worker and control-plane. As such, in order to make use of these you first have to label your nodes with elastisys.io/node-group=<node-group>, for example:

kubectl label node <node-name> elastisys.io/node-group=<node-group>

Management of the clusters

The bin/ck8s script provides an entry point to the clusters. It should be used instead of using for example kubectlor helmfile directly as an operator. To use the script, set the CK8S_CONFIG_PATH to the environment you want to access:

export CK8S_CONFIG_PATH=${HOME}/.ck8s/my-ck8s-cluster

Run the script to see what options are available.

Examples

• Deploy apps to the workload cluster:

  ./bin/ck8s apply wc

• Run tests on the service cluster:

  ./bin/ck8s test sc

• Port-forward to a Service in the workload cluster:

  ./bin/ck8s ops kubectl wc port-forward svc/<service> --namespace <namespace> <port>

• Run helmfile diff on a helm release:

  ./bin/ck8s ops helmfile sc -l <label=selector> diff

Autocompletion for ck8s in bash

Add this to ~/.bashrc:

CK8S_APPS_PATH= # fill this in
source <($CK8S_APPS_PATH/bin/ck8s completion bash)

Upgrading compliantkubernetes-apps

The bin/ck8s script also provides commands to upgrade an environment in two steps prepare and apply. The former runs scripted configuration steps that do not change the state of the environment, while the latter runs scripted upgrade steps that modifies the state of the environment. On unexpected failures the command will try to perform a rollback when possible to ensure that the environment continues to function.

./bin/ck8s upgrade both vX.Y prepare
./bin/ck8s upgrade both vX.Y apply

Note

It is possible to upgrade wc and sc clusters separately by replacing both when running the upgrade command, e.g. the following will only upgrade the workload cluster:

./bin/ck8s upgrade wc vX.Y prepare
./bin/ck8s upgrade wc vX.Y apply

It is possible to upgrade from one minor version to the next regardless of patch versions (vX.Y -> vX.Y+1), and from one patch version to any later patch versions (vX.Y.Z -> vX.Y.Z+N). Version validation will require that you are on a release tag matching version specified in the command, and that your environment is at most one minor version behind. When on a specific commit add the commit hash under global.ck8sVersion to pass validation, and for development set any to circumvent version validation completely.

Removing compliantkubernetes-apps from your cluster

There are two simple scripts that can be used to clean up you clusters.

To clean up the service cluster run:

./scripts/clean-sc.sh

To clean up the workload cluster run:

./scripts/clean-wc.sh

Operator manual

See https://compliantkubernetes.io/operator-manual/.

Setting up Google as identity provider for dex

1. Go to the Google console and create a project.

2. Go to the Oauth consent screen and name the application with the same name as the project of your google cloud project add the top level domain e.g. elastisys.se to Authorized domains.

3. Go to Credentials and press Create credentials and select OAuth client ID. Select web application and give it a name and add the URL to dex in the Authorized Javascript origins field, e.g. dex.demo.elastisys.se. Add <dex url>/callback to Authorized redirect URIs field, e.g. dex.demo.elastisys.se/callback.

4. Configure the following options in CK8S_CONFIG_PATH/secrets.yaml

     dex:
       googleClientID:
       googleClientSecret:

Known issues

• OpenSearch Dashboards Single Sign On (SSO) via OpenID/Dex requires LetsEncrypt Production.

For more, please check the public GitHub issues: https://github.com/elastisys/compliantkubernetes-apps/issues.