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Kubernetes supports this already. You have the choice to either mount the secret into the container file system or set it as a environment variable. https://kub

by eicnix 10y ago

Kubernetes supports this already. You have the choice to either mount the secret into the container file system or set it as a environment variable. https://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/secrets/#using-secrets-as-environment-variables https://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/secrets/#using-secrets...

tonyhb 10y ago
But Kubernetes secrets are stored - and by default transmitted amongst managers - in plain text. And Kube will share secrets with all kubelets, no questions asked. They're not "secrets".
- eicnix 10y ago
  Yes, the kubernetes secrets resource is not a replacement for a secret store. Your specific point is being worked on: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/12742 https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/12742 You can use Vault(https://github.com/Boostport/kubernetes-vault https://github.com/Boostport/kubernetes-vault) or extend Kubernetes easily for your specific secret as a replacement if you need extra security.
  - tonyhb 10y ago
    "priority/backlog" for 18 months. Kube doesn't care about security.
    - eicnix 10y ago
      Encrypted storage isn't as important when you can restrict the access to the secrets. Just because the secrets are in plaintext in etcd doesn't mean everyone can read them. Then you need a mutual authenticated connection from the api server to etcd + encrypted etcd hard drives + networking policies that only the api-servers are able to communicate with etcd and your secrets are pretty safely stored.
      - benth 10y ago
        I agree. I also care more about access control than encryption. But if you obtain a kubelet's credentials, you can read all secrets. It would be nice if a kubelet's access was restricted to only what the kubelet needs to know. That would limit the impact of a node in a cluster being rooted.
        eicnix 10y ago
        There is a issue open for this too... https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/40476 https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/40476
        Pyxl101 10y ago
        > It would be nice if a kubelet's access was restricted to only what the kubelet needs to know. This seems like a fairly difficult problem to solve with meaningful security confidence. The only easy way I can see this working is if you pre-define groupings of kubelets and specify which pods may run on which kubelets, and enforce secret access the same way. Without this kind of hard separation, any kubelet is a candidate for running any pod and needing any pod's secrets at a moment's notice. Furthermore, this sort of separation would require some kind of PKI; you could not just trust any given kubelet to accurately claim which groups a member of. You'd need to provision the kubelet groups with a secret that proves their membership in the group, and we're back to the secret distribution problem again. And while it's true that a given kubelet may not be running a certain pod at the moment (and thus doesn't need the secret), that does not seem to be a hard security boundary. An attacker who controls the kubelet can manipulate which pods run on it, such as by terminating pods until the desired one is scheduled on it, or falsely advertising a huge amount of available resources to entice the scheduler to run pods on it, and so on. Ultimately if a kubelet is a candidate for running a pod, then it is simply a matter of coincidence whether it possesses the pod's secrets at a given moment or not. That said, limiting kublets to have access only to secrets required by active pods will make things harder for an attacker, and so will provide value. But we should also evaluate the priority of that work in context of how hard it will be for an attacker to defeat that same restriction (e.g., advertise 1 petabyte of free RAM and disk, and 1000 idle CPU cores).
    - cpuguy83 10y ago
      This is not fair to say at all. Everything takes time to design and implement, and human power to work on the hard/not-fun things is pretty hard to come by in such hugely active projects...
    - abronan 10y ago
      You should probably disclose that you work for Docker. Looking at your profile/comments you seem to be openly hostile towards Kubernetes. On that note: this is quite representative of the mentality I encountered while working there. Open Source is hard and bashing other projects is not something I consider to be fair game (regardless of whether the other side is adopting that stance or not). Meanwhile, I admire Hashicorp's attitude of focusing primarily on improving their product without taking part in this silly "orchestration war". (and thanks to cpuguy83 for having a more sensible view of what it's like to work on Open Source projects)

by eicnix 10y ago

tonyhb 10y ago

But Kubernetes secrets are stored - and by default transmitted amongst managers - in plain text. And Kube will share secrets with all kubelets, no questions asked. They're not "secrets".

eicnix 10y ago
Yes, the kubernetes secrets resource is not a replacement for a secret store. Your specific point is being worked on: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/12742 https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/12742 You can use Vault(https://github.com/Boostport/kubernetes-vault https://github.com/Boostport/kubernetes-vault) or extend Kubernetes easily for your specific secret as a replacement if you need extra security.
- tonyhb 10y ago
  "priority/backlog" for 18 months. Kube doesn't care about security.
  - eicnix 10y ago
    Encrypted storage isn't as important when you can restrict the access to the secrets. Just because the secrets are in plaintext in etcd doesn't mean everyone can read them. Then you need a mutual authenticated connection from the api server to etcd + encrypted etcd hard drives + networking policies that only the api-servers are able to communicate with etcd and your secrets are pretty safely stored.
    - benth 10y ago
      I agree. I also care more about access control than encryption. But if you obtain a kubelet's credentials, you can read all secrets. It would be nice if a kubelet's access was restricted to only what the kubelet needs to know. That would limit the impact of a node in a cluster being rooted.
      - eicnix 10y ago
        There is a issue open for this too... https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/40476 https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/40476
      - Pyxl101 10y ago
        > It would be nice if a kubelet's access was restricted to only what the kubelet needs to know. This seems like a fairly difficult problem to solve with meaningful security confidence. The only easy way I can see this working is if you pre-define groupings of kubelets and specify which pods may run on which kubelets, and enforce secret access the same way. Without this kind of hard separation, any kubelet is a candidate for running any pod and needing any pod's secrets at a moment's notice. Furthermore, this sort of separation would require some kind of PKI; you could not just trust any given kubelet to accurately claim which groups a member of. You'd need to provision the kubelet groups with a secret that proves their membership in the group, and we're back to the secret distribution problem again. And while it's true that a given kubelet may not be running a certain pod at the moment (and thus doesn't need the secret), that does not seem to be a hard security boundary. An attacker who controls the kubelet can manipulate which pods run on it, such as by terminating pods until the desired one is scheduled on it, or falsely advertising a huge amount of available resources to entice the scheduler to run pods on it, and so on. Ultimately if a kubelet is a candidate for running a pod, then it is simply a matter of coincidence whether it possesses the pod's secrets at a given moment or not. That said, limiting kublets to have access only to secrets required by active pods will make things harder for an attacker, and so will provide value. But we should also evaluate the priority of that work in context of how hard it will be for an attacker to defeat that same restriction (e.g., advertise 1 petabyte of free RAM and disk, and 1000 idle CPU cores).
  - cpuguy83 10y ago
    This is not fair to say at all. Everything takes time to design and implement, and human power to work on the hard/not-fun things is pretty hard to come by in such hugely active projects...
  - abronan 10y ago
    You should probably disclose that you work for Docker. Looking at your profile/comments you seem to be openly hostile towards Kubernetes. On that note: this is quite representative of the mentality I encountered while working there. Open Source is hard and bashing other projects is not something I consider to be fair game (regardless of whether the other side is adopting that stance or not). Meanwhile, I admire Hashicorp's attitude of focusing primarily on improving their product without taking part in this silly "orchestration war". (and thanks to cpuguy83 for having a more sensible view of what it's like to work on Open Source projects)