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Kubernetes Auth Strategies

A Kubernetes Auth Strategy specifies the authentication steps executed on the server side to authenticate against a Kubernetes cluster, it also defines what authentication metadata about a Kubernetes cluster is returned to the front-end in case a client side auth provider requires it.

Context​

Backstage includes by default some Kubernetes Auth Providers to ease the authentication proccess to kubernetes clusters, it includes:

  • Server Side Providers like localKubectlProxy or serviceAccount where the same set of kubernetes permissions are shared and granted among the Backstage users and plugins.
  • Client Side Providers like aks or oidc where the user is authenticated with the cluster, getting only the kubernetes permissions granted to that specific user.

Although there are Server Side Providers and Client Side Providers, authenticating with a cluster requires code on both sides. Perhaps one of them does most of the job, but in general not all steps to authenticate against a Kubernetes cluster are always executed exclusively on the server side or client side. A Kubernetes authentication flow could require splitting the authentication process among steps on the client side and steps on the server side.

AuthenticationStrategy interface​

The AuthenticationStrategy interface defines the steps executed on the server side to authenticate against a Kubernetes cluster. It is similar to the KubernetesAuthProvider interface, which defines corresponding steps on the client side.

plugins/kubernetes-node/src/types/types.ts
export interface AuthenticationStrategy {
  getCredential(
    clusterDetails: ClusterDetails,
    authConfig: KubernetesRequestAuth,
  ): Promise<KubernetesCredential>;

  presentAuthMetadata(authMetadata: AuthMetadata): AuthMetadata;

  validateCluster(authMetadata: AuthMetadata): Error[];
}

The AuthenticationStrategy interface defines the following signature:

  • getCredential: Executes the steps require on the server side to authenticate against a Kubernetes Cluster. It receives the cluster info on the clusterDetails parameter and the authentication data provided from the Client Side on the authConfig parameter.
  • presentAuthMetadata: A Kubernetes cluster configuration could include extra metadata specific to a given authentication flow (like AWS clusters do). The presentAuthMetadata method receives that metadata and filters/adds information that could be required by the front-end in a client side authentication process. The front-end gets this info via the /clusters endpoint.
  • validateCluster: Allows strategies to reject clusters if they have invalid metadata. Currently this method only gets invoked when reading clusters from the app-config.

KubernetesCredential type​

Something to highlight is that the getCredential method on an AuthenticationStrategy will return a KubernetesCredential object representing a single method of authenticating with a Kubernetes cluster. This value can be:

  • A bearer token
  • A x509 client certificate and key
  • Anonymous authentication
plugins/kubernetes-node/src/types/types.ts
export type KubernetesCredential =
  | { type: 'bearer token'; token: string }
  | { type: 'x509 client certificate'; cert: string; key: string }
  | { type: 'anonymous' };

AuthenticationStrategies examples​

AksStrategy​

Some kubernetes Authentication Strategies are pretty simple, since the Authentication process was executed on the client side by the KubernetesAuthProvider, So Authentication Strategies like AksStrategy or GoogleStrategy only map the info that the corresponding KubernetesAuthProvider returned on the client side.

plugins/kubernetes-backend/src/auth/AksStrategy.ts
export class AksStrategy implements AuthenticationStrategy {
  public async getCredential(
    _: ClusterDetails,
    requestAuth: KubernetesRequestAuth,
  ): Promise<KubernetesCredential> {
    const token = requestAuth.aks;
    return token
      ? { type: 'bearer token', token: token as string }
      : { type: 'anonymous' };
  }

  public validateCluster(): Error[] {
    return [];
  }

  public presentAuthMetadata(_authMetadata: AuthMetadata): AuthMetadata {
    return {};
  }
}

The AksStrategy is pretty simple, it is only mapping the token that AksKubernetesAuthProvider.ts was able to get in the Client Side authentication flow.

AwsIamStrategy​

Another AuthenticationStrategy is AwsIamStrategy, it is more complex than AksStrategy, since it consumes some AWS APIs to get a kubernetes token.

plugins/kubernetes-backend/src/auth/AwsIamStrategy.ts
export class AwsIamStrategy implements AuthenticationStrategy {
  // ... code ...

  public async getCredential(
    clusterDetails: ClusterDetails,
  ): Promise<KubernetesCredential> {
    return {
      type: 'bearer token',
      token: await this.getBearerToken(
        clusterDetails.authMetadata[ANNOTATION_KUBERNETES_AWS_CLUSTER_ID] ??
          clusterDetails.name,
        clusterDetails.authMetadata[ANNOTATION_KUBERNETES_AWS_ASSUME_ROLE],
        clusterDetails.authMetadata[ANNOTATION_KUBERNETES_AWS_EXTERNAL_ID],
      ),
    };
  }

  private async getBearerToken(
    clusterId: string,
    assumeRole?: string,
    externalId?: string,
  ): Promise<string> {
    // ... code ...

    const request = await signer.presign(
      {
        headers: {
          host: `sts.${region}.amazonaws.com`,
          'x-k8s-aws-id': clusterId,
        },
        hostname: `sts.${region}.amazonaws.com`,
        method: 'GET',
        path: '/',
        protocol: 'https:',
        query: {
          Action: 'GetCallerIdentity',
          Version: '2011-06-15',
        },
      },
      { expiresIn: 0 },
    );

    // ... code ...
  }

  public presentAuthMetadata(_authMetadata: AuthMetadata): AuthMetadata {
    return {};
  }
  public validateCluster(): Error[] {
    return [];
  }
}

Custom AuthStrategy​

Sometimes you need to add a new way to authenticate against a kubernetes cluster not support by default by Backstage. This is how integrators can bring their own kubernetes auth strategies through the use of the addAuthStrategy method on KubernetesBuilder or through the AuthStrategyExtensionPoint. So, on the following sections, we are going to introduce a new AuthStrategy for Pinniped, an authentication service for Kubernetes clusters.

Custom Pinniped auth strategy in the new backend system​

To add a new AuthStrategy, we need to create a new Pinniped backend module to extend the Kubernetes-Backend plugin. The Pinniped module will interact with the Kubernetes-Backend plugin through the extension points registered by the plugin. The Kubernetes-Backend plugin registers multiple extension points like kubernetesObjectsProvider, kubernetesClusterSupplier, kubernetesFetcher, kubernetesServiceLocator and the kubernetesAuthStrategy.

Notice that this guide assumes that you already installed the Kubernetes Plugin.

To create the Backend module, run yarn new, select backend-module. Then fill out:

? What do you want to create? backend-module - A new backend module
? Enter the ID of the plugin [required] kubernetes
? Enter the ID of the module [required] pinniped

This will create a new package at plugins/kubernetes-backend-module-pinniped. We are going to need also the @backstage/plugin-kubernetes-node and @backstage/plugin-kubernetes-common dependencies, the @backstage/plugin-kubernetes-node houses the kubernetesAuthStrategyExtensionPoint and a Pinniped Helper class.

# From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd plugins/kubernetes-backend-module-pinniped add @backstage/plugin-kubernetes-node
yarn --cwd plugins/kubernetes-backend-module-pinniped add @backstage/plugin-kubernetes-common

Let's create a new file to house the Pinniped authentication strategy which will implement the AuthenticationStrategy interface.

plugins/kubernetes-backend-module-pinniped/src/PinnipedStrategy.ts
import { KubernetesRequestAuth } from '@backstage/plugin-kubernetes-common';
import { Logger } from 'winston';
import {
  AuthMetadata,
  AuthenticationStrategy,
  ClusterDetails,
  KubernetesCredential,
  PinnipedClientCerts,
  PinnipedHelper,
  PinnipedParameters,
} from '@backstage/plugin-kubernetes-node';
import { JsonObject } from '@backstage/types';

export class PinnipedStrategy implements AuthenticationStrategy {
  private pinnipedHelper: PinnipedHelper;

  constructor(private readonly logger: Logger) {
    this.pinnipedHelper = new PinnipedHelper(logger);
  }

  public async getCredential(
    clusterDetails: ClusterDetails,
    requestAuth: KubernetesRequestAuth,
  ): Promise<KubernetesCredential> {
    const params: PinnipedParameters = {
      token:
        ((requestAuth.pinniped as JsonObject)?.clusteridtoken as string) || '',
      authenticator: {
        apiGroup: 'authentication.concierge.pinniped.dev',
        kind: 'JWTAuthenticator',
        name: 'supervisor',
      },
      tokenCredentialRequest: {
        apiGroup: 'login.concierge.pinniped.dev/v1alpha1',
      },
    };

    const x509Data: PinnipedClientCerts =
      await this.pinnipedHelper.tokenCredentialRequest(clusterDetails, params);
    return {
      type: 'x509 client certificate',
      cert: x509Data.cert,
      key: x509Data.key,
    };
  }

  public validateCluster(): Error[] {
    return [];
  }

  presentAuthMetadata: (authMetadata: AuthMetadata): AuthMetadata => {
    return {
      audience: authMetadata['kubernetes.io/x-pinniped-audience'],
    };
  },
}

The PinnipedStrategy implements the AuthenticationStrategy interface, it uses the PinnipedHelper class to exchange the clusterIdToken ( created by a custom Pinniped client-side KubernetesAuthProvider ) for a x509 certificate, certificate that will allow us to consume the kubernetes cluster. It also returns the audience value to the front-end through presentAuthMetadata.

Notice that the PinnipedHelper class will help you only to exchange the token, It doesn't introduce a cache layer, something that your strategy could introduce.

Finally we could use the kubernetesAuthStrategyExtensionPoint to register our new PinnipedStrategy.

plugins/kubernetes-backend-module-pinniped/src/module.ts
import {
  coreServices,
  createBackendModule,
} from '@backstage/backend-plugin-api';
import {
  AuthenticationStrategy,
  kubernetesAuthStrategyExtensionPoint,
} from '@backstage/plugin-kubernetes-node';
import { PinnipedStrategy } from './PinnipedStrategy';
import { loggerToWinstonLogger } from '@backstage/backend-common';

export const kubernetesModulePinniped = createBackendModule({
  pluginId: 'kubernetes',
  moduleId: 'pinniped',
  register(reg) {
    reg.registerInit({
      deps: {
        logger: coreServices.logger,
        authStrategy: kubernetesAuthStrategyExtensionPoint,
      },
      async init({ logger, authStrategy }) {
        const winstonLogger = loggerToWinstonLogger(logger);
        const pinnipedStrategy: AuthenticationStrategy = new PinnipedStrategy(
          winstonLogger,
        );
        authStrategy.addAuthStrategy('pinniped', pinnipedStrategy);
      },
    });
  },
});

Custom Pinniped auth strategy in the old backend system​

To add a new AuthStrategy, You could use addAuthStrategy method on KubernetesBuilder. We are going to reuse the PinnipedStrategy created on the previous section. So when setting up the Kubernetes Backend plugin, you could add a new Strategy:

packages/backend/src/plugins/kubernetes.ts
import { KubernetesBuilder } from '@backstage/plugin-kubernetes-backend';
import { Router } from 'express';
import { PluginEnvironment } from '../types';
import { CatalogClient } from '@backstage/catalog-client';
import { loggerToWinstonLogger } from '@backstage/backend-common';
import { AuthenticationStrategy } from '@backstage/plugin-kubernetes-node';
import { PinnipedStrategy } from '@internal/plugin-kubernetes-backend-module-pinniped';

export default async function createPlugin(
  env: PluginEnvironment,
): Promise<Router> {
  const catalogApi = new CatalogClient({ discoveryApi: env.discovery });
  const winstonLogger = loggerToWinstonLogger(env.logger);
  const pinnipedStrategy: AuthenticationStrategy = new PinnipedStrategy(
    winstonLogger,
  );
  const { router } = await KubernetesBuilder.createBuilder({
    logger: env.logger,
    config: env.config,
    catalogApi,
    permissions: env.permissions,
  })
    .addAuthStrategy('pinniped', pinnipedStrategy)
    .build();
  return router;
}