Single Sign-On for Kubernetes: Dashboard Experience

Over my last two posts (part 1 and part 2), I have investigated user authentication in Kubernetes and how to create a single sign-on experience within the Kubernetes ecosystem. So far I have explained how Open ID Connect (OIDC) works, how to get started with OIDC and how to perform a login from the command line.

The final piece of this puzzle is the Kubernetes dashboard, often used by our engineers alongside kubectl. To complete our move to SSO, we wanted to ensure that, when using the Dashboard, our engineers logged in to the same account they used for kubectl.

Since Kubernetes version 1.7.0, the dashboard has had a login page. It allows users to upload a kubeconfig file or enter a bearer token. If you have already logged into the command line, this allows you to copy the OIDC id-token from your kubeconfig file into the bearer token field and login. There are, however, a couple of problems with this:

• The login page has a skip button — If you aren’t using any authorization (RBAC) then this would permit anyone to access the dashboard with effective admin rights.
• Copy and pasting a token from a Continue reading