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Version: 3.11-dev

Overview

KubeRocketCI uses Keycloak as central access management solution, handling user permissions across various platform tools, including Kubernetes. Kubernetes clusters leverage Keycloak for RBAC implementation via OIDC. This consistent approach allows administrators to manage access uniformly. Within Kubernetes, Custom Resources (CRs) are used to refine and enforce access controls by configuring Keycloak, translating Kubernetes configurations into Keycloak access policies.

Keycloak Components Overview​

Keycloak is a critical component in KubeRocketCI for managing authentication and authorization. It uses realms, roles and groups to control access across the platform.

The diagram below illustrates the Keycloak resources within the KubeRocketCI system. It shows how tools and their Keycloak configurations are managed within the shared and broker realms. The broker realm serves as a central "authentication proxy" (broker), connecting to external Identity Providers (IdPs) such as Google, Facebook, and Active Directory (AD) through OIDC and/or SAML protocols. The shared realm consolidates platform tools such as Argo CD, Nexus Repository, SonarQube, Report-portal, Harbor, and others as OIDC (OpenID Connect) clients.

Each component can have its own unique configurations, including Keycloak roles, groups, or client scopes.

Keycloak Roles and Groups​

The diagram below provides an overview of the access control mechanisms for various tools integrated with Keycloak. It illustrates two primary methods of managing user access: Keycloak roles and Keycloak groups.

Components, highlighted in red, require additional configuration directly within the tool's UI.

info

${platform} is a placeholder for the platform name (namespace), where the KubeRocketCI is deployed.

For detailed instructions on setting up OIDC integration for various components, please refer to the following articles:

  1. AWX - Community Documentation
  2. DefectDojo - DefectDojo Permissions
  3. Nexus - Nexus authentication process
  4. Report Portal - Report Portal Keycloak Integration
  5. Vault - OIDC provider configuration
  6. Tekton - Tekton Dashboard Authentication
  7. Gerrit - Gerrit Authentication

Roles​

The shared Keycloak realm defines two composite roles:

  • Administrator Role:

    • Designed for users who need administrative access to the tools used on the platform.
    • This composite role includes the administrator and sonar-administrators roles.
    • Users assigned the administrator composite role will inherit both roles.
  • Developer Role:

    • Designed for users who need access to the development tools used on the platform.
    • This composite role includes the developer and sonar-developers roles.
    • Users assigned the developer composite role will inherit both roles.

These composite roles simplify the assignment of administrative and development permissions within the KubeRocketCI.

The table below provides an overview of the shared realm roles and their types:

Realm Role NameRegular RoleComposite role
administratorβœ…
developerβœ…
sonar-administratorsβœ…
sonar-developersβœ…

Groups​

KubeRocketCI uses the shared realm for group management. The groups are designed to control access to various components such as Argo CD, the KubeRocketCI portal, and the EKS cluster.

Group NamePurpose
ArgoCDAdminsAdministrator access to Argo CD instance
ArgoCD-${platform}-usersAccess to the Argo CD project mapped to the ${platform} tenant
oidc-cluster-adminsFull administrator (cluster-admin) access to the kubernetes cluster
${platform}-oidc-adminsAdministrator access to KubeRocketCI
${platform}-oidc-developersDeveloper access to KubeRocketCI
${platform}-oidc-viewersRead-only access to view resources in KubeRocketCI

These groups simplify the management of permissions and ensure that users have the appropriate level of access based on their roles and responsibilities.

SonarQube OIDC​

Access to SonarQube is managed through configurations in Keycloak (Keycloak Operator) and SonarQube (Sonar Operator). This section provides a detailed walkthrough for configuring access control.

Keycloak Configuration​

SonarQube access is managed using Keycloak roles within the shared realm:

  • sonar-developers: Grants developer access to SonarQube.
  • sonar-administrators: Grants administrative access to SonarQube.

To grant access, the appropriate role must be assigned to the user in Keycloak.

Example

A user who needs developer access to SonarQube should be assigned the sonar-developers role or the developer composite role in Keycloak.

SonarQube Configuration​

KubeRocketCI Sonar Operator provides a SonarQube Permission Template to manage user access and permissions for SonarQube projects.

The template is stored in the SonarQube custom resource of the operator. An example of a custom resource is shown below.

Sonar Permission Template
apiVersion: v2.edp.epam.com/v1
kind: SonarPermissionTemplate
metadata:
name: edp-default
spec:
name: edp-default
description: "KubeRocketCI permission templates (DO NOT REMOVE)"
projectKeyPattern: ".+"
default: true
groupsPermissions:
non-interactive-users:
- user
sonar-developers:
- user
- securityhotspotadmin
- issueadmin
- codeviewer
sonar-administrators:
- admin
- user
sonarRef:
name: sonar

The SonarQube Permission Template defines three groups: non-interactive-users, sonar-administrators, and sonar-developers:

  • non-interactive-users: Users who have read-only access to the project. They can view project's data and metrics but cannot modify or interact with it.
  • sonar-administrators: Users with full control over the SonarQube project. They can create, modify, delete projects, manage user access, and configure SonarQube settings.
  • sonar-developers: Users actively working on the SonarQube project. They have read and write access, can modify project data and metrics, and configure project-specific settings.

These groups provide different levels of access based on the user's role and responsibilities.

info

If a user is not assigned to any group, they will be placed in the sonar-users group by default. This group does not have any permissions in the edp-default Permission Template.

Group Permissions​

The following table describes the permissions assigned to each group:

Group NameSonar Permissions
non-interactive-usersuser
sonar-administratorsadmin, user
sonar-developerscodeviewer, issueadmin, securityhotspotadmin, user
sonar-users-

Nexus Repository Manager​

KubeRocketCI leverages oauth2-proxy to authenticate users in Nexus Repository Manager OSS.

The user's access level is determined by the roles assigned in Keycloak.

info

Only users with either the administrator or developer role in Keycloak can access Nexus.

The platform manages two distinct roles: edp-admin, edp-viewer.

Example of edp-admin NexusRole and NexusUser
apiVersion: edp.epam.com/v1alpha1
kind: NexusRole
metadata:
name: edp-admin
spec:
id: edp-admin
nexusRef:
name: nexus
kind: Nexus
name: edp-admin
description: Read and write access to all repos and scripts
privileges:
- nx-apikey-all
- nx-repository-view-*-*-add
- nx-repository-view-*-*-browse
- nx-repository-view-*-*-edit
- nx-repository-view-*-*-read
- nx-script-*-add
- nx-script-*-delete
- nx-script-*-run
- nx-search-read
apiVersion: edp.epam.com/v1alpha1
kind: NexusUser
metadata:
name: ci-user
namespace: nexus
spec:
email: ci.user@edp.com
firstName: ci.user
id: ci.user
lastName: CI
nexusRef:
kind: Nexus
name: nexus
roles:
- edp-admin
secret: $ci-nexus:password
status: active

KubeRocketCI Portal and Kubernetes Cluster​

Both the KubeRocketCI Portal and the Kubernetes cluster use Keycloak groups for access control. Users must be added to the appropriate group in Keycloak to gain access. These groups are configured in the broker realm.

warning

For the Kubernetes cluster to manage access control correctly, Keycloak must be configured as an OpenID Connect (OIDC) provider. Ensure that your Keycloak setup is properly configured for OIDC before proceeding.

info

The broker realm keeps Kubernetes OIDC client.

Keycloak Groups​

Group NameViewBuildDeployFull Namespace Access
${platform}-oidc-adminsβœ…βœ…βœ…βœ…
${platform}-oidc-developersβœ…βœ…βœ…
${platform}-oidc-viewersβœ…

Cluster RBAC Resources​

The platform defines five RoleBindings that grant the necessary permissions to the corresponding Keycloak groups mentioned above.

RoleBinding NameRole NameGroups
tenant-admincluster-admin${platform}-oidc-admins
tenant-developertenant-developer${platform}-oidc-developers
tenant-viewerview${platform}-oidc-viewers , ${platform}-oidc-developers

Platform includes RBAC settings for the full cluster administration privileges.

Cluster Role Binding NameCluster Role NameGroup
cluster-admincluster-adminoidc-cluster-admins
note

KubeRocketCI provides an aggregated ClusterRole edp-aggregate-view-${platform} with the permissions to view the KubeRocketCI custom resources.

info

The tenant-admin RoleBinding is created in a namespace by the cd-pipeline-operator. The tenant-admin RoleBinding assigns the admin role to the ${platform}-oidc-admins and ${platform}-oidc-developers groups.

Grant User Access to the Created Namespaces​

To provide users with admin or developer privileges for project namespaces, they need to be added to the ${platform}-oidc-admins and ${platform}-oidc-developers groups in Keycloak.

Argo CD​

In Argo CD, groups are specified when creating an AppProject to restrict access to deployed applications. To gain access to deployed applications within a project, users must be added to the corresponding Argo CD group in Keycloak. This ensures that only authorized users can access and modify applications within the project.

info

By default, only the ArgoCDAdmins group is automatically created in Keycloak.

Gerrit​

Users should authenticate to Gerrit using their Keycloak credentials.

After logging into Gerrit, users are not automatically assigned to any groups. To add a user to a group, a GerritGroupMember custom resource must be created. This custom resource specifies the user's email address and the name of the group to which they should be added.

Below is an example of a GerritGroupMember custom resource:

Gerrit Group Member
apiVersion: v2.edp.epam.com/v1
kind: GerritGroupMember
metadata:
name: user-admins
spec:
accountId: user@user.com
groupId: Administrators

Once the GerritGroupMember resource is created, the user will inherit the permissions and access levels associated with the specified group.