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In the dynamic world of Kubernetes, managing and securing containerized applications is a critical task. Kubernetes, being a leading container orchestration platform, offers robust mechanisms for managing containers at scale.
One of the essential aspects of Kubernetes management is authentication, a process vital for securing your cluster. This article delves into the fundamentals of Kubernetes authentication, aiming to provide Kubernetes engineers with a clear understanding of how it works and why it’s crucial.
What is Kubernetes Authentication?
Authentication in Kubernetes refers to the process of verifying the identity of a user or a process that is trying to access the Kubernetes API. Unlike authorization, which determines what an authenticated user is allowed to do, authentication merely identifies and verifies who that user or process is.
Regardless of whether access to the Kubernetes cluster is via the kubectl client or REST requests, all operations on resources ultimately go through the API Server and are processed via etcd. The entire process, as illustrated in the following diagram, can be divided into four stages:
