Connect to Kubernetes using Boundary introduction

This tutorial series demonstrates how to configure remote access to Kubernetes clusters using kubectl. HashiCorp Vault is used to generate just-in-time credentials to prevent remote users from storing permanent Kubernetes tokens locally.

Scenario

Your organization is undergoing a security transformation under the direction of the new Chief Security Officer.

The developer team has requested remote access to their production Kubernetes environment to view running pods. However, the new operations team security policies require limiting teams to only have access to resources necessary to perform their job duties. The existing VPN solution is not able to limit access to specific endpoints, and anyone that connects to the VPN has access to the entire network.

Additionally, the operations team is trying to limit the use of long-lived credentials that provide access to production environments.

The teams work together, discussing the challenges and requirements on what needs to be implemented to ensure production runs smoothly.

Challenge

The traditional VPN and jump/bastion hosts allow remote users to access their infrastructure resources. The challenge with this approach is that the VPN and jump hosts have limited capabilities to control users' access once they are on the network.

In addition, the VPN and jump hosts have limited (if any) capabilities to manage short-lived credentials across the various types of resources in the environment. Each person who requires access would need a dedicated, long-lived username on the jump host and in the Kubernetes environment.

Using long-lived static credentials limits the operations team's ability to control access to their infrastructure. Long-lived user credentials are a security concern and increase the risk of the credentials being exposed and used by hackers. The operations team does not currently have a method to use short-lived credentials, and requires additional tools to ensure these credentials are generated just-in-time and expire appropriately.

Solution

HashiCorp Boundary is a tool for managing identity-based access for modern, dynamic infrastructure. Remote users can access their assigned infrastructure resources using credentials associated with an existing identity provider (Okta, Ping, Active Directory, etc) without having to store or manage long-lived credentials to the different target resources. The operations team can centrally control and precisely assign the resources each remote user is allowed to access.

To facilitate the use of short-lived credentials, Boundary can integrate with HashiCorp Vault to provide credentials when needed, and configured with a TTL that will expire the credentials. Once expired, credentials will no longer grant access to the production environment.

In this series of tutorials you will configure Boundary to allow the DevOps team access their Kubernetes clusters using kubectl. You will leverage HashiCorp Vault to generate just-in-time credentials, so remote users do not need to store permanent Kubernetes tokens on their local machines.

Personas

The end-to-end scenario described in this tutorial series involves two personas:

• operations with privileged permissions to deploy and manage Boundary, Vault, and Kubernetes
• developers granted access Kubernetes by the operations team

You will start by assuming the role of a Boundary operator who is deploying and configuring the environment for the first time. Then you will test the experience of a Kubernetes developer by remotely connecting to the assigned Kubernetes cluster. The goal is to show the end-to-end experience of both the administrator and end user so you understand how everything works.

Prerequisites

The tutorials in this series assume a working knowledge of Boundary, Vault, and Kubernetes.

If you are not familiar with Boundary, complete the HCP Boundary or self-managed Boundary quick start tutorials.

If you are not familiar with Vault, complete the HCP Vault or Vault CLI quick start tutorials.

• A Boundary binary greater than 0.13.0 in your PATH
• Boundary Desktop is installed
• A Vault binary greater than 1.7.0 in your PATH
• An HCP account
• An HCP user assigned the contributor role (or higher) to perform allow the creations of HCP Vault Dedicated and HCP Boundary clusters.
• Docker installed
• minikube installed
• Kubernetes command-line interface (CLI) installed
• ngrok installed and configured with an auth token (Vault Dedicated only)

Tools for this lab

This tutorial was last tested on 8 August 2023 using macOS 13.4. Before moving on, check that the following versions or greater are installed.

1. Verify the version of Boundary.

   $ boundary version
   
   Version information:
     Build Date:          2023-06-09T16:42:30Z
     Git Revision:        6eb1c9919f495b21ca900e89b2a7e2f735a79fbc
     Version Number:      0.13.1
   

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2. Verify the version of Boundary Desktop. The brew utility is only available on macOS.

   $ brew info hashicorp-boundary-desktop
   ==> hashicorp-boundary-desktop: 1.6.0
   https://www.boundaryproject.io/
   /usr/local/Caskroom/hashicorp-boundary-desktop/1.6.0 (122B)
   From: https://github.com/hashicorp/homebrew-tap/blob/HEAD/Casks/hashicorp-boundary-desktop.rb
   ==> Name
   Boundary Desktop
   ==> Description
   
   ==> Artifacts
   Boundary.app (App)
   

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3. Verify the version of Vault.

   $ vault --version
   Vault v1.14.1 (bf23fe8636b04d554c0fa35a756c75c2f59026c0), built 2023-07-21T10:15:14Z
   

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4. Verify the version of Docker.

   $ docker --version
   Docker version 24.0.2, build cb74dfc
   

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5. Verify the version of minikube.

   $ minikube version
   minikube version: v1.31.1
   commit: fd3f3801765d093a485d255043149f92ec0a695f
   

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6. Verify the version of kubectl. This step assumes you have not used minikube to start Kubernetes.

   $ kubectl version --short
   Flag --short has been deprecated, and will be removed in the future. The --short output will become the default.
   Client Version: v1.27.2
   Kustomize Version: v5.0.1
   

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Next steps

You have verified the installation and version of each tool used in subsequent tutorials.

In the Connect to Kubernetes using Boundary lab setup tutorial, you will start an environment that consists of Boundary, Vault, and Kubernetes. Once each service is started, you will verify connectivity to each service.