kubectl with custom kubeconfig file for a serviceaccount gives unauthorized error

12/14/2018

I created a serviceaccount and created a kubeconfig for that service account, but when I ran kubectl --kubeconfig=sa.kubeconfig get nodes or get pods I first got the error: > error: You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized).
And now I get the message error: the server doesn't have a resource type "svc".

This is the yaml file to create the sa, role and rolebinding

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: default-user
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: Role
metadata:
  name: default-user
rules:
- apiGroups:
  - '*'
  resources:
  - '*'
  verbs:
  - '*'
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: RoleBinding
metadata:
  name: default-user
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: Role
  name: default-user
subjects:
- namespace: default
  kind: ServiceAccount
  name: default-user  

I then created the kubeconfig file for the service account.

# your server name goes here
server=https://<server.hcp.westeurope.azmk8s.io:443>
# the name of the secret containing the service account token goes here
name=<default-user-token>

ca=$(kubectl get secret/$name -o jsonpath='{.data.ca\.crt}')
token=$(kubectl get secret/$name -o jsonpath='{.data.token}' | base64)
namespace=$(kubectl get secret/$name -o jsonpath='{.data.namespace}' | base64)

echo "
apiVersion: v1
kind: Config
clusters:
- name: default-cluster
  cluster:
    certificate-authority-data: ${ca}
    server: ${server}
contexts:
- name: default-context
  context:
    cluster: default-cluster
    namespace: default
    user: default-user
current-context: default-context
users:
- name: default-user
  user:
    token: ${token}
" > sa.kubeconfig  

Anybody see what I am doing wrong?

-- bramvdk
azure-aks
azure-kubernetes
kubeconfig
kubectl

2 Answers

9/26/2019

A script that creates the service account and creates the config file for you:

#!/bin/bash
set -e
set -o pipefail

# Add user to k8s using service account, no RBAC (must create RBAC after this script)
if [[ -z "$1" ]] || [[ -z "$2" ]]; then
 echo "usage: $0 <service_account_name> <namespace>"
 exit 1
fi

SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME=$1
NAMESPACE="$2"
KUBECFG_FILE_NAME="/tmp/kube/k8s-${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME}-${NAMESPACE}-conf"
TARGET_FOLDER="/tmp/kube"

create_target_folder() {
    echo -n "Creating target directory to hold files in ${TARGET_FOLDER}..."
    mkdir -p "${TARGET_FOLDER}"
    printf "done"
}

create_service_account() {
    echo -e "\\nCreating a service account in ${NAMESPACE} namespace: ${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME}"
    kubectl create sa "${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME}" --namespace "${NAMESPACE}"
}

get_secret_name_from_service_account() {
    echo -e "\\nGetting secret of service account ${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME} on ${NAMESPACE}"
    SECRET_NAME=$(kubectl get sa "${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME}" --namespace="${NAMESPACE}" -o json | jq -r .secrets[].name)
    echo "Secret name: ${SECRET_NAME}"
}

extract_ca_crt_from_secret() {
    echo -e -n "\\nExtracting ca.crt from secret..."
    kubectl get secret --namespace "${NAMESPACE}" "${SECRET_NAME}" -o json | jq \
    -r '.data["ca.crt"]' | base64 -D > "${TARGET_FOLDER}/ca.crt"
    printf "done"
}

get_user_token_from_secret() {
    echo -e -n "\\nGetting user token from secret..."
    USER_TOKEN=$(kubectl get secret --namespace "${NAMESPACE}" "${SECRET_NAME}" -o json | jq -r '.data["token"]' | base64 -D)
    printf "done"
}

set_kube_config_values() {
    context=$(kubectl config current-context)
    echo -e "\\nSetting current context to: $context"

    CLUSTER_NAME=$(kubectl config get-contexts "$context" | awk '{print $3}' | tail -n 1)
    echo "Cluster name: ${CLUSTER_NAME}"

    ENDPOINT=$(kubectl config view \
    -o jsonpath="{.clusters[?(@.name == \"${CLUSTER_NAME}\")].cluster.server}")
    echo "Endpoint: ${ENDPOINT}"

    # Set up the config
    echo -e "\\nPreparing k8s-${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME}-${NAMESPACE}-conf"
    echo -n "Setting a cluster entry in kubeconfig..."
    kubectl config set-cluster "${CLUSTER_NAME}" \
    --kubeconfig="${KUBECFG_FILE_NAME}" \
    --server="${ENDPOINT}" \
    --certificate-authority="${TARGET_FOLDER}/ca.crt" \
    --embed-certs=true

    echo -n "Setting token credentials entry in kubeconfig..."
    kubectl config set-credentials \
    "${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME}-${NAMESPACE}-${CLUSTER_NAME}" \
    --kubeconfig="${KUBECFG_FILE_NAME}" \
    --token="${USER_TOKEN}"

    echo -n "Setting a context entry in kubeconfig..."
    kubectl config set-context \
    "${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME}-${NAMESPACE}-${CLUSTER_NAME}" \
    --kubeconfig="${KUBECFG_FILE_NAME}" \
    --cluster="${CLUSTER_NAME}" \
    --user="${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME}-${NAMESPACE}-${CLUSTER_NAME}" \
    --namespace="${NAMESPACE}"

    echo -n "Setting the current-context in the kubeconfig file..."
    kubectl config use-context "${SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME}-${NAMESPACE}-${CLUSTER_NAME}" \
    --kubeconfig="${KUBECFG_FILE_NAME}"
}

create_target_folder
create_service_account
get_secret_name_from_service_account
extract_ca_crt_from_secret
get_user_token_from_secret
set_kube_config_values

echo -e "\\nAll done! Test with:"
echo "KUBECONFIG=${KUBECFG_FILE_NAME} kubectl get pods"
echo "you should not have any permissions by default - you have just created the authentication part"
echo "You will need to create RBAC permissions"
KUBECONFIG=${KUBECFG_FILE_NAME} kubectl get pods
-- bramvdk
Source: StackOverflow

12/18/2018

This is the correct way to create a config file for a serviceaccount:

# your server name goes here
server=https://<server.hcp.westeurope.azmk8s.io:443>
# the name of the secret containing the service account token goes here
name=<default-user-token>

ca=$(kubectl get secret/$name -o jsonpath='{.data.ca\.crt}')
token=$(kubectl get secret/$name -o jsonpath='{.data.token}' | base64 -d)
namespace=$(kubectl get secret/$name -o jsonpath='{.data.namespace}' | base64 -d)

echo "
apiVersion: v1
kind: Config
clusters:
- name: default-cluster
  cluster:
    certificate-authority-data: ${ca}
    server: ${server}
contexts:
- name: default-context
  context:
    cluster: default-cluster
    namespace: ${namespace}
    user: default-user
current-context: default-context
users:
- name: default-user
  user:
    token: ${token}
" > sa.kubeconfig
-- bramvdk
Source: StackOverflow