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Using Custom RBAC resources
KubeDB (version 0.13.0 and higher) supports finer user control over role based access permissions provided to a MongoDB instance. This tutorial will show you how to use KubeDB to run MongoDB instance with custom RBAC resources.
Before You Begin
At first, you need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using kind.
Now, install KubeDB cli on your workstation and KubeDB operator in your cluster following the steps here.
To keep things isolated, this tutorial uses a separate namespace called demo throughout this tutorial.
$ kubectl create ns demo
namespace/demo created
Note: YAML files used in this tutorial are stored in docs/examples/mongodb folder in GitHub repository kubedb/docs.
Overview
KubeDB allows users to provide custom RBAC resources, namely, ServiceAccount, Role, and RoleBinding for MongoDB. This is provided via the spec.podTemplate.spec.serviceAccountName field in MongoDB crd. If this field is left empty, the KubeDB operator will create a service account name matching MongoDB crd name. Role and RoleBinding that provide necessary access permissions will also be generated automatically for this service account.
If a service account name is given, but there’s no existing service account by that name, the KubeDB operator will create one, and Role and RoleBinding that provide necessary access permissions will also be generated for this service account.
If a service account name is given, and there’s an existing service account by that name, the KubeDB operator will use that existing service account. Since this service account is not managed by KubeDB, users are responsible for providing necessary access permissions manually.
This guide will show you how to create custom Service Account, Role, and RoleBinding for a MongoDB instance named quick-mongodb to provide the bare minimum access permissions.
Custom RBAC for MongoDB
At first, let’s create a Service Acoount in demo namespace.
$ kubectl create serviceaccount -n demo my-custom-serviceaccount
serviceaccount/my-custom-serviceaccount created
It should create a service account.
$ kubectl get serviceaccount -n demo my-custom-serviceaccount -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
creationTimestamp: "2019-05-30T04:23:39Z"
name: my-custom-serviceaccount
namespace: demo
resourceVersion: "21657"
selfLink: /api/v1/namespaces/demo/serviceaccounts/myserviceaccount
uid: b2ec2b05-8292-11e9-8d10-080027a8b217
secrets:
- name: myserviceaccount-token-t8zxd
Now, we need to create a role that has necessary access permissions for the MongoDB instance named quick-mongodb.
$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2023.08.18/docs/examples/mongodb/custom-rbac/mg-custom-role.yaml
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/my-custom-role created
Below is the YAML for the Role we just created.
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: Role
metadata:
name: my-custom-role
namespace: demo
rules:
- apiGroups:
- policy
resourceNames:
- mongodb-db
resources:
- podsecuritypolicies
verbs:
- use
This permission is required for MongoDB pods running on PSP enabled clusters.
Now create a RoleBinding to bind this Role with the already created service account.
$ kubectl create rolebinding my-custom-rolebinding --role=my-custom-role --serviceaccount=demo:my-custom-serviceaccount --namespace=demo
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/my-custom-rolebinding created
It should bind my-custom-role and my-custom-serviceaccount successfully.
$ kubectl get rolebinding -n demo my-custom-rolebinding -o yaml
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: RoleBinding
metadata:
creationTimestamp: "2019-05-30T04:33:39Z"
name: my-custom-rolebinding
namespace: demo
resourceVersion: "1405"
selfLink: /apis/rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1/namespaces/demo/rolebindings/my-custom-rolebinding
uid: 123afc02-8297-11e9-8d10-080027a8b217
roleRef:
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
kind: Role
name: my-custom-role
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
name: my-custom-serviceaccount
namespace: demo
Now, create a MongoDB crd specifying spec.podTemplate.spec.serviceAccountName field to my-custom-serviceaccount.
$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2023.08.18/docs/examples/mongodb/custom-rbac/mg-custom-db.yaml
mongodb.kubedb.com/quick-mongodb created
Below is the YAML for the MongoDB crd we just created.
apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha2
kind: MongoDB
metadata:
name: quick-mongodb
namespace: demo
spec:
version: "4.2.3"
storageType: Durable
podTemplate:
spec:
serviceAccountName: my-custom-serviceaccount
storage:
storageClassName: "standard"
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
resources:
requests:
storage: 1Gi
terminationPolicy: DoNotTerminate
Now, wait a few minutes. the KubeDB operator will create necessary PVC, deployment, statefulsets, services, secret etc. If everything goes well, we should see that a pod with the name quick-mongodb-0 has been created.
Check that the statefulset’s pod is running
$ kubectl get pod -n demo quick-mongodb-0
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
quick-mongodb-0 1/1 Running 0 28s
Check the pod’s log to see if the database is ready
$ kubectl logs -f -n demo quick-mongodb-0
about to fork child process, waiting until server is ready for connections.
forked process: 17
2019-06-10T08:56:45.259+0000 I CONTROL [main] ***** SERVER RESTARTED *****
2019-06-10T08:56:45.263+0000 I CONTROL [initandlisten] MongoDB starting : pid=17 port=27017 dbpath=/data/db 64-bit host=quick-mongodb-0
...
...
MongoDB init process complete; ready for start up.
...
..
2019-06-10T08:56:49.287+0000 I NETWORK [thread1] waiting for connections on port 27017
2019-06-10T08:56:57.179+0000 I NETWORK [thread1] connection accepted from 127.0.0.1:39214 #1 (1 connection now open)
Once we see connection accepted in the log, the database is ready.
Reusing Service Account
An existing service account can be reused in another MongoDB instance. No new access permission is required to run the new MongoDB instance.
Now, create MongoDB crd minute-mongodb using the existing service account name my-custom-serviceaccount in the spec.podTemplate.spec.serviceAccountName field.
$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2023.08.18/docs/examples/mongodb/custom-rbac/mg-custom-db-two.yaml
mongodb.kubedb.com/quick-mongodb created
Below is the YAML for the MongoDB crd we just created.
apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha2
kind: MongoDB
metadata:
name: minute-mongodb
namespace: demo
spec:
version: "4.2.3"
podTemplate:
spec:
serviceAccountName: my-custom-serviceaccount
storageType: Durable
storage:
storageClassName: "standard"
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
resources:
requests:
storage: 1Gi
terminationPolicy: DoNotTerminate
Now, wait a few minutes. the KubeDB operator will create necessary PVC, statefulset, deployment, services, secret etc. If everything goes well, we should see that a pod with the name minute-mongodb-0 has been created.
Check that the statefulset’s pod is running
$ kubectl get pod -n demo minute-mongodb-0
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
minute-mongodb-0 1/1 Running 0 50s
Check the pod’s log to see if the database is ready
$ kubectl logs -f -n demo minute-mongodb-0
about to fork child process, waiting until server is ready for connections.
forked process: 17
2019-06-10T08:56:45.259+0000 I CONTROL [main] ***** SERVER RESTARTED *****
2019-06-10T08:56:45.263+0000 I CONTROL [initandlisten] MongoDB starting : pid=17 port=27017 dbpath=/data/db 64-bit host=quick-mongodb-0
...
...
MongoDB init process complete; ready for start up.
...
..
2019-06-10T08:56:49.287+0000 I NETWORK [thread1] waiting for connections on port 27017
2019-06-10T08:56:57.179+0000 I NETWORK [thread1] connection accepted from 127.0.0.1:39214 #1 (1 connection now open)
connection accepted in the log signifies that the database is running successfully.
Cleaning up
To cleanup the Kubernetes resources created by this tutorial, run:
kubectl patch -n demo mg/quick-mongodb -p '{"spec":{"terminationPolicy":"WipeOut"}}' --type="merge"
kubectl delete -n demo mg/quick-mongodb
kubectl patch -n demo mg/minute-mongodb -p '{"spec":{"terminationPolicy":"WipeOut"}}' --type="merge"
kubectl delete -n demo mg/minute-mongodb
kubectl delete -n demo role my-custom-role
kubectl delete -n demo rolebinding my-custom-rolebinding
kubectl delete sa -n demo my-custom-serviceaccount
kubectl delete ns demo
If you would like to uninstall the KubeDB operator, please follow the steps here.
Next Steps
- Quickstart MongoDB with KubeDB Operator.
- Backup and Restore MongoDB instances using Stash.
- Initialize MongoDB with Script.
- Monitor your MongoDB instance with KubeDB using out-of-the-box Prometheus operator.
- Monitor your MongoDB instance with KubeDB using out-of-the-box builtin-Prometheus.
- Use private Docker registry to deploy MongoDB with KubeDB.
- Use kubedb cli to manage databases like kubectl for Kubernetes.
- Detail concepts of MongoDB object.
- Want to hack on KubeDB? Check our contribution guidelines.