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SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
Copyright (c) 2020 Intel Corporation

Certificate Signer

Overview

Each application that needs the TLS authentication certificate should generate it using the Certificate Signer by sending a CSR via Certificate Requester.

Usage

Generally the CSR will be sent from a Pod’s Certificate Requester InitContainer which then needs to be approved by an administrator using kubectl certificate approve <CSR_name>.

After that the Certificate Requester saves the certificate and key under /home/certrequester/certs/cert.pem and /home/certrequester/certs/key.pem.

Application can use the certificate by having a shared volume mounted under /home/certrequester/certs in Certificate Requester container and under a requried path in its service container.

Each application needs to perform mutual TLS authentication with the EAA. To achieve that, the application should trust the CA certificate root.pem that is stored in ca-certrequester Kubernetes Secret.

Deployment

In order to use Certificate Requester the following Kubernetes entities needs to be created:

  1. RBAC Service Account and Cluster Role Binding to a csr-requester Cluster Role.

    ```yml

    apiVersion: v1 kind: ServiceAccount metadata: name: service-acc


kind: ClusterRoleBinding apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 metadata: name: service-csr-requester roleRef: apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io kind: ClusterRole name: csr-requester subjects: - kind: ServiceAccount name: service-acc namespace: default


2. JSON CSR config:
 - *CSR.Name*: Kubernetes CSR name
 - *CSR.Subject*: https://golang.org/pkg/crypto/x509/pkix/#Name
 - *CSR.DNSSANs*: A list of DNS SANs
 - *CSR.IPSANs*: A list of IP SANs
 - *CSR.KeyUsages*: Specifies valid usage contexts for keys, list of elements of type https://godoc.org/k8s.io/api/certificates/v1#KeyUsage
 - *Signer*: Specifies Kubernetes Signer that will handle the CSR. Smart Edge Open Certificate Signer name should be used: "*openness.org/certsigner*"
 - *WaitTimeout*: Specifies how much time the CSR can wait until it's approved before deletion.

   Sample config:
   ```yml
   ---
   apiVersion: v1
   kind: ConfigMap
   metadata:
     name: service-csr-config
   data:
     certrequest.json: |
       {
           "CSR": {
               "Name": "service",
               "Subject": {
                   "CommonName": "ExampleNamespace:ExampleProducerAppID"
               },
               "DNSSANs": [],
               "IPSANs": [],
               "KeyUsages": [
                   "digital signature", "key encipherment", "client auth"
               ]
           },
           "Signer": "openness.org/certsigner",
           "WaitTimeout": "5m"
       }
  1. Sample deployment:

    ---
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    metadata:
      name: service
      labels:
        app: service
    spec:
      replicas: 1
      selector:
        matchLabels:
          app: service
      template:
        metadata:
          labels:
            app: service
        spec:
          securityContext:
            runAsUser: 1000
            runAsGroup: 3000
          serviceAccountName: service-acc
          initContainers:
            - name: alpine
              image: alpine:3.12.0
              command: ["/bin/sh"]
              args: ["-c", "cp /root/ca-certrequester/cert.pem /root/certs/root.pem"]
              imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
              securityContext:
                runAsUser: 0
                runAsGroup: 0
              resources:
                requests:
                  cpu: "0.1"
                limits:
                  cpu: "0.1"
                  memory: "128Mi"
              volumeMounts:
                - name: ca-certrequester
                  mountPath: /root/ca-certrequester
                - name: certs
                  mountPath: /root/certs
            - name: certrequester
              image: certrequester:1.0
              args: ["--cfg", "/home/certrequester/config/certrequest.json"]
              imagePullPolicy: Never
              resources:
                requests:
                  cpu: "0.1"
                limits:
                  cpu: "0.1"
                  memory: "128Mi"
              volumeMounts:
                - name: config
                  mountPath: /home/certrequester/config/
                - name: certs
                  mountPath: /home/certrequester/certs/
          containers:
            - name: service
              image: service:1.0
              imagePullPolicy: Never
              volumeMounts:
                - name: certs
                  mountPath: /home/sample/certs/
              ports:
                - containerPort: 443
          volumes:
            - name: config
              configMap:
                name: service-csr-config
            - name: ca-certrequester
              secret:
                secretName: ca-certrequester
            - name: certs
              emptyDir: {}
    

    After applying such deployment we can check the Pod and CSR status:

    $ kubectl get pods
    NAME                        READY   STATUS     RESTARTS   AGE
    service-7b6b4c7bdf-4xv6g    0/1     Init:1/2   0          9s
    $ kubectl get csr
    NAME       AGE   SIGNERNAME                REQUESTOR                                CONDITION
    service    11s   openness.org/certsigner   system:serviceaccount:default:service    Pending
    

    To approve the CSR and start the Service:

    $ kubectl certificate approve service
    certificatesigningrequest.certificates.k8s.io/service approved
    $ kubectl get csr
    NAME       AGE   SIGNERNAME                REQUESTOR                                CONDITION
    service    82m   openness.org/certsigner   system:serviceaccount:default:service    Approved,Issued
    $ kubectl get pods
    NAME                        READY   STATUS     RESTARTS   AGE
    service-7b6b4c7bdf-4xv6g    1/1     Running    0          54s
    
  2. Cleanup can be perfomed by:

    • deleting the entities defined in a YAML file in the previous step: kubectl delete -f <deployment_file_path>
    • deleting the CSR: kubectl delete csr service