Chapter 2. Infrastructure Security
Many Kubernetes configurations are insecure by default. In this chapter we will explore how to secure Kubernetes at the infrastructure level. It can be made more secure through the combination of host hardening to make the servers or VMs Kubernetes is hosted on more secure, cluster hardening to secure the Kubernetes control plane components, and network security to integrate the cluster with the surrounding infrastructure. Please note that the concepts discussed in this chapter apply to self-hosted Kubernetes clusters as well as managed Kubernetes clusters.
- Host hardening
- This covers the choice of operating system, avoiding running nonessential processes on the hosts, and host-based firewalling.
- Cluster hardening
- This covers a range of configuration and policy settings needed to harden the control plane, including configuring TLS certificates, locking down the Kubernetes datastore, encrypting secrets at rest, credential rotation, and user authentication and access control.
- Network security
- This covers securely integrating the cluster with the surrounding infrastructure, and in particular which network interactions between the cluster and the surrounding infrastructure are allowed, for control plane, host, and workload traffic.
Let’s look at the details for each of these aspects and explore what is needed to build a secure infrastructure for your Kubernetes cluster.
Host Hardening
A secure host is an important building block for a secure Kubernetes ...
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