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Impersonating the system:admin user

API impersonation

You can configure a request to the OpenShift Container Platform API to act as though it originated from another user. For more information, see User impersonation in the Kubernetes documentation.

Impersonating the system:admin user

You can grant a user permission to impersonate system:admin, which grants them cluster administrator permissions.

Procedure

  • To grant a user permission to impersonate system:admin, run the following command:

    $ oc create clusterrolebinding <any_valid_name> --clusterrole=sudoer --user=<username>

    You can alternatively apply the following YAML to grant permission to impersonate system:admin:

    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: <any_valid_name>
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: sudoer
subjects:
- apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: User
  name: <username>

Impersonating the system:admin group

When a system:admin user is granted cluster administration permissions through a group, you must include the --as=<user> --as-group=<group1> --as-group=<group2> parameters in the command to impersonate the associated groups.

Procedure

  • To grant a user permission to impersonate a system:admin by impersonating the associated cluster administration groups, run the following command:

    $ oc create clusterrolebinding <any_valid_name> --clusterrole=sudoer --as=<user> \
--as-group=<group1> --as-group=<group2>

Adding unauthenticated groups to cluster roles

As a cluster administrator, you can add unauthenticated users to the following cluster roles in OpenShift Container Platform by creating a cluster role binding. Unauthenticated users do not have access to non-public cluster roles. This should only be done in specific use cases when necessary.

You can add unauthenticated users to the following cluster roles:

  • system:scope-impersonation

  • system:webhook

  • system:oauth-token-deleter

  • self-access-reviewer

Always verify compliance with your organization’s security standards when modifying unauthenticated access.
Prerequisites

  • You have access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

  • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  1. Create a YAML file named add-<cluster_role>-unauth.yaml and add the following content:

    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
 annotations:
   rbac.authorization.kubernetes.io/autoupdate: "true"
 name: <cluster_role>access-unauthenticated
roleRef:
 apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
 kind: ClusterRole
 name: <cluster_role>
subjects:
 - apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
   kind: Group
   name: system:unauthenticated

  2. Apply the configuration by running the following command:

    $ oc apply -f add-<cluster_role>.yaml