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Configuring TLS authentication

You can use Transport Layer Security (TLS) to encrypt Knative traffic and for authentication.

TLS is the only supported method of traffic encryption for Knative Kafka. Red Hat recommends using both SASL and TLS together for Knative Kafka resources.

If you want to enable internal TLS with a Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh integration, you must enable Service Mesh with mTLS instead of the internal encryption explained in the following procedure. See the documentation for Enabling Knative Serving metrics when using Service Mesh with mTLS.

Enabling TLS authentication for internal traffic

OpenShift Serverless supports TLS edge termination by default, so that HTTPS traffic from end users is encrypted. However, internal traffic behind the OpenShift route is forwarded to applications by using plain data. By enabling TLS for internal traffic, the traffic sent between components is encrypted, which makes this traffic more secure.

If you want to enable internal TLS with a Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh integration, you must enable Service Mesh with mTLS instead of the internal encryption explained in the following procedure.

Internal TLS encryption support is a Technology Preview feature only. Technology Preview features are not supported with Red Hat production service level agreements (SLAs) and might not be functionally complete. Red Hat does not recommend using them in production. These features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process.

For more information about the support scope of Red Hat Technology Preview features, see https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/techpreview/.
Prerequisites

  • You have installed the OpenShift Serverless Operator and Knative Serving.

  • You have installed the OpenShift (oc) CLI.

Procedure

  1. Create a Knative service that includes the internal-encryption: "true" field in the spec:

    ...
spec:
  config:
    network:
      internal-encryption: "true"
...

  2. Restart the activator pods in the knative-serving namespace to load the certificates:

    $ oc delete pod -n knative-serving --selector app=activator

Enabling TLS authentication for cluster local services

For cluster local services, the Kourier local gateway kourier-internal is used. If you want to use TLS traffic against the Kourier local gateway, you must configure your own server certificates in the local gateway.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed the OpenShift Serverless Operator and Knative Serving.

  • You have administrator permissions.

  • You have installed the OpenShift (oc) CLI.

Procedure

  1. Deploy server certificates in the knative-serving-ingress namespace:

    $ export san="knative"

    Subject Alternative Name (SAN) validation is required so that these certificates can serve the request to <app_name>.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local.

  2. Generate a root key and certificate:

    $ openssl req -x509 -sha256 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 \
    -subj '/O=Example/CN=Example' \
    -keyout ca.key \
    -out ca.crt

  3. Generate a server key that uses SAN validation:

    $ openssl req -out tls.csr -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout tls.key \
  -subj "/CN=Example/O=Example" \
  -addext "subjectAltName = DNS:$san"

  4. Create server certificates:

    $ openssl x509 -req -extfile <(printf "subjectAltName=DNS:$san") \
  -days 365 -in tls.csr \
  -CA ca.crt -CAkey ca.key -CAcreateserial -out tls.crt

  5. Configure a secret for the Kourier local gateway:

    1. Deploy a secret in knative-serving-ingress namespace from the certificates created by the previous steps:

      $ oc create -n knative-serving-ingress secret tls server-certs \
    --key=tls.key \
    --cert=tls.crt --dry-run=client -o yaml | oc apply -f -

    2. Update the KnativeServing custom resource (CR) spec to use the secret that was created by the Kourier gateway:

      Example KnativeServing CR
      ...
spec:
  config:
    kourier:
      cluster-cert-secret: server-certs
...

The Kourier controller sets the certificate without restarting the service, so that you do not need to restart the pod.

You can access the Kourier internal service with TLS through port 443 by mounting and using the ca.crt from the client.

Additional resources

Securing a service with a custom domain by using a TLS certificate

After you have configured a custom domain for a Knative service, you can use a TLS certificate to secure the mapped service. To do this, you must create a Kubernetes TLS secret, and then update the DomainMapping CR to use the TLS secret that you have created.

Prerequisites

  • You configured a custom domain for a Knative service and have a working DomainMapping CR.

  • You have a TLS certificate from your Certificate Authority provider or a self-signed certificate.

  • You have obtained the cert and key files from your Certificate Authority provider, or a self-signed certificate.

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  1. Create a Kubernetes TLS secret:

    $ oc create secret tls <tls_secret_name> --cert=<path_to_certificate_file> --key=<path_to_key_file>

  2. If you are using Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh as the ingress for your OpenShift Serverless installation, label the Kubernetes TLS secret with the following:

    “networking.internal.knative.dev/certificate-uid": “<value>”

    If you are using a third-party secret provider such as cert-manager, you can configure your secret manager to label the Kubernetes TLS secret automatically. Cert-manager users can use the secret template offered to automatically generate secrets with the correct label. In this case, secret filtering is done based on the key only, but this value can carry useful information such as the certificate ID that the secret contains.

    The {cert-manager-operator} is a Technology Preview feature. For more information, see the Installing the {cert-manager-operator} documentation.

  3. Update the DomainMapping CR to use the TLS secret that you have created:

    apiVersion: serving.knative.dev/v1alpha1
kind: DomainMapping
metadata:
  name: <domain_name>
  namespace: <namespace>
spec:
  ref:
    name: <service_name>
    kind: Service
    apiVersion: serving.knative.dev/v1
# TLS block specifies the secret to be used
  tls:
    secretName: <tls_secret_name>
Verification

  1. Verify that the DomainMapping CR status is True, and that the URL column of the output shows the mapped domain with the scheme https:

    $ oc get domainmapping <domain_name>
    Example output
    NAME                      URL                               READY   REASON
example.com               https://example.com               True

  2. Optional: If the service is exposed publicly, verify that it is available by running the following command:

    $ curl https://<domain_name>

    If the certificate is self-signed, skip verification by adding the -k flag to the curl command.

Configuring TLS authentication for Kafka brokers

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is used by Apache Kafka clients and servers to encrypt traffic between Knative and Kafka, as well as for authentication. TLS is the only supported method of traffic encryption for Knative Kafka.

Prerequisites

  • You have cluster administrator permissions on OpenShift Container Platform.

  • The OpenShift Serverless Operator, Knative Eventing, and the KnativeKafka CR are installed on your OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

  • You have created a project or have access to a project with the appropriate roles and permissions to create applications and other workloads in OpenShift Container Platform.

  • You have a Kafka cluster CA certificate stored as a .pem file.

  • You have a Kafka cluster client certificate and a key stored as .pem files.

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  1. Create the certificate files as a secret in the knative-eventing namespace:

    $ oc create secret -n knative-eventing generic <secret_name> \
  --from-literal=protocol=SSL \
  --from-file=ca.crt=caroot.pem \
  --from-file=user.crt=certificate.pem \
  --from-file=user.key=key.pem

    Use the key names ca.crt, user.crt, and user.key. Do not change them.

  2. Edit the KnativeKafka CR and add a reference to your secret in the broker spec:

    apiVersion: operator.serverless.openshift.io/v1alpha1
kind: KnativeKafka
metadata:
  namespace: knative-eventing
  name: knative-kafka
spec:
  broker:
    enabled: true
    defaultConfig:
      authSecretName: <secret_name>
...

Configuring TLS authentication for Kafka channels

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is used by Apache Kafka clients and servers to encrypt traffic between Knative and Kafka, as well as for authentication. TLS is the only supported method of traffic encryption for Knative Kafka.

Prerequisites

  • You have cluster administrator permissions on OpenShift Container Platform.

  • The OpenShift Serverless Operator, Knative Eventing, and the KnativeKafka CR are installed on your OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

  • You have created a project or have access to a project with the appropriate roles and permissions to create applications and other workloads in OpenShift Container Platform.

  • You have a Kafka cluster CA certificate stored as a .pem file.

  • You have a Kafka cluster client certificate and a key stored as .pem files.

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  1. Create the certificate files as secrets in your chosen namespace:

    $ oc create secret -n <namespace> generic <kafka_auth_secret> \
  --from-file=ca.crt=caroot.pem \
  --from-file=user.crt=certificate.pem \
  --from-file=user.key=key.pem

    Use the key names ca.crt, user.crt, and user.key. Do not change them.

  2. Start editing the KnativeKafka custom resource:

    $ oc edit knativekafka

  3. Reference your secret and the namespace of the secret:

    apiVersion: operator.serverless.openshift.io/v1alpha1
kind: KnativeKafka
metadata:
  namespace: knative-eventing
  name: knative-kafka
spec:
  channel:
    authSecretName: <kafka_auth_secret>
    authSecretNamespace: <kafka_auth_secret_namespace>
    bootstrapServers: <bootstrap_servers>
    enabled: true
  source:
    enabled: true

    Make sure to specify the matching port in the bootstrap server.

    For example:

    apiVersion: operator.serverless.openshift.io/v1alpha1
kind: KnativeKafka
metadata:
  namespace: knative-eventing
  name: knative-kafka
spec:
  channel:
    authSecretName: tls-user
    authSecretNamespace: kafka
    bootstrapServers: eventing-kafka-bootstrap.kafka.svc:9094
    enabled: true
  source:
    enabled: true