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Customizing permissions by creating user-defined cluster roles for cluster-scoped instances

For the default cluster-scoped instance, the Red Hat OpenShift GitOps Operator grants additional permissions for managing certain cluster-scoped resources. Consequently, as a cluster administrator, when you deploy an Argo CD as a cluster-scoped instance, the Operator creates additional cluster roles and cluster role bindings for the GitOps control plane components. These cluster roles and cluster role bindings provide the additional permissions that Argo CD requires to operate at the cluster level.

If you do not want the cluster-scoped instance to have all of the Operator-given permissions and choose to add or remove permissions to cluster-wide resources, you must first disable the creation of the default cluster roles for the cluster-scoped instance. Then, you can customize permissions for the following cluster-scoped instances:

  • Default ArgoCD instance (default cluster-scoped instance)

  • User-defined cluster-scoped Argo CD instance

This guide provides instructions with examples to help you create a user-defined cluster-scoped Argo CD instance, deploy an Argo CD application in your defined namespace that contains custom configurations for your cluster, disable the creation of the default cluster roles for the cluster-scoped instance, and customize permissions for user-defined cluster-scoped instances by creating new cluster roles and cluster role bindings for the GitOps control plane components.

As a developer, if you are creating an Argo CD application and deploying cluster-wide resources, ensure that your cluster administrator grants the necessary permissions to them.

Otherwise, after the Argo CD reconciliation, you will see an authentication error message in the application’s Status field similar to the following example:

Example authentication error message
persistentvolumes is forbidden: User "system:serviceaccount:gitops-demo:argocd-argocd-application-controller" cannot create resource "persistentvolumes" in API group "" at the cluster scope.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed Red Hat OpenShift GitOps 1.13.0 or a later version on your OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

  • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

  • You have installed the Red Hat OpenShift GitOps argocd CLI.

  • You have installed a cluster-scoped Argo CD instance in your defined namespace. For example, spring-petclinic.

  • You have validated that the user-defined cluster-scoped instance is configured with the cluster roles and cluster role bindings for the following components:

    • Argo CD Application Controller

    • Argo CD server

    • Argo CD ApplicationSet Controller (provided the ApplicationSet Controller is created)

  • You have deployed a cluster-configs Argo CD application with the customclusterrole path in the spring-petclinic namespace and created the test-gitops-ns namespace and test-gitops-pv persistent volume resources.

    The cluster-configs Argo CD application must be managed by a user-defined cluster-scoped instance with the following parameters set:

    • The selfHeal field value set to true

    • The syncPolicy field value set to automated

    • The Label field set to the app.kubernetes.io/part-of=argocd value

    • The Label field set to the argocd.argoproj.io/managed-by=<user_defined_namespace> value so that the Argo CD instance in your defined namespace can manage your namespace

    • The Label field set to the app.kubernetes.io/name=<user_defined_argocd_instance> value

Disabling the creation of the default cluster roles for the cluster-scoped instance

To add or remove permissions to cluster-wide resources, as needed, you must disable the creation of the default cluster roles for the cluster-scoped instance by editing the YAML file of the Argo CD custom resource (CR).

Procedure

  1. In the Argo CD CR, set the value of the .spec.defaultClusterScopedRoleDisabled field to true:

    Example Argo CD CR
    apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1beta1
kind: ArgoCD
metadata:
  name: example (1)
  namespace: spring-petclinic (2)
# ...
spec:
  defaultClusterScopedRoleDisabled: true (3)
# ...
    1 The name of the cluster-scoped instance.
    2 The namespace where you want to run the cluster-scoped instance.
    3 The flag value that disables the creation of the default cluster roles for the cluster-scoped instance. If you want the Operator to recreate the default cluster roles and cluster role bindings for the cluster-scoped instance, set the field value to false.
    Sample output
    argocd.argoproj.io/example configured

  2. Verify that the Red Hat OpenShift GitOps Operator has deleted the default cluster roles and cluster role bindings for the GitOps control plane components by running the following commands:

    $ oc get ClusterRoles/<argocd_name>-<argocd_namespace>-<control_plane_component>
    $ oc get ClusterRoleBindings/<argocd_name>-<argocd_namespace>-<control_plane_component>
    Sample output
    No resources found

    The default cluster roles and cluster role bindings for the cluster-scoped instance are not created. As a cluster administrator, you can now create and customize permissions for cluster-scoped instances by creating new cluster roles and cluster role bindings for the GitOps control plane components.

Additional resources

Customizing permissions for cluster-scoped instances

As a cluster administrator, to customize permissions for cluster-scoped instances, you must create new cluster roles and cluster role bindings for the GitOps control plane components.

For example purposes, the following instructions focus only on user-defined cluster-scoped instances.

Procedure

  1. Open the Administrator perspective of the web console and go to User Management → Roles → Create Role.

  2. Use the following ClusterRole YAML template to add rules to specify the additional permissions.

    Example cluster role YAML template
    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: example-spring-petclinic-argocd-application-controller (1)
rules:
  - verbs:
      - get
      - list
      - watch
    apiGroups:
      - '*'
    resources:
      - '*'
  - verbs:
      - '*'
    apiGroups:
      - ''
    resources: (2)
      - namespaces
      - persistentvolumes
    1 The name of the cluster role according to the <argocd_name>-<argocd_namespace>-<control_plane_component> naming convention.
    2 The resources to which you want to grant permissions at the cluster level.

  3. Click Create to add the cluster role.

  4. Find the service account used by the control plane component you are customizing permissions for, by performing the following steps:

    1. Go to Workloads → Pods.

    2. From the Project drop-down menu, select the project where the user-defined cluster-scoped instance is installed.

    3. Click the pod of the control plane component and go to the YAML tab.

    4. Find the spec.ServiceAccount field and note the service account.

  5. Go to User Management → RoleBindings → Create binding.

  6. Click Create binding.

  7. Select Binding type as Cluster-wide role binding (ClusterRoleBinding).

  8. Enter a unique value for RoleBinding name by following the <argocd_name>-<argocd_namespace>-<control_plane_component> naming convention.

  9. Select the newly created cluster role from the drop-down list for Role name.

  10. Select the Subject as ServiceAccount and the provide the Subject namespace and name.

    1. Subject namespace: spring-petclinic

    2. Subject name: example-argocd-application-controller

      For Subject name, ensure that the value you configure is the same as the value of the spec.ServiceAccount field of the control plane component you are customizing permissions for.

  11. Click Create.

    You have created the required permissions for the control plane component’s service account and namespace. The YAML file for the ClusterRoleBinding object looks similar to the following example:

    Example YAML file for a cluster role binding
    kind: ClusterRoleBinding
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: example-spring-petclinic-argocd-application-controller
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: example-argocd-application-controller
    namespace: spring-petclinic
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: example-spring-petclinic-argocd-application-controller

Additional resources