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Secure your cluster using pod security policies in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) (preview)

  • Article

Important

The pod security policy feature was deprecated on 1st August 2023 and removed from AKS versions 1.25 and higher.

We recommend you migrate to pod security admission controller or Azure policy to stay within Azure support. Pod Security Admission is a built-in policy solution for single cluster implementations. If you are looking for enterprise-grade policy, then Azure policy is a better choice.

Before you begin

  • This article assumes you have an existing AKS cluster. If you need an AKS cluster, create one using Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, or the Azure portal.
  • You need the Azure CLI version 2.0.61 or later installed and configured. Run az --version to find the version. If you need to install or upgrade, see install Azure CLI.

Install the aks-preview Azure CLI extension

Important

AKS preview features are available on a self-service, opt-in basis. Previews are provided "as is" and "as available," and they're excluded from the service-level agreements and limited warranty. AKS previews are partially covered by customer support on a best-effort basis. As such, these features aren't meant for production use. For more information, see the following support articles:

  1. Install the aks-preview extension using the az extension add command.

    az extension add --name aks-preview

  2. Update to the latest version of the extension using the az extension update command.

    az extension update --name aks-preview

Register the PodSecurityPolicyPreview feature flag

  1. Register the PodSecurityPolicyPreview feature flag using the az feature register command.

    az feature register --namespace "Microsoft.ContainerService" --name "PodSecurityPolicyPreview"

    It takes a few minutes for the status to show Registered.

  2. Verify the registration status using the az feature show command.

    az feature show --namespace "Microsoft.ContainerService" --name "PodSecurityPolicyPreview"

  3. When the status reflects Registered, refresh the registration of the Microsoft.ContainerService resource provider using the az provider register command.

    az provider register --namespace Microsoft.ContainerService

Overview of pod security policies

Kubernetes clusters use admission controllers to intercept requests to the API server when a resource is going to be created. The admission controller can then validate the resource request against a set of rules, or mutate the resource to change deployment parameters.

PodSecurityPolicy is an admission controller that validates a pod specification meets your defined requirements. These requirements may limit the use of privileged containers, access to certain types of storage, or the user or group the container can run as. When you try to deploy a resource where the pod specifications don't meet the requirements outlined in the pod security policy, the request is denied. This ability to control what pods can be scheduled in the AKS cluster prevents some possible security vulnerabilities or privilege escalations.

When you enable pod security policy in an AKS cluster, some default policies are applied. These policies provide an out-of-the-box experience to define what pods can be scheduled. However, you might run into problems deploying your pods until you define your own policies. The recommended approach is to:

  1. Create an AKS cluster.
  2. Define your own pod security policies.
  3. Enable the pod security policy feature.

Behavior changes between pod security policy and Azure Policy

Scenario Pod security policy Azure Policy
Installation Enable pod security policy feature Enable Azure Policy Add-on
Deploy policies Deploy pod security policy resource Assign Azure policies to the subscription or resource group scope. The Azure Policy Add-on is required for Kubernetes resource applications.
Default policies When pod security policy is enabled in AKS, default Privileged and Unrestricted policies are applied. No default policies are applied by enabling the Azure Policy Add-on. You must explicitly enable policies in Azure Policy.
Who can create and assign policies Cluster admin creates a pod security policy resource Users must have a minimum role of 'owner' or 'Resource Policy Contributor' permissions on the AKS cluster resource group. - Through API, users can assign policies at the AKS cluster resource scope. The user should have minimum of 'owner' or 'Resource Policy Contributor' permissions on AKS cluster resource. - In the Azure portal, policies can be assigned at the Management group/subscription/resource group level.
Authorizing policies Users and Service Accounts require explicit permissions to use pod security policies. No additional assignment is required to authorize policies. Once policies are assigned in Azure, all cluster users can use these policies.
Policy applicability The admin user bypasses the enforcement of pod security policies. All users (admin & non-admin) see the same policies. There's no special casing based on users. Policy application can be excluded at the namespace level.
Policy scope Pod security policies aren't namespaced Constraint templates used by Azure Policy aren't namespaced.
Deny/Audit/Mutation action Pod security policies support only deny actions. Mutation can be done with default values on create requests. Validation can be done during update requests. Azure Policy supports both audit & deny actions. Mutation isn't yet supported.
Pod security policy compliance There's no visibility into compliance of pods that existed before enabling pod security policy. Non-compliant pods created after enabling pod security policies are denied. Non-compliant pods that existed before applying Azure policies would show up in policy violations. Non-compliant pods created after enabling Azure policies are denied if policies are set with a deny effect.
How to view policies on the cluster kubectl get psp kubectl get constrainttemplate - All policies are returned.
Pod security policy standard - Privileged A privileged pod security policy resource is created by default when enabling the feature. Privileged mode implies no restriction, as a result it's equivalent to not having any Azure Policy assignment.
Pod security policy standard - Baseline/default User installs a pod security policy baseline resource. Azure Policy provides a built-in baseline initiative which maps to the baseline pod security policy.
Pod security policy standard - Restricted User installs a pod security policy restricted resource. Azure Policy provides a built-in restricted initiative which maps to the restricted pod security policy.

Enable pod security policy on an AKS cluster

Note

For real-world use, don't enable the pod security policy until you define your own custom policies. In this article, we enable pod security policy as the first step to see how the default policies limit pod deployments.

  • Enable the pod security policy using the az aks update command.

    az aks update \
    --resource-group myResourceGroup \
    --name myAKSCluster \
    --enable-pod-security-policy

Default AKS policies

When you enable pod security policy, AKS creates one default policy named privileged. Don't edit or remove the default policy. Instead, create your own policies that define the settings you want to control. Let's first look at what these default policies are how they impact pod deployments.

  1. View the available policies using the kubectl get psp command.

    kubectl get psp

    Your output will look similar to the following example output:

    NAME         PRIV    CAPS   SELINUX    RUNASUSER          FSGROUP     SUPGROUP    READONLYROOTFS   VOLUMES
privileged   true    *      RunAsAny   RunAsAny           RunAsAny    RunAsAny    false            *     configMap,emptyDir,projected,secret,downwardAPI,persistentVolumeClaim

    The privileged pod security policy is applied to any authenticated user in the AKS cluster. This assignment is controlled by ClusterRoles and ClusterRoleBindings.

  2. Search for the default:privileged: binding in the kube-system namespace using the kubectl get rolebindings command.

    kubectl get rolebindings default:privileged -n kube-system -o yaml

    The following condensed example output shows the psp:privileged ClusterRole is assigned to any system:authenticated users. This ability provides a basic level of privilege without your own policies being defined.

    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: RoleBinding
metadata:
  [...]
  name: default:privileged
  [...]
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: psp:privileged
subjects:
- apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: Group
  name: system:masters

It's important to understand how these default policies interact with user requests to schedule pods before you start to create your own pod security policies. In the next few sections, we schedule some pods to see the default policies in action.

Create a test user in an AKS cluster

When you use the az aks get-credentials command, the admin credentials for the AKS cluster are added to your kubectl config by default. The admin user bypasses the enforcement of pod security policies. If you use Microsoft Entra integration for your AKS clusters, you can sign in with the credentials of a non-admin user to see the enforcement of policies in action.

  1. Create a sample namespace named psp-aks for test resources using the kubectl create namespace command.

    kubectl create namespace psp-aks

  2. Create a service account named nonadmin-user using the kubectl create serviceaccount command.

    kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace psp-aks nonadmin-user

  3. Create a RoleBinding for the nonadmin-user to perform basic actions in the namespace using the kubectl create rolebinding command.

    kubectl create rolebinding \
    --namespace psp-aks \
    psp-aks-editor \
    --clusterrole=edit \
    --serviceaccount=psp-aks:nonadmin-user

Create alias commands for admin and non-admin user

When using kubectl, you can highlight the differences between the regular admin user and the non-admin user by creating two command-line aliases:

  1. The kubectl-admin alias for the regular admin user, which is scoped to the psp-aks namespace.
  2. The kubectl-nonadminuser alias for the nonadmin-user created in the previous step, which is scoped to the psp-aks namespace.

  • Create the two aliases using the following commands.

    alias kubectl-admin='kubectl --namespace psp-aks'
alias kubectl-nonadminuser='kubectl --as=system:serviceaccount:psp-aks:nonadmin-user --namespace psp-aks'

Test the creation of a privileged pod

Let's test what happens when you schedule a pod with the security context of privileged: true. This security context escalates the pod's privileges. The default privilege AKS security policy should deny this request.

  1. Create a file named nginx-privileged.yaml and paste in the contents of following YAML manifest.

    apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: nginx-privileged
spec:
  containers:
    - name: nginx-privileged
      image: mcr.microsoft.com/oss/nginx/nginx:1.14.2-alpine
      securityContext:
        privileged: true

  2. Create the pod using the kubectl apply command and specify the name of your YAML manifest.

    kubectl-nonadminuser apply -f nginx-privileged.yaml

    The following example output shows the pod failed to be scheduled:

    Error from server (Forbidden): error when creating "nginx-privileged.yaml": pods "nginx-privileged" is forbidden: unable to validate against any pod security policy: []

    Since the pod doesn't reach the scheduling stage, there are no resources to delete before you move on.

Test creation of an unprivileged pod

In the previous example, the pod specification requested privileged escalation. This request is denied by the default privilege pod security policy, so the pod fails to be scheduled. Let's try running the same NGINX pod without the privilege escalation request.

  1. Create a file named nginx-unprivileged.yaml and paste in the contents of the following YAML manifest.

    apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: nginx-unprivileged
spec:
  containers:
    - name: nginx-unprivileged
      image: mcr.microsoft.com/oss/nginx/nginx:1.14.2-alpine

  2. Create the pod using the kubectl apply command and specify the name of your YAML manifest.

    kubectl-nonadminuser apply -f nginx-unprivileged.yaml

    The following example output shows the pod failed to be scheduled:

    Error from server (Forbidden): error when creating "nginx-unprivileged.yaml": pods "nginx-unprivileged" is forbidden: unable to validate against any pod security policy: []

    Since the pod doesn't reach the scheduling stage, there are no resources to delete before you move on.

Test creation of a pod with a specific user context

In the previous example, the container image automatically tried to use root to bind NGINX to port 80. This request was denied by the default privilege pod security policy, so the pod fails to start. Let's try running the same NGINX pod with a specific user context, such as runAsUser: 2000.

  1. Create a file named nginx-unprivileged-nonroot.yaml and paste in the following YAML manifest.

    apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: nginx-unprivileged-nonroot
spec:
  containers:
    - name: nginx-unprivileged
      image: mcr.microsoft.com/oss/nginx/nginx:1.14.2-alpine
      securityContext:
        runAsUser: 2000

  2. Create the pod using the kubectl apply command and specify the name of your YAML manifest.

    kubectl-nonadminuser apply -f nginx-unprivileged-nonroot.yaml

    The following example output shows the pod failed to be scheduled:

    Error from server (Forbidden): error when creating "nginx-unprivileged-nonroot.yaml": pods "nginx-unprivileged-nonroot" is forbidden: unable to validate against any pod security policy: []

    Since the pod doesn't reach the scheduling stage, there are no resources to delete before you move on.

Create a custom pod security policy

Now that you've seen the behavior of the default pod security policies, let's provide a way for the nonadmin-user to successfully schedule pods.

We'll create a policy to reject pods that request privileged access. Other options, such as runAsUser or allowed volumes, aren't explicitly restricted. This type of policy denies a request for privileged access, but allows the cluster to run the requested pods.

  1. Create a file named psp-deny-privileged.yaml and paste in the following YAML manifest.

    apiVersion: policy/v1beta1
kind: PodSecurityPolicy
metadata:
  name: psp-deny-privileged
spec:
  privileged: false
  seLinux:
    rule: RunAsAny
  supplementalGroups:
    rule: RunAsAny
  runAsUser:
    rule: RunAsAny
  fsGroup:
    rule: RunAsAny
  volumes:
 - '*'

  2. Create the policy using the kubectl apply command and specify the name of your YAML manifest.

    kubectl apply -f psp-deny-privileged.yaml

  3. View the available policies using the kubectl get psp command.

    kubectl get psp

    In the following example output, compare the psp-deny-privileged policy with the default privilege policy that was enforced in the previous examples to create a pod. Only the use of PRIV escalation is denied by your policy. There are no restrictions on the user or group for the psp-deny-privileged policy.

    NAME                  PRIV    CAPS   SELINUX    RUNASUSER          FSGROUP     SUPGROUP    READONLYROOTFS   VOLUMES
privileged            true    *      RunAsAny   RunAsAny           RunAsAny    RunAsAny    false            *
psp-deny-privileged   false          RunAsAny   RunAsAny           RunAsAny    RunAsAny    false            *

Allow user account to use the custom pod security policy

In the previous step, you created a pod security policy to reject pods that request privileged access. To allow the policy to be used, you create a Role or a ClusterRole. Then, you associate one of these roles using a RoleBinding or ClusterRoleBinding. For this example, we'll create a ClusterRole that allows you to use the psp-deny-privileged policy created in the previous step.

  1. Create a file named psp-deny-privileged-clusterrole.yaml and paste in the following YAML manifest.

    kind: ClusterRole
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: psp-deny-privileged-clusterrole
rules:
- apiGroups:
  - extensions
   resources:
  - podsecuritypolicies
   resourceNames:
  - psp-deny-privileged
   verbs:
  - use

  2. Create the ClusterRole using the kubectl apply command and specify the name of your YAML manifest.

    kubectl apply -f psp-deny-privileged-clusterrole.yaml

  3. Create a file named psp-deny-privileged-clusterrolebinding.yaml and paste in the following YAML manifest.

    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: psp-deny-privileged-clusterrolebinding
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: psp-deny-privileged-clusterrole
subjects:
- apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: Group
  name: system:serviceaccounts

  4. Create the ClusterRoleBinding using the kubectl apply command and specify the name of your YAML manifest.

    kubectl apply -f psp-deny-privileged-clusterrolebinding.yaml

Note

In the first step of this article, the pod security policy feature was enabled on the AKS cluster. The recommended practice was to only enable the pod security policy feature after you've defined your own policies. This is the stage where you would enable the pod security policy feature. One or more custom policies have been defined, and user accounts have been associated with those policies. You can now safely enable the pod security policy feature and minimize problems caused by the default policies.

Test the creation of an unprivileged pod again

With your custom pod security policy applied and a binding for the user account to use the policy, let's try to create an unprivileged pod again.

This example shows how you can create custom pod security policies to define access to the AKS cluster for different users or groups. The default AKS policies provide tight controls on what pods can run, so create your own custom policies to then correctly define the restrictions you need.

  1. Use the nginx-privileged.yaml manifest to create the pod using the kubectl apply command.

    kubectl-nonadminuser apply -f nginx-unprivileged.yaml

  2. Check the status of the pod using the kubectl get pods command.

    kubectl-nonadminuser get pods

    The following example output shows the pod was successfully scheduled and is Running:

    NAME                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
nginx-unprivileged   1/1     Running   0          7m14s

  3. Delete the NGINX unprivileged pod using the kubectl delete command and specify the name of your YAML manifest.

    kubectl-nonadminuser delete -f nginx-unprivileged.yaml

Clean up resources

  1. Disable pod security policy using the az aks update command.

    az aks update \
    --resource-group myResourceGroup \
    --name myAKSCluster \
    --disable-pod-security-policy

  2. Delete the ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding using the kubectl delete command.

    kubectl delete -f psp-deny-privileged-clusterrole.yaml

  3. Delete the ClusterRoleBinding using the kubectl delete command.

    kubectl delete -f psp-deny-privileged-clusterrolebinding.yaml

  4. Delete the security policy using kubectl delete command and specify the name of your YAML manifest.

    kubectl delete -f psp-deny-privileged.yaml

  5. Delete the psp-aks namespace using the kubectl delete command.

    kubectl delete namespace psp-aks

Next steps

This article showed you how to create a pod security policy to prevent the use of privileged access. Policies can enforce a lot of features, such as type of volume or the RunAs user. For more information on the available options, see the Kubernetes pod security policy reference docs.

For more information about limiting pod network traffic, see Secure traffic between pods using network policies in AKS.