kube-config

This project is no longer maintained!

we recommend https://github.com/int128/kubelogin

kube-config

kube-config is a simple command line tool to authenticate and generate kubernetes configurations for your clusters

At its core, kube-config is based on the reference documentation of a dex client, that heavily utilizes go-oidc and golang package oauth2

• Installing
  • Brew
  • Manually
• Usage
  • Config
  • Terminal
    • Simple Usage
    • Advanced Usage
• Building

Key features

• Tier-based approach to cluster configs and authentication (-t) to allow for varying environments (i.e. dev, prod)
• Ability to directly select current-context cluster, namespace and username (-c, -n, -u resp.)
• Specify config directory location with (-o)

Upon execution, kube-config will:

• Open up the user's default web browser to localhost, and prompt the user to login
• Pass all the login information through to Dex which will generate a Kubernetes token
• Generate a kubernetes bearer token which can be used to authenticate to the cluster
• Create a kubeconfig file at the default ~/.kube/config.d/ or specified location

Installing

Brew

$ brew tap apptio/tap
$ brew update
$ brew install kube-config

Manually

$ go version # Ensure you have go at least
go version go1.12.6 linux/amd64
$ git clone https://github.com/apptio/kube-config
$ cd kube-config
$ GOBIN=$HOME/go/bin go install
$ mkdir -p ~/.kube-config
$ cp ./kube-config.yml ~/.kube-config/

Note: Ensure $HOME/go/bin/ is added to your path like so: PATH="${PATH}:${HOME}/go/bin" at the end of your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc

Usage

Config

There are a lot of options for kube-config, but the defaults should be fine for 99% of use cases. All you need is a YAML configuration file at $HOME/.kube-config/kube-config.yml that describes your various clusters and tiers:

client-secret: <your_dex_secret_here>
clusters:
- name: cluster1
  address: cluster1.example.com
  tier: dev
- name: cluster2
  address: cluster2.example.com
  tier: dev

Terminal

Once you have your configuration file, simply run the tool:

# defaults to "--tier=dev"
kube-config 

If you want to write your KUBECONFIG to a specific directory, use --output|-o and specify the path:

# defaults to outputting "<tier>-config.conf" in the specified dir
kube-config --output /home/lbriggs/.kube/config.d

kube-config flags from the --help output:

Flags:
    --caservername string   Servername for CA service
-c, --cluster string        Cluster to use as current-context (default is first in config)
    --debug                 Print all request and responses from the OpenID Connect issuer
-h, --help                  help for kube-config
    --list-tiers            If specified, the program will list the available tiers and then exit
-n, --namespace string      Set your default namespace across ALL contexts in the tier
-k, --no-verify-ssl         If specified, disable SSL cert checking (WARNING: UNSAFE)
-o, --output string         Path to write Kubeconfig file (default "/home/lbriggs/.kube/config.d")
-g, --print-groups          If specified, will print out the AD groups you belong to
-t, --tier string           Tier to authenticate for (default "dev")
-u, --username string       Username for login

Run kube config with a tier and cluster target:

$ kube-config --tier=dev --cluster=cluster1   # OR
$ kube-config -t dev -c cluster1

Targeting a specific tier, cluster and namespace:

$ kube-config --tier=dev --cluster=cluster1 --namespace=kube-system   #OR
$ kube-config -t dev -c cluster1 -n kube-system

Note: kubectx is a great tool to change contexts quickly, but it's covenient sometimes to just start where you want with kube-config if you haven't yet auth'd for the day.

Note: Without -c / --cluster kube-config will select the first cluster in the config for your current-context.

Building

We use go itself for dependencies, so simply download them by running:

cd kube-config
go mod download

and then build using the standard GO build tools:

go build -o kube-config .