kubectl-ssh-proxy

Kubectl SSH Proxy

This plugin aims to make your life easier when using kubectl a cluster that's behind a SSH bastion.

TL;DR

kubectl SSH Proxy basically spans a socks proxy in the background that kubectl can use. The configuration is pretty simple, edit your $KUBECONFIG-ssh-proxy file and add the next section:

kube-ssh-proxy:
  ssh:
    host: my-bastion
    port: 22
    user: my-user
    key_path: /home/my-user/.ssh/id_rsa
  bind_port: 8080

It should be straightforward. The SSH connection sets the host at my-bastion, the port at 22, the user at my-user and the key to be used is /home/my-user/.ssh/id_rsa. The bind_port is the port that will be set as a proxy in your local machine.

The key_path is optional, if you don't set it, the plugin will try to use an existing ssh-agent session.

The plugin's configuration path can also be set with the $KUBECONFIG-SSH-PROXY environment variable.

Install

Get the latest release from Github:

latest=$(curl --silent "https://api.github.com/repos/little-angry-clouds/kubectl-ssh-proxy/releases/latest" | grep '"tag_name":' | sed -E 's/.*"([^"]+)".*/\1/')
curl --silent https://github.com/little-angry-clouds/kubectl-ssh-proxy/releases/download/$latest/kubectl-ssh-proxy-linux-386.tar.gz -O -L
tar xf kubectl-ssh-proxy-linux*.tar.gz
sudo mv bin/kubectl-ssh_proxy* /usr/local/bin/kubectl-ssh_proxy
sudo mv bin/kube-ssh-proxy* /usr/local/bin/kube-ssh-proxy-ssh-bin

Disclaimer: There's binaries for windows and macOs too, but I haven't test them. If you do and have some feedback, please share!

Demo

FAQ

Why there's two binaries?

First let's explain what these binaries do. The main program, the plugin, sends the second one, a minimalistic ssh binary, to the background.

The plugin's domain is the reading of the configuration and managing the status of the SSH proxy. The ssh's binary domain is just span a ssh proxy.

Said that, what we're trying to do here is to have a process running a ssh proxy and have kubectl to use it. To do so they have to be two different process, because otherwise the proxy would make it impossible to use kubectl.

Why make a ssh binary if there's already one?

It's a minimalistic version. Openssh it's pretty cool, but this is more simple. You can start a ssh proxy like this:

kube-ssh-proxy-ssh-bin -H your.domain.com -p 22 -u your-user -b 8080 -k /home/your-user/.ssh/id_rsa

It only does this, so using openssh for this was a bit of an overkill. Also, this way we don't have that dependency, which theoretically makes it easier to have a multiplatform program.

Why two different configuration files?

The development first started with the ssh's proxy configuration in the kubeconfig file, but one day when changing the context, I realized that changing the context deletes and rewrites all the file. So, if something is not part of what kubectl expects, it's deleted.

Why doesn't the proxy automatically set the environment variable?

Because the program is executed in a subshell, and a subshell can't never modify variables from it's parent shell. Another example of this is aws cli's command ecr get-login. What you can do is to just eval the output, since everything that should not be evaluated has a comment first:

> kubectl ssh-proxy --start
# The SSH Proxy started!
# Eval the next:
export HTTPS_PROXY=socks5://localhost:8080

You can do it like this:

> eval `kubectl ssh-proxy --start`

What if the cluster's domain is private?

No worries, the DNS resolution is done in the bastion machine. If the bastion can resolve the domain, kubectl will.

What OS does it support?

Since it's Go, it should work on any OS. There's binaries for windows and macOs too, but I haven't test them. If you do and have some feedback, please share!

Others

Thanks to the folks at #go-nuts freenode's irc channel for being so friendly, some of them helped to define what I need to do with this plugin.

License

GPL3