RBAC & Network Policies¶

Kubernetes provides security controls through:

• Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
• Network Policies

RBAC controls who can access Kubernetes resources.

Core RBAC Objects¶

Role Example¶

kind: Role
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  namespace: default
  name: pod-reader
rules:
- apiGroups: [""]
  resources: ["pods"]
  verbs: ["get", "list", "watch"]

¶

Role Binding Example¶

kind: RoleBinding
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: read-pods
subjects:
- kind: User
  name: jane
roleRef:
  kind: Role
  name: pod-reader
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

Network Policies¶

Network policies control traffic between pods.

Without policies, pods can communicate freely.

Example Network Policy¶

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: allow-api
spec:
  podSelector:
    matchLabels:
      app: api
  ingress:
  - from:
    - podSelector:
        matchLabels:
          app: frontend

This allows traffic:

frontend pods → api pods

Commands¶

View policies:

kubectl get networkpolicy

Describe policy:

kubectl describe networkpolicy <name>