Argo CD RBAC Operator

Kubernetes Operator for Argo CD RBAC Management.

Introduction

The Argo CD RBAC Operator provides a CRD based API for the RBAC management of Argo CD. It provides a structured and easy to use way to define RBAC policies. The Operator uses the CRs as a single source of truth for RBAC management and converts them into a policy string that is patched into the Argo CD RBAC ConfigMap.

Installation

With Repository + Kustomize

Get the Repository

Clone the Argo CD RBAC Operator repository.

git clone https://github.com/argoproj-labs/argocd-rbac-operator.git
cd argocd-rbac-operator

Namespace

By default, the operator is installed into the argocd-rbac-operator-system namespace. To modify this, update the value of the namespace specified in the config/default/kustomization.yaml file.

Deploy Operator

Deploy the operator. This will create all the necessary resources, including the namespace. For running the make command you need to install go-lang package on your system.

make deploy

The operator pod should start and enter a Running state after a few seconds.

kubectl get pods -n argocd-rbac-operator-system

With Helm

First you have to add the repo:

helm repo add argocd-rbac-operator https://argoproj-labs.github.io/argocd-rbac-operator/

After the repo has been added, you can install the Helm chart of the operator:

helm install argocd-rbac-operator argocd-rbac-operator/argocd-rbac-operator

If you want to change the namespace of the Argo CD instance, image version, or other values, you have to define a values.yaml file and run following command:

helm install argocd-rbac-operator argocd-rbac-operator/argocd-rbac-operator -f values.yaml

Usage

The following example shows a manifest to create a new ArgoCDRole test-role:

apiVersion: rbac-operator.argoproj-labs.io/v1alpha1
kind: ArgoCDRole
metadata:
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: argocd-rbac-operator
    app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: kustomize
  name: test-role
  namespace: test-ns
spec:
  rules:
  - resource: "applications"
    verbs: ["get", "create", "update", "delete"]
    objects: ["*/*"]

And a ArgoCDRoleBinding test-role-binding to bind the specified users and a role to the new ArgoCDRole:

apiVersion: rbac-operator.argoproj-labs.io/v1alpha1
kind: ArgoCDRoleBinding
metadata:
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: argocd-rbac-operator
    app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: kustomize
  name: test-role-binding
  namespace: test-ns
spec:
  subjects:
  - kind: "sso"
    name: "gosha"
  - kind: "local"
    name: "localUser"
  - kind: "role"
    name: "orgadmin"
  argocdRoleRef:
    name: "test-role"

Create

Make sure that the argocd Namespace exists, so that the ConfigMap can be created properly.

Create a new ArgoCDRole and ArgoCDRoleBinding using the provided example. (Make sure that both CRs are created in the same Namespace)

kubectl create -f test-role.yaml
kubectl create -f test-role-binding.yaml

The following ConfigMap will be created after the ArgoCDRole and ArgoCDRoleBinding has been reconciled.

apiVersion: v1
data:
  policy.csv: ""
  policy.default: role:readonly
  policy.test-ns.test-role.csv: |
    p, role:test-role, applications, get, */*, allow
    p, role:test-role, applications, create, */*, allow
    p, role:test-role, applications, update, */*, allow
    p, role:test-role, applications, delete, */*, allow
    g, gosha, role:test-role
    p, localUser, applications, get, */*, allow
    p, localUser, applications, create, */*, allow
    p, localUser, applications, update, */*, allow
    p, localUser, applications, delete, */*, allow
    g, role:orgadmin, role:test-role
  scopes: '[groups]'
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: argocd-rbac-cm
  namespace: argocd

Delete

To delete a Role you can use kubectl

kubectl delete argocdrole.rbac-operator.argoproj-labs.io/test-role
kubectl delete argocdrolebinding.rbac-operator.argoproj-labs.io/test-role-binding

After the Resource is deleted, the policy string will be also deleted from the RBAC-CM.

Change the Policy.CSV

To change the policy.csv you have to make changes in the internal/controller/common/defaults.go file.

Deployment types

As for now only single Argo CD deployment type is supported. The default Argo CD namespace is defined as argocd, to change that you have to make a change in internal/controller/common/values.go.

Roadmap

• extend the operator with functionality to manage Argo CD AppProject RBAC
• achieve test coverage of >= 80% (current: ~67%)
• allow management for multi-instances set-up of Argo CD