Internal CA and NodePort Example

This section provides an example of how to configure an application to use NodePort to expose its self-managed TLS-based service and to use an Internal CA for signing CERTIFICATEs.

Note that alternatively an External CA could be used with a NodePort-based solution as well.

Prerequisites

This example requires that:

  • Ensure that your StarlingX administrator has enabled use of the cert-manager apiGroups in your RBAC policies.

Procedure

  1. Create an internal RootCA ISSUER in the default namespace by applying the following manifest file.

    # Create a cluster-wide ISSUER for create self-signed certificates
    ---
    apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
    kind: ClusterIssuer
    metadata:
        name: system-selfsigning-issuer
    spec:
        selfSigned: {}
    
    
    # Create a Certificate (and key) for my RootCA
    ---
    apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
    kind: Certificate
    metadata:
        name: abccompany-starlingx-rootca-certificate
    spec:
        secretName: abccompany-starlingx-rootca-certificate
        duration: 8640h
        commonName: "abccompany-starlingx-rootca"
        isCA: true
        issuerRef:
            name: system-selfsigning-issuer
            kind: ClusterIssuer
    
    
    # Create the RootCA ISSUER
    ---
    apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
    kind: Issuer
    metadata:
        name: abccompany-starlingx-rootca-issuer
    spec:
        ca:
            secretName: abccompany-starlingx-rootca-certificate
    
  2. Share the public certificate of your internal RootCA to clients such that they can trust certificates signed by this RootCA.

    CERT64=`kubectl get secret abccompany-starlingx-rootca-certificate -n default -o yaml | fgrep tls.crt | fgrep -v "f:tls.crt" | awk '{print $2}'`
    echo $CERT64 | base64 --decode > abccompany-starlingx-rootca-certificate.pem
    
  3. Create a deployment of an example demo application that uses NodePort to expose its service and therefore manages its TLS connection on its own, using a certificate it creates on its own.

    Apply the following manifest.

    Where 10.10.10.45 is the OAM Floating IP of the StarlingX and abccompany-starlingx.mycompany.com is the FQDN for this address.

    (You should substitute with the IP Address and FQDN for the StarlingX installation.)

    apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
    kind: Certificate
    metadata:
      name: abccompany-starlingx.mycompany.com-certificate
    spec:
      duration: 2160h # 90d
      renewBefore: 360h # 15d
      secretName: abccompany-starlingx.mycompany.com-certificate
      issuerRef:
        name: abccompany-starlingx-rootca-issuer
        kind: Issuer
      commonName: abccompany-starlingx.mycompany.com
      dnsNames:
      - abccompany-starlingx.mycompany.com
      ipAddresses:
      - 10.10.10.45
    ---
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    metadata:
      name: example-app
    spec:
      replicas: 1
      selector:
        matchLabels:
          app: example-app
      template:
        metadata:
          labels:
            app: example-app
        spec:
          containers:
          - name: example-app
            image: example-app         # not a real app, could substitute ‘busybox’ here to look at mounted cert files inside container
            imagePullPolicy: Always
            ports:
            - containerPort: 8443
            protocol: TCP
            volumeMounts:
            - name: mycert
              mountPath: "/etc/mycert"  # the files tls.crt, tls.key and ca.crt will be under /etc/mycert/ in container
              readOnly: true
          volumes:
          - name: mycert
            secret:
              secretName: abccompany-starlingx.mycompany.com-certificate
    ---
    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Service
    metadata:
      name: example-app
      labels:
        app: example-app
    spec:
      type: NodePort
      ports:
        - port: 443
          protocol: TCP
          targetPort: 8443
          nodePort: 31118
      selector:
        app: example-app
    
  4. If example-app existed, you would access it from your browser with https://abccompany-starlingx.mycompany.com:31118.

    If you are using busybox to look at mounted cert files, attach to container (e.g. kubectl exec busybox-... -it -- sh and cd /etc/mycert; ls).