RKE2 Install With Calico
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In this post I will show you how you can install a RKE2 with Calico and encripted VXLAN.
Parts of the K8S Security Lab series
Container Runetime Security
- Part1: How to deploy CRI-O with Firecracker?
- Part2: How to deploy CRI-O with gVisor?
- Part3: How to deploy containerd with Firecracker?
- Part4: How to deploy containerd with gVisor?
- Part5: How to deploy containerd with kata containers?
Advanced Kernel Security
- Part1: Hardening Kubernetes with seccomp
- Part2: Linux user namespace management wit CRI-O in Kubernetes
- Part3: Hardening Kubernetes with seccomp
Network Security
- Part1: RKE2 Install With Calico
- Part2: RKE2 Install With Cilium
- Part3: CNI-Genie: network separation with multiple CNI
- Part3: Configurre network wit nmstate operator
- Part3: Kubernetes Network Policy
- Part4: Kubernetes with external Ingress Controller with vxlan
- Part4: Kubernetes with external Ingress Controller with bgp
- Part4: Central authentication with oauth2-proxy
- Part5: Secure your applications with Pomerium Ingress Controller
- Part6: CrowdSec Intrusion Detection System (IDS) for Kubernetes
- Part7: Kubernetes audit logs and Falco
Secure Kubernetes Install
- Part1: Best Practices to keeping Kubernetes Clusters Secure
- Part2: Kubernetes Secure Install
- Part3: Kubernetes Hardening Guide with CIS 1.6 Benchmark
- Part4: Kubernetes Certificate Rotation
User Security
- Part1: How to create kubeconfig?
- Part2: How to create Users in Kubernetes the right way?
- Part3: Kubernetes Single Sign-on with Pinniped OpenID Connect
- Part4: Kubectl authentication with Kuberos Depricated !!
- Part5: Kubernetes authentication with Keycloak and gangway Depricated !!
- Part6: kube-openid-connect 1.0 Depricated !!
Image Security
Pod Security
- Part1: Using Admission Controllers
- Part2: RKE2 Pod Security Policy
- Part3: Kubernetes Pod Security Admission
- Part4: Kubernetes: How to migrate Pod Security Policy to Pod Security Admission?
- Part5: Pod Security Standards using Kyverno
- Part6: Kubernetes Cluster Policy with Kyverno
Secret Security
- Part1: Kubernetes and Vault integration
- Part2: Kubernetes External Vault integration
- Part3: ArgoCD and kubeseal to encript secrets
- Part4: Flux2 and kubeseal to encrypt secrets
- Part5: Flux2 and Mozilla SOPS to encrypt secrets
Monitoring and Observability
- Part6: K8S Logging And Monitoring
- Part7: Install Grafana Loki with Helm3
Backup
RKE2 Setup
Project Longhorn Prerequisites
yum install -y epel-release
yum install -y nano curl wget git tmux jq
yum install -y iscsi-initiator-utils
modprobe iscsi_tcp
echo "iscsi_tcp" >/etc/modules-load.d/iscsi-tcp.conf
systemctl enable iscsid
systemctl start iscsid
Ensure the eBFP filesystem is mounted (which should already be the case on RHEL 8.3):
mount | grep /sys/fs/bpf
# if present should output, e.g. "none on /sys/fs/bpf type bpf"...
If that’s not the case, mount it using the commands down here:
sudo mount bpffs -t bpf /sys/fs/bpf
sudo bash -c 'cat <<EOF >> /etc/fstab
none /sys/fs/bpf bpf rw,relatime 0 0
EOF'
cat <<EOF>> /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/rke2-canal.conf
[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=interface-name:cali*;interface-name:flannel*
EOF
systemctl reload NetworkManager
RKE2 rpm Install
cat << EOF > /etc/yum.repos.d/rancher-rke2-1-20-latest.repo
[rancher-rke2-common-latest]
name=Rancher RKE2 Common Latest
baseurl=https://rpm.rancher.io/rke2/latest/common/centos/8/noarch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://rpm.rancher.io/public.key
[rancher-rke2-1-20-latest]
name=Rancher RKE2 1.20 Latest
baseurl=https://rpm.rancher.io/rke2/latest/1.20/centos/8/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://rpm.rancher.io/public.key
EOF
yum -y install rke2-server
Kubectl, Helm & RKE2
Install kubectl, helm and RKE2 to the host system:
sudo git clone https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx /opt/kubectx
sudo ln -s /opt/kubectx/kubectx /usr/local/bin/kubectx
sudo ln -s /opt/kubectx/kubens /usr/local/bin/kubens
echo 'PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin' >> /etc/profile
echo 'PATH=$PATH:/var/lib/rancher/rke2/bin' >> /etc/profile
source /etc/profile
sudo dnf copr -y enable cerenit/helm
sudo dnf install -y helm
RKE2 specific ports
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=9345/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=6443/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=10250/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=2379/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=2380/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=30000-32767/tcp --permanent
# Used for the Rancher Monitoring
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=9796/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=19090/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=6942/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=9091/tcp --permanent
### CNI specific ports
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=179/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=4789/udp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=5473/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=9098/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=9099/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=5473/tcp --permanent
### Ingress Controller specific ports
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=80/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=443/tcp --permanent
### To get DNS resolution working, simply enable Masquerading.
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-masquerade --permanent
### Finally apply all the firewall changes
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
Verification:
sudo firewall-cmd --list-all
public (active)
target: default
icmp-block-inversion: no
interfaces: eno1
sources:
services: cockpit dhcpv6-client ssh wireguard
ports: 9345/tcp 6443/tcp 10250/tcp 2379/tcp 2380/tcp 30000-32767/tcp 4240/tcp 6081/udp 80/tcp 443/tcp 4244/tcp 9796/tcp 19090/tcp 6942/tcp 9091/tcp
protocols:
masquerade: yes
forward-ports:
source-ports:
icmp-blocks:
rich rules:
Basic Configuration
mkdir -p /etc/rancher/rke2
cat << EOF > /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml
write-kubeconfig-mode: "0644"
profile: "cis-1.5"
selinux: true
# add ips/hostname of hosts and loadbalancer
tls-san:
- "k8s.mydomain.intra"
- "172.17.9.10"
# Make a etcd snapshot every 6 hours
etcd-snapshot-schedule-cron: "0 */6 * * *"
# Keep 56 etcd snapshorts (equals to 2 weeks with 6 a day)
etcd-snapshot-retention: 56
cni:
- calico
disable:
- rke2-canal
- rke2-kube-proxy
EOF
Note: I disabled rke2-canal and rke2-kube-proxy since I plan to install Canal as CNI in “kube-proxy less mode”. Do not disable rke2-kube-proxy if you use another CNI - it will not work afterwards!
sudo cp -f /usr/share/rke2/rke2-cis-sysctl.conf /etc/sysctl.d/60-rke2-cis.conf
sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/60-rke2-cis.conf
useradd -r -c "etcd user" -s /sbin/nologin -M etcd
mkdir -p /var/lib/rancher/rke2/server/manifests/
cat << EOF > /var/lib/rancher/rke2/server/manifests/rke2-ingress-nginx-config.yaml
apiVersion: helm.cattle.io/v1
kind: HelmChartConfig
metadata:
name: rke2-ingress-nginx
namespace: kube-system
spec:
valuesContent: |-
controller:
metrics:
service:
annotations:
prometheus.io/scrape: "true"
prometheus.io/port: "10254"
EOF
kubectl get endpoints kubernetes -o wide
NAME ENDPOINTS AGE
kubernetes 10.0.2.15:6443 86m
Prevent RKE2 Package Updates
In order to provide more stability, I chose to DNF/YUM “mark/hold” the RKE2 related packages so a dnf update/yum update does not mess around with them.
Add the following line to /etc/dnf/dnf.conf and/or /etc/yum.conf:
exclude=rke2-*
Starting RKE2
Enable the rke2-server service and start it:
sudo systemctl enable rke2-server --now
Verification:
sudo systemctl status rke2-server
sudo journalctl -u rke2-server -f
Configure Kubectl (on RKE2 Host)
mkdir ~/.kube
ln -s /etc/rancher/rke2/rke2.yaml ~/.kube/config
chmod 600 /root/.kube/config
ln -s /var/lib/rancher/rke2/agent/etc/crictl.yaml /etc/crictl.yaml
kubectl get node
crictl ps
crictl images
Verification:
kubectl get nodes
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
k8s.mydomain.intra Ready etcd,master 2m4s v1.18.16+rke2r1
