Access control for GitOps

Restrict access to GitOps entities through ABAC

Control access to entities in GitOps through ABAC (Attribute-Based Access Control). ABAC allows fine-grained access to application entities through the use of rules.
For GitOps, you can currently define ABAC for application entities in the Codefresh UI or programmatically via Terraform. For more information on ABAC, see ABAC on Wikipedia.

Rules define the who, what, and where control access to GitOps applications, through the following elements:

• Teams
  Teams control the who part of the rule.

• Actions
  Actions control the what part of the rule. You need to select at least one action.

• Attributes
  Attributes control the where part of the rule.
  Attributes are a combination of standard Kubernetes and Codefresh-specific attributes. You have Kubernetes attributes such as clusters, namespaces, and labels, and attributes unique to Codefresh such as Runtimes and Git Sources.

Creating a rule in Codefresh UI

For each rule, you must select or define:

• The team or teams the rule applies to, with at least one team being mandatory
• The action or actions permitted for the entity, with at least one action being mandatory
• The attribute or attributes determining where access is permitted

How to

1. In the Codefresh UI, on the toolbar, click the Settings icon.
2. On the sidebar, from Access & Collaboration, select GitOps Permissions.
3. To create a rule, click Add and define the Teams, Actions, and Attributes for the rule.
4. To confirm, click Add once again.

The rule you added for the entity is displayed in the GitOps Permissions page. Edit or delete the rule by clicking the respective icons.

Creating a rule programmatically via Terraform

You can also create rules enforcing ABAC for GitOps via Terraform. See the documentation for codefresh_abac_rules.

Argo CD Applications rule elements

Rule Element	Description
Teams	The team or teams to which to give access to the Application Entity. See Adding users and teams.
Actions	The actions permitted for the application entity, and can be any or all of the following: Refresh: Allow users to manually regular refresh or hard refresh. The Refresh action is automatically disabled on selecting the Sync action which takes precedence. See Refresh/Hard Refresh applications. Sync: Allow users to manually sync an application on-demand, and define the options for manual sync. Selecting Sync automatically disables the Refresh action as Sync takes precedence over it. See Manually synchronize an application. Terminate Sync: Allow users to manually stop an ongoing sync for an application. See Terminate on-going application sync Perform application rollback: Allow users to rollback the current release of an application to a previous deployment version or release in Codefresh. See Rollback Argo CD applications. View pod logs: Allow users to view logs for pod resources of an application in the Current State tab. See Logs for application resources. Pause rollout and Resume rollout: Allow users to pause an ongoing rollout and resume a paused rollout either directly from the Timeline tab of the application, or through the controls in the Rollout Player. See Pause/resume ongoing rollouts and Managing an ongoing rollout with the Rollout Player. Promote full rollout: Allow users to use the Promote Full button in the Rollout Player to skip the remaining steps in the rollout and promote to deployment. See Managing an ongoing rollout with the Rollout Player. Skip current step in rollout: Allow users to use the Skip Step button in the Rollout Player to skip executing the current step in the rollout. See Managing an ongoing rollout with the Rollout Player. Delete resource: Allow users to delete an application resource from the Current State tab. See Delete an application.
Attributes	Adding attributes, either individually or in combination, allow more fine-grained access control to enforce the where policies for teams and actions. Single attributes are useful to grant or deny access based on a specific property. For example, allow access to application entities on a cluster or within a namespace. Combinations of attributes help enforce more complex access control. For example, require both a Runtime and a Label attribute to grant access to an application entity. You can also add multiple instances of the same attribute with different values. For example, multiple Label attibutes with different values to sync application entities. Cluster: Allow access to all application entities in the cluster, regardless of the namespace, Runtime, and Git Sources of specific applications. Namespace: Allow access to application entities only within the namespace. If users have multiple accounts on different clusters with the same namespace, they can access applications in all those namespaces. Runtime: Allow access to application entities associated with the defined Runtime. Git Source: Allow access to application entities only in the defined Git Source. A Git Source is always associated with a Runtime. Label: Allow access only to application entities that share the same label.

Examples of rules for application entities

Rule: Cluster-based access to all actions

This rule grants the DevOps team permission to perform all actions for application entities on the production cluster, regardless of namespaces, Runtimes, Git Sources and labels.

Rule elements

• Team: DevOps
• Actions: All
• Attributes: Cluster: production-cluster

Rule: Cluster- and namespace-based access to all actions

This rule grants two different teams permissions to perform all actions for application entities deployed on a specific cluster but within a specific namespace.

Rule elements

• Teams: Product, Docs
• Actions: All
• Attributes:
  • Cluster: development
  • Namespace: product-sandbox

Rule: Namespace- and label-based access to specific actions

This rule grants the Support team permission to manually sync application entities or manually terminate on-going syncs for application entities deployed in a specific namespace, but only for those entities that share the same label.

Rule elements

• Team: Customer Support
• Actions: Sync, Terminate Sync
• Attributes:
  • Namespace: poc
  • Label: customer=AcmePoc

Related articles

Codefresh Provider for Terraform
Access control for pipelines