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Reference Konnect authentication across multiple namespaces with Kong Operator

Uses: Kong Operator
Incompatible with
on-prem
Related Documentation
Operator Documentation
Related Resources
Reference Secrets across multiple namespaces
Minimum Version
Kong Operator - 2.1
TL;DR

Use a KongReferenceGrant in the same namespace as the KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration to authorize references from the source namespace.

Prerequisites

Kong Konnect

If you don’t have a Konnect account, you can get started quickly with our onboarding wizard.

  1. The following Konnect items are required to complete this tutorial:
    • Personal access token (PAT): Create a new personal access token by opening the Konnect PAT page and selecting Generate Token.

  2. Set the personal access token as an environment variable:

    export KONNECT_TOKEN='YOUR KONNECT TOKEN'

Kong Operator running

  1. Add the Kong Helm charts:

    helm repo add kong https://charts.konghq.com
helm repo update

  2. Install Kong Operator using Helm:

    helm upgrade --install kong-operator kong/kong-operator -n kong-system \
  --create-namespace \
  --set image.tag=2.1.0 \
  --set env.ENABLE_CONTROLLER_KONNECT=true

    helm upgrade --install kong-operator kong/kong-operator -n kong-system \
  --create-namespace \
  --set image.tag=2.1.0

    If you want cert-manager to issue and rotate the admission and conversion webhook certificates, install cert-manager to your cluster and enable cert-manager integration by passing the following argument while installing, in the next step:

    --set global.webhooks.options.certManager.enabled=true

    If you do not enable this, the chart will generate and inject self-signed certificates automatically. We recommend enabling cert-manager to manage the lifecycle of these certificates.

    Kong Operator needs a certificate authority to sign the certificate for mTLS communication between the control plane and the data plane. This is handled automatically by the Helm chart. If you need to provide a custom CA certificate, refer to the certificateAuthority section in the values.yaml of the Helm chart to learn how to create and reference your own CA certificate.

This tutorial doesn’t require a license, but you can add one using KongLicense. This assumes that your license is available in ./license.json.

echo "
apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1alpha1
kind: KongLicense
metadata:
 name: kong-license
rawLicenseString: '$(cat ./license.json)'
" | kubectl apply -f -

By default, Kong Operator restricts references to resources within the same namespace for security. To enable cross-namespace references, you must use one of the following resources in the target namespace:

  • ReferenceGrant: A standard Kubernetes Gateway API resource used for authorizing references from Gateway API resources to other resources.
  • KongReferenceGrant: A Kong-specific resource used for authorizing references from Kong resources to other resources.

This example shows how to allow a Gateway in the kong namespace to use Konnect authentication credentials stored in the auth namespace using KongReferenceGrant. For an example using ReferenceGrant, see Reference Secrets across multiple namespaces.

Create the KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration

Run the following command to create an auth namespace and a KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration in that namespace:

echo '
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: auth
---
kind: KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration
apiVersion: konnect.konghq.com/v1alpha1
metadata:
  name: konnect-api-auth
  namespace: auth
spec:
  type: token
  token: '"$KONNECT_TOKEN"'
  serverURL: us.api.konghq.com' | kubectl apply -f -

Create the KongReferenceGrant

Create a KongReferenceGrant in the auth namespace to allow a KonnectGatewayControlPlane in the kong namespace to access the credentials:

echo '
kind: KongReferenceGrant
apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1alpha1
metadata:
  name: allow-kong-cp-to-auth
  namespace: auth
spec:
  from:
    - group: konnect.konghq.com
      kind: KonnectGatewayControlPlane
      namespace: kong
  to:
    - group: konnect.konghq.com
      kind: KonnectAPIAuthConfiguration' | kubectl apply -f -

Create the GatewayConfiguration

Create a kong namespace and configure a GatewayConfiguration to reference the credential in the auth namespace.

echo '
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: kong
---
kind: GatewayConfiguration
apiVersion: gateway-operator.konghq.com/v2beta1
metadata:
  name: gateway-configuration
  namespace: kong
spec:
  konnect:
    authRef:
      name: konnect-api-auth
      namespace: auth
  dataPlaneOptions:
    deployment:
      podTemplateSpec:
        spec:
          containers:
          - name: proxy
            image: kong/kong-gateway:3.13' | kubectl apply -f -

Create the Gateway

Create a GatewayClass resource that references the GatewayConfiguration, and a Gateway resource that references the GatewayClass.

echo '
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: GatewayClass
metadata:
  name: gateway-class
spec:
  controllerName: konghq.com/gateway-operator
  parametersRef:
    group: gateway-operator.konghq.com
    kind: GatewayConfiguration
    name: gateway-configuration
    namespace: kong
---
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Gateway
metadata:
  name: kong
  namespace: kong
spec:
  gatewayClassName: gateway-class
  listeners:
    - name: http
      port: 80
      protocol: HTTP' | kubectl apply -f -

Validate

To validate, check that the KonnectGatewayControlPlane resource was automatically created:

kubectl get konnectgatewaycontrolplane -n kong
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