Managed Authentication in CKS

In Kubernetes, Kubeconfig files are YAML configuration files used to manage access to Kubernetes clusters by specifying the details required to authenticate and interact with the cluster’s API server. It allows you to execute commands without needing to repeatedly specify cluster connection details or credentials. Using Managed Auth, CKS Kubeconfig files are generated for you from the Cloud Console. These Kubeconfig files follow the permissions configured for their related tokens, and embed the related API Access Token automatically with the Kubeconfig. To generate a Kubeconfig file, follow the instructions at Manage API Access Tokens and Kubeconfig Files. Here is an example of a Kubeconfig file generated using Managed Auth via the Cloud Console.

apiVersion: v1
clusters:
- cluster:
    server: https://api-server.url.com
  name: my-cluster
contexts:
- context:
    cluster: my-cluster
    namespace: my-namespace
    user: token
  name: my-cluster
current-context: my-cluster
kind: Config
preferences: {}
users:
- name: token
  user:
    token: REDACTED

Generated Kubeconfig files also contain the following values, and they may contain additional values:

Field	Description
`apiVersion`	The API group version
`clusters`	Connection settings for the target cluster, including the API server addresses
`clusters.cluster.server`	API server addresses
`clusters.cluster.name`	The cluster name
`contexts`	The Kubernetes context containing the related cluster, user, and namespace name
`contexts.context.cluster`	The cluster associated with the context
`contexts.context.namespace`	The namespace associated with the context
`contexts.context.user`	The user associated with the context, in this case an API Access Token (`token`)
`users`	A list of “users” associated with the context, in this case the API Access Token (`token`)
`users.name`	The name of the user, in this case the Access Token, `token`
`users.user.token`	The actual Access Token value