Set the security context for a Pod

To specify security settings for a Pod, include the securityContext field in the Pod specification. The securityContext field is a PodSecurityContext object. The security settings that you specify for a Pod apply to all Containers in the Pod. Here is a configuration file for a Pod that has a securityContext and an emptyDir volume:

First, create some users, groups, and files on both worker nodes which we can use for testing.

sudo useradd -u 2000 container-user-0
sudo groupadd -g 3000 container-group-0
sudo useradd -u 2001 container-user-1
sudo groupadd -g 3001 container-group-1
sudo mkdir -p /etc/message/
echo "Hello, World!" | sudo tee -a /etc/message/message.txt
sudo chown 2000:3000 /etc/message/message.txt
sudo chmod 640 /etc/message/message.txt

On the controller, create a pod to read the message.txt file and print the message to the log.

vi my-securitycontext-pod.yml

Content of the YAML File

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: my-securitycontext-pod
spec:
  containers:
  - name: myapp-container
    image: busybox
    command: ['sh', '-c', "cat /message/message.txt && sleep 3600"]
    volumeMounts:
    - name: message-volume
      mountPath: /message
  volumes:
  - name: message-volume
    hostPath:
      path: /etc/message

Check the pod’s log to see the message from the file:

kubectl logs my-securitycontext-pod

Delete the pod and re-create it, this time with a securityContext set to use a user and group that do not have access to the file.

kubectl delete pod my-securitycontext-pod --now

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: my-securitycontext-pod
spec:
  securityContext:
    runAsUser: 2001
    fsGroup: 3001
  containers:
  - name: myapp-container
    image: busybox
    command: ['sh', '-c', "cat /message/message.txt && sleep 3600"]
    volumeMounts:
    - name: message-volume
      mountPath: /message
  volumes:
  - name: message-volume
    hostPath:
      path: /etc/message

Check the log again. You should see a “permission denied” message.

kubectl logs my-securitycontext-pod

Delete the pod and re-create it again, this time with a user and group that are able to access the file.

kubectl delete pod my-securitycontext-pod --now

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: my-securitycontext-pod
spec:
  securityContext:
    runAsUser: 2000
    fsGroup: 3000
  containers:
  - name: myapp-container
    image: busybox
    command: ['sh', '-c', "cat /message/message.txt && sleep 3600"]
    volumeMounts:
    - name: message-volume
      mountPath: /message
  volumes:
  - name: message-volume
    hostPath:
      path: /etc/message

Check the log once more. You should see the message from the file.

kubectl logs my-securitycontext-pod