Authorization (RBAC)

Authorization happens immediately after successful authentication, and we’ll sometimes see it shortened to authZ (pronounced “auth zee”).

Kubernetes authorization is pluggable, and we can run multiple authZ modules on a single cluster. However, most clusters use RBAC. Also, if our cluster has multiple authorization modules, as soon as any module authorizes a request, it moves immediately to admissions control.

RBAC big picture

The most common authorization module is RBAC (Role-Based Access Control). At the highest level, RBAC is about three things:

1. Users

2. Actions

3. Resources ...