How to get the token for Kubernetes Dashboard admin user?

Getting the Token for Kubernetes Dashboard Admin User

To get the token for the Kubernetes Dashboard admin user, you'll need to follow these steps:

1. Deploy the Kubernetes Dashboard

First, you'll need to deploy the Kubernetes Dashboard to your cluster. You can do this by applying the official Kubernetes Dashboard YAML file:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.7.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml

This will create the necessary resources for the Kubernetes Dashboard, including the kubernetes-dashboard namespace and the dashboard service.

2. Create a Service Account and Cluster Role Binding

Next, you'll need to create a service account and a cluster role binding to grant the necessary permissions for the admin user to access the Kubernetes Dashboard.

# Create a service account
kubectl create serviceaccount kubernetes-dashboard-admin -n kubernetes-dashboard

# Create a cluster role binding
kubectl create clusterrolebinding kubernetes-dashboard-admin --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kubernetes-dashboard:kubernetes-dashboard-admin

This will create a service account named kubernetes-dashboard-admin in the kubernetes-dashboard namespace and grant it the cluster-admin role, which provides full access to the cluster.

3. Get the Bearer Token

To get the bearer token for the kubernetes-dashboard-admin user, you can use the following command:

kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard get secret $(kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard get sa/kubernetes-dashboard-admin -o jsonpath="{.secrets[0].name}") -o go-template="{{.data.token | base64decode}}"

This command will retrieve the secret associated with the kubernetes-dashboard-admin service account, and then decode the token field from the secret to get the bearer token.

4. Use the Token to Access the Kubernetes Dashboard

Finally, you can use the bearer token to log in to the Kubernetes Dashboard. To do this, you can follow these steps:

Start the Kubernetes Dashboard proxy:
```
kubectl proxy
```
This will start a local proxy that will allow you to access the Kubernetes Dashboard from your web browser.

Open your web browser and navigate to the Kubernetes Dashboard URL:

http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/

When prompted to select an authentication method, choose "Token" and paste the bearer token you obtained in the previous step.

You should now be able to access the Kubernetes Dashboard as the admin user, with full access to your cluster.

Here's a Mermaid diagram that summarizes the steps:

graph TD A[Deploy Kubernetes Dashboard] --> B[Create Service Account and Cluster Role Binding] B --> C[Get Bearer Token] C --> D[Access Kubernetes Dashboard]

This process of getting the token for the Kubernetes Dashboard admin user is a common task when working with Kubernetes clusters. By following these steps, you can ensure that you have the necessary permissions to manage and monitor your Kubernetes environment through the Kubernetes Dashboard.