> Kubernetes is an open-source container-orchestration system for automating application deployment, scaling, and management. It was originally designed by Google, and is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
Containers within a Kubernetes cluster automatically have certain information made available to them through their [container environment](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/containers/container-environment/). Additional information may have been made available through the volumes, environment variables, or the downward API, but this section covers only what is made available by default.
### Service Account
Each Kubernetes pod is assigned a service account for accessing the Kubernetes API. The service account, in addition to the current namespace and Kubernetes SSL certificate, are made available via a mounted read-only volume:
If the `kubectl` utility is installed in the container, it will use this service account automatically and will make interacting with the cluster much easier. If not, the contents of the `token` and `namespace` files can be used to make HTTP API requests directly.
### Environment Variables
The `KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST` and `KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT` environment variables are automatically provided to the container. They contain the IP address and port number of the Kubernetes master node. If `kubectl` is installed, it will use these values automatically. If not, the values can be used to determine the correct IP address to send API requests to.
```
KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST=192.168.154.228
KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT=443
```
Additionally, [environment variables](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services-networking/service/#discovering-services) are automatically created for each Kubernetes service running in the current namespace when the container was created. The environment variables are named using two patterns:
- A simplified `{SVCNAME}_SERVICE_HOST` and `{SVCNAME}_SERVICE_PORT` contain the IP address and default port number for the service.
- A [Docker links](https://docs.docker.com/network/links/#environment-variables) collection of variables named `{SVCNAME}_PORT_{NUM}_{PROTOCOL}_{PROTO|PORT|ADDR}` for each port the service exposes.
For example, all of the following environment variables would be available if a `redis-master` service were running with port 6379 exposed:
```
REDIS_MASTER_SERVICE_HOST=10.0.0.11
REDIS_MASTER_SERVICE_PORT=6379
REDIS_MASTER_PORT=tcp://10.0.0.11:6379
REDIS_MASTER_PORT_6379_TCP=tcp://10.0.0.11:6379
REDIS_MASTER_PORT_6379_TCP_PROTO=tcp
REDIS_MASTER_PORT_6379_TCP_PORT=6379
REDIS_MASTER_PORT_6379_TCP_ADDR=10.0.0.11
```
### Simulating `kubectl` API Requests
Most containers within a Kubernetes cluster won't have the `kubectl` utility installed. If running the [one-line `kubectl` installer](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/install-kubectl-linux/#install-kubectl-binary-with-curl-on-linux) within the container isn't an option, you may need to craft Kubernetes HTTP API requests manually. This can be done by using `kubectl`*locally* to determine the correct API request to send from the container.
1. Run the desired command at the maximum verbosity level using `kubectl -v9 ...`
1. The output will include HTTP API endpoint URL, the request body, and an example curl command.
1. Replace the endpoint URL's hostname and port with the `KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST` and `KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT` values from the container's environment variables.
1. Replace the masked "Authorization: Bearer" token value with the contents of `/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token` from the container.
1. If the request had a body, ensure the "Content-Type: application/json" header is included and send the request body using the customary method (for curl, use the `--data` flag).
For example, this output was used to create the [Service Account Permissions](#service-account-permissions) request:
I1028 18:58:38.295722 76118 round_trippers.go:438] POST https://1.2.3.4:5678/apis/authorization.k8s.io/v1/selfsubjectrulesreviews 201 Created in 101 milliseconds
Kubernetes provides Secrets and ConfigMaps as a way to load configuration into containers at runtime. While they may not lead directly to whole cluster compromise, the information they contain can lead to individual service compromise or enable lateral movement within a cluster.
From a container perspective, Kubernetes Secrets and ConfigMaps are identical. Both can be loaded into environment variables or mounted as volumes. It's not possible to determine if an environment variable was loaded from a Secret/ConfigMap, so each environment variable will need to be manually inspected. When mounted as a volume, Secrets/ConfigMaps are always mounted as read-only tmpfs filesystems. You can quickly find these with `grep -F "tmpfs ro" /etc/mtab`.
True Kubernetes Volumes are typically used as shared storage or for persistent storage across restarts. These are typically mounted as ext4 filesystems and can be identified with `grep -wF "ext4" /etc/mtab`.
### Privileged Containers
Kubernetes supports a wide range of [security contexts](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/security-context/) for container and pod execution. The most important of these is the "privileged" [security policy](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/policy/pod-security-policy/) which makes the host node's devices available under the container's `/dev` directory. This means having access to the host's Docker socket file (allowing arbitrary container actions) in addition to the host's root disks (which can be used to escape the container entirely).
While there is no official way to check for privileged mode from *within* a container, checking if `/dev/kmsg` exists will usually suffice.
- [Kubernetes Pentest Methodology Part 2 - by Or Ida on September 5, 2019](https://securityboulevard.com/2019/09/kubernetes-pentest-methodology-part-2)
- [Kubernetes Pentest Methodology Part 3 - by Or Ida on November 21, 2019](https://securityboulevard.com/2019/11/kubernetes-pentest-methodology-part-3)
- [Capturing all the flags in BSidesSF CTF by pwning our infrastructure - Hackernoon](https://hackernoon.com/capturing-all-the-flags-in-bsidessf-ctf-by-pwning-our-infrastructure-3570b99b4dd0)
