Configuring OIDC with Dex and GitHub

In this guide we will show you how to enable users to login to the Weave GitOps dashboard by authenticating with their GitHub account.

This example uses Dex and its GitHub connector, and assumes Weave GitOps has already been installed on a Kubernetes clusters.

Pre-requisites

• A Kubernetes cluster such as Kind cluster running a Flux-supported version of Kubernetes
• Weave GitOps is installed and TLS has been enabled.

What is Dex?

Dex is an identity service that uses OpenID Connect to drive authentication for other apps.

Alternative solutions for identity and access management exist such as Keycloak.

Create Dex namespace

Create a namespace where Dex will be installed:

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: dex

Add credentials

There are a lot of options available with Dex, in this guide we will use the GitHub connector.

We can get a GitHub ClientID and Client secret by creating a new OAuth application.

kubectl create secret generic github-client \
  --namespace=dex \
  --from-literal=client-id=${GITHUB_CLIENT_ID} \
  --from-literal=client-secret=${GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET}

Deploy Dex

As we did before, we can use HelmRepository and HelmRelease objects to let Flux deploy everything.

Expand to see resource manifests

---
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta1
kind: HelmRepository
metadata:
  name: dex
  namespace: dex
spec:
  interval: 1m
  url: https://charts.dexidp.io
---
apiVersion: helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v2beta1
kind: HelmRelease
metadata:
  name: dex
  namespace: dex
spec:
  interval: 5m
  chart:
    spec:
      chart: dex
      version: 0.6.5 
      sourceRef:
        kind: HelmRepository
        name: dex
        namespace: dex
      interval: 1m
  values:
    image:
      tag: v2.31.0
    envVars:
    - name: GITHUB_CLIENT_ID
      valueFrom:
        secretKeyRef:
          name: github-client
          key: client-id
    - name: GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET
      valueFrom:
        secretKeyRef:
          name: github-client
          key: client-secret
    config:
      # Set it to a valid URL
      issuer: https://dex.dev.example.tld

      # See https://dexidp.io/docs/storage/ for more options
      storage:
        type: memory

      staticClients:
      - name: 'Weave GitOps Core'
        id: weave-gitops
        secret: AiAImuXKhoI5ApvKWF988txjZ+6rG3S7o6X5En
        redirectURIs:
        - 'https://localhost:9001/oauth2/callback'
        - 'https://0.0.0.0:9001/oauth2/callback'
        - 'http://0.0.0.0:9001/oauth2/callback'
        - 'http://localhost:4567/oauth2/callback'
        - 'https://localhost:4567/oauth2/callback'
        - 'http://localhost:3000/oauth2/callback'

      connectors:
      - type: github
        id: github
        name: GitHub
        config:
          clientID: $GITHUB_CLIENT_ID
          clientSecret: $GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET
          redirectURI: https://dex.dev.example.tld/callback
          orgs:
          - name: weaveworks
            teams:
            - team-a
            - team-b
            - QA
          - name: ww-test-org
    ingress:
      enabled: true
      className: nginx
      annotations:
        cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: letsencrypt-prod
      hosts:
        - host: dex.dev.example.tld
          paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: ImplementationSpecific
      tls:
        - hosts:
          - dex.dev.example.tld
          secretName: dex-dev-example-tld

SSL certificate without cert manager

If we don't want to use cert manager, we can remove the related annotation and use our predefined secret in the tls section.

An important part of the configuration is the orgs field on the GitHub connector.

orgs:
- name: weaveworks
  teams:
  - team-a
  - team-b
  - QA

Here we can define groups under a GitHub organisation. In this example the GitHub organisation is weaveworks and all members of the team-a, team-b, and QA teams can authenticate. Group membership will be added to the user.

Based on these groups, we can bind roles to groups:

Expand to see group role bindings

---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: RoleBinding
metadata:
  name: wego-test-user-read-resources
  namespace: flux-system
subjects:
  - kind: Group
    name: weaveworks:QA
    namespace: flux-system
roleRef:
  kind: Role
  name: wego-admin-role
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: Role
metadata:
  name: wego-admin-role
  namespace: flux-system
rules:
  - apiGroups: [""]
    resources: ["secrets", "pods" ]
    verbs: [ "get", "list" ]
  - apiGroups: ["apps"]
    resources: [ "deployments", "replicasets"]
    verbs: [ "get", "list" ]
  - apiGroups: ["kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io"]
    resources: [ "kustomizations" ]
    verbs: [ "get", "list", "patch" ]
  - apiGroups: ["helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io"]
    resources: [ "helmreleases" ]
    verbs: [ "get", "list", "patch" ]
  - apiGroups: ["source.toolkit.fluxcd.io"]
    resources: ["buckets", "helmcharts", "gitrepositories", "helmrepositories", "ocirepositories"]
    verbs: ["get", "list", "patch"]
  - apiGroups: [""]
    resources: ["events"]
    verbs: ["get", "watch", "list"]

The same way we can bind cluster roles to a group:

Expand to see group cluster role bindings

---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: weaveworks:team-a
subjects:
- kind: Group
  name: weaveworks:team-a
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: cluster-admin
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

Set up static user

For static user, add staticPasswords to the config:

spec:
  values:
    config:
      staticPasswords:
      - email: "admin@example.tld"
        hash: "$2a$10$2b2cU8CPhOTaGrs1HRQuAueS7JTT5ZHsHSzYiFPm1leZck7Mc8T4W"
        username: "admin"
        userID: "08a8684b-db88-4b73-90a9-3cd1661f5466"

A static user password can be generated with the gitops CLI:

PASSWORD="<your password>"
echo -n $PASSWORD | gitops get bcrypt-hash
$2a$10$OS5NJmPNEb13UgTOSKnMxOWlmS7mlxX77hv4yAiISvZ71Dc7IuN3q

OIDC login

Using the "Login with OIDC Provider" button:

We have to authorize the GitHub OAuth application:

After that, grant access to Dex:

Now we are logged in with our GitHub user and we can see all resources we have access to: