This section describes the expectations for RBAC for Rancher Monitoring.

Cluster Admins

By default, only those with the cluster-admin ClusterRole should be able to:

  • Install the rancher-monitoring App onto a cluster and all other relevant configuration performed on the chart deploy
    • e.g. whether default dashboards are created, what exporters are deployed onto the cluster to collect metrics, etc.
  • Create / modify / delete Prometheus deployments in the cluster via Prometheus CRs
  • Create / modify / delete Alertmanager deployments in the cluster via Alertmanager CRs
  • Persist new Grafana dashboards or datasources via creating ConfigMaps in the appropriate namespace
  • Expose certain Prometheus metrics to the k8s Custom Metrics API for HPA via a Secret in the cattle-monitoring-system namespace

Users with k8s ClusterRole-based Permissions

The rancher-monitoring chart installs the following three ClusterRoles. By default, they aggregate into the corresponding k8s ClusterRoles:

ClusterRole Aggregates To Default K8s ClusterRole
monitoring-admin admin
monitoring-edit edit
monitoring-view view

These ClusterRoles provide different levels of access to the Monitoring CRDs based on the actions that can be performed:

CRDs (monitoring.coreos.com) Admin Edit View
  • prometheuses
  • alertmanagers
 Get, List, Watch Get, List, Watch Get, List, Watch
  • servicemonitors
  • podmonitors
  • prometheusrules
 * * Get, List, Watch

On a high level, the following permissions are assigned by default as a result.

Users with k8s Admin / Edit Permissions

Only those with the the cluster-admin / admin / edit ClusterRole should be able to:

  • Modify the scrape configuration of Prometheus deployments via ServiceMonitor and PodMonitor CRs
  • Modify the alerting / recording rules of a Prometheus deployment via PrometheusRules CRs

Users with k8s View Permissions

Only those with who have some k8s ClusterRole should be able to:

  • View the configuration of Prometheuses that are deployed within the cluster
  • View the configuration of Alertmanagers that are deployed within the cluster
  • View the scrape configuration of Prometheus deployments via ServiceMonitor and PodMonitor CRs
  • View the alerting / recording rules of a Prometheus deployment via PrometheusRules CRs

Additional Monitoring Roles

Monitoring also creates six additional Roles that are not assigned to users by default but are created within the cluster. Admins should use these roles to provide more fine-grained access to users:

Role Purpose
monitoring-config-admin Allow admins to assign roles to users to be able to view / modify Secrets and ConfigMaps within the cattle-monitoring-system namespace. Modifying Secrets / ConfigMaps in this namespace could allow users to alter the cluster’s Alertmanager configuration, Prometheus Adapter configuration, additional Grafana datasources, TLS secrets, etc.
monitoring-config-edit Allow admins to assign roles to users to be able to view / modify Secrets and ConfigMaps within the cattle-monitoring-system namespace. Modifying Secrets / ConfigMaps in this namespace could allow users to alter the cluster’s Alertmanager configuration, Prometheus Adapter configuration, additional Grafana datasources, TLS secrets, etc.
monitoring-config-view Allow admins to assign roles to users to be able to view Secrets and ConfigMaps within the cattle-monitoring-system namespace. Viewing Secrets / ConfigMaps in this namespace could allow users to observe the cluster’s Alertmanager configuration, Prometheus Adapter configuration, additional Grafana datasources, TLS secrets, etc.
monitoring-dashboard-admin Allow admins to assign roles to users to be able to edit / view ConfigMaps within the cattle-dashboards namespace. ConfigMaps in this namespace will correspond to Grafana Dashboards that are persisted onto the cluster.
monitoring-dashboard-edit Allow admins to assign roles to users to be able to edit / view ConfigMaps within the cattle-dashboards namespace. ConfigMaps in this namespace will correspond to Grafana Dashboards that are persisted onto the cluster.
monitoring-dashboard-view Allow admins to assign roles to users to be able to view ConfigMaps within the cattle-dashboards namespace. ConfigMaps in this namespace will correspond to Grafana Dashboards that are persisted onto the cluster.

Users with Rancher Cluster Manager Based Permissions

The relationship between the default roles deployed by Rancher Cluster Manager (i.e. cluster-owner, cluster-member, project-owner, project-member), the default k8s roles, and the roles deployed by the rancher-monitoring chart are detailed in the table below:

Cluster Manager Role k8s Role Monitoring ClusterRole / Role ClusterRoleBinding or RoleBinding?
cluster-owner cluster-admin N/A ClusterRoleBinding
cluster-member admin monitoring-admin ClusterRoleBinding
project-owner edit monitoring-admin RoleBinding within Project namespace
project-member view monitoring-edit RoleBinding within Project namespace

Differences in 2.5.x

Users with the project-member or project-owners roles assigned will not be given access to either Prometheus or Grafana in Rancher 2.5.x since we only create Grafana or Prometheus on a cluster-level.

In addition, while project owners will still be only able to add ServiceMonitors / PodMonitors that scrape resources within their project’s namespace by default, PrometheusRules are not scoped to a single namespace / project. Therefore, any alert rules or recording rules created by project-owners within their project namespace will be applied across the entire cluster, although they will be unable to view / edit / delete any rules that were created outside the project’s namespace.

Assigning Additional Access

If cluster-admins would like to provide additional admin/edit access to users outside of the roles offered by the rancher-monitoring chart, the following table identifies the potential impact:

CRDs (monitoring.coreos.com) Can it cause impact outside of a namespace / project? Impact
prometheuses Yes, this resource can scrape metrics from any targets across the entire cluster (unless the Operator itself is otherwise configured). User will be able to define the configuration of new cluster-level Prometheus deployments that should be created in the cluster.
alertmanagers No User will be able to define the configuration of new cluster-level Alertmanager deployments that should be created in the cluster. Note: if you just want to allow users to configure settings like Routes and Receivers, you should just provide access to the Alertmanager Config Secret instead.
  • servicemonitors
  • podmonitors
 No, not by default; this is configurable via ignoreNamespaceSelectors on the Prometheus CR. User will be able to set up scrapes by Prometheus on endpoints exposed by Services / Pods within the namespace they are given this permission in.
prometheusrules Yes, PrometheusRules are cluster-scoped. User will be able to define alert or recording rules on Prometheus based on any series collected across the entire cluster.
k8s Resources Namespace Can it cause impact outside of a namespace / project? Impact
  • secrets
  • configmaps
 cattle-monitoring-system Yes, Configs and Secrets in this namespace can impact the entire monitoring / alerting pipeline. User will be able to create or edit Secrets / ConfigMaps such as the Alertmanager Config, Prometheus Adapter Config, TLS secrets, additional Grafana datasources, etc. This can have broad impact on all cluster monitoring / alerting.
  • secrets
  • configmaps
 cattle-dashboards Yes, Configs and Secrets in this namespace can create dashboards that make queries on all metrics collected at a cluster-level. User will be able to create Secrets / ConfigMaps that persist new Grafana Dashboards only.