⚠️ kube-lego is no longer maintained. The officially endorsed successor is cert-manager.
If you are a current user of kube-lego, you can find a migration guide here.
⚠️
kube-lego automatically requests certificates for Kubernetes Ingress resources from Let's Encrypt
- Recognizes the need of a new certificate for this cases:
- No certificate existing
- Existing certificate is not containing all domain names
- Existing certificate is expired or near to its expiry date (cf. option
LEGO_MINIMUM_VALIDITY
) - Existing certificate is unparseable, invalid or not matching the secret key
- Creates a user account (incl. private key) for Let's Encrypt and stores it in Kubernetes secrets (secret name is configurable via
LEGO_SECRET_NAME
) - Obtains the missing certificates from Let's Encrypt and authorizes the request with the
HTTP-01
challenge - Makes sure that the specific Kubernetes objects (Services, Ingress) contain the rights configuration for the
HTTP-01
challenge to succeed - Official Kubernetes Helm chart for simplistic deployment.
- Kubernetes 1.2+
- Compatible ingress controller (nginx or GCE see here)
- Non-production use case 😆
The default value of LEGO_URL
is the Let's Encrypt staging environment. If you want to get "real" certificates you have to configure their production env.
As soon as the kube-lego daemon is running, it will create a user account with LetsEncrypt, make a service resource, and look for ingress resources that have this annotation:
metadata:
annotations:
kubernetes.io/tls-acme: "true"
Every ingress resource that has this annotation will be monitored by kube-lego (cluster-wide in all namespaces). The only part that is watched is the list spec.tls
. Every element will get its own certificate through Let's Encrypt.
Let's take a look at this ingress resource:
spec:
tls:
- secretName: mysql-tls
hosts:
- phpmyadmin.example.com
- mysql.example.com
- secretName: postgres-tls
hosts:
- postgres.example.com
On finding the above resource, the following happens:
-
An ingress resource is created coordinating where to send acme challenges for the said domains.
-
kube-lego will then perform its own check for i.e.
http://mysql.example.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/_selftest
to ensure all is well before reaching out to letsencrypt. -
kube-lego will obtain two certificates (one with phpmyadmin.example.com and mysql.example.com, the other with postgres.example.com).
Please note:
- The
secretName
statements have to be unique per namespace secretName
is required (even if no secret exists with that name, as it will be created by kube-lego)- Setups which utilize 1:1 NAT need to ensure internal resources can reach gateway controlled public addresses.
- Additionally, your domain must point to your externally available Load Balancer (either directly or via 1:1 NAT)
At some point you'll be ready to use LetsEncrypt production API URL. To make the switch in kube-lego, please do the following:
- Update
LEGO_URL
tohttps://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
. - Delete the existing k8s secret
kube-lego-account
. - Delete other secrets that hold data for certificates you want to replace.
- Restart kube-lego.
- available through image
gcr.io/google_containers/nginx-ingress-controller
- fully supports kube-lego from version 0.8 onwards
- you don't have to maintain the ingress controller yourself, you pay GCE to do that for you
- every ingress resource creates one GCE load balancer
- all service that you want to expose, have to be
Type=NodePort
Name | Required | Default | Description |
---|---|---|---|
LEGO_EMAIL |
y | - |
E-Mail address for the ACME account, used to recover from lost secrets |
LEGO_POD_IP |
y | - |
Pod IP address (use the downward API) |
LEGO_NAMESPACE |
n | default |
Namespace where kube-lego is running in |
LEGO_URL |
n | https://acme-staging.api.letsencrypt.org/directory |
URL for the ACME server. To get "real" certificates set to the production API of Let's Encrypt: https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory |
LEGO_SECRET_NAME |
n | kube-lego-account |
Name of the secret in the same namespace that contains ACME account secret |
LEGO_SERVICE_SELECTOR |
n | kube-lego |
Set the service selector to the the kube-lego pod |
LEGO_SERVICE_NAME_NGINX |
n | kube-lego-nginx |
Service name for NGINX ingress |
LEGO_SERVICE_NAME_GCE |
n | kube-lego-gce |
Service name for GCE ingress |
LEGO_SUPPORTED_INGRESS_CLASS |
n | nginx,gce |
Specify the supported ingress class |
LEGO_SUPPORTED_INGRESS_PROVIDER |
n | nginx,gce |
Specify the supported ingress provider |
LEGO_INGRESS_NAME_NGINX |
n | kube-lego-nginx |
Ingress name which contains the routing for HTTP verification for nginx ingress |
LEGO_PORT |
n | 8080 |
Port where this daemon is listening for verifcation calls (HTTP method) |
LEGO_CHECK_INTERVAL |
n | 8h |
Interval for periodically certificate checks (to find expired certs) |
LEGO_MINIMUM_VALIDITY |
n | 720h (30 days) |
Request a renewal when the remaining certificate validity falls below that value |
LEGO_DEFAULT_INGRESS_CLASS |
n | nginx |
Default ingress class for resources without specification |
LEGO_DEFAULT_INGRESS_PROVIDER |
n | $LEGO_DEFAULT_INGRESS_CLASS |
Default ingress provider for resources without specification |
LEGO_KUBE_API_URL |
n | http://127.0.0.1:8080 |
API server URL |
LEGO_LOG_LEVEL |
n | info |
Set log level (debug , info , warn or error ) |
LEGO_LOG_TYPE |
n | text |
Set log type. Only json as custom value supported, everything else defaults to default logrus textFormat |
LEGO_KUBE_ANNOTATION |
n | kubernetes.io/tls-acme |
Set the ingress annotation used by this instance of kube-lego to get certificate for from Let's Encrypt. Allows you to run kube-lego against staging and production LE |
LEGO_WATCH_NAMESPACE |
n | `` | Namespace that kube-lego should watch for ingresses and services |
LEGO_RSA_KEYSIZE |
n | 2048 |
Size of the private RSA key |
LEGO_EXPONENTIAL_BACKOFF_MAX_ELAPSED_TIME |
n | 5m |
Max time to wait for each domain authorization attempt |
LEGO_EXPONENTIAL_BACKOFF_MAX_INITIAL_INTERVAL |
n | 30s |
Initial interval to wait for each domain authorization attempt |
LEGO_EXPONENTIAL_BACKOFF_MAX_MULTIPLIER |
n | 2.0 |
Multiplier for every step |
When interacting with kube-lego, its a good idea to run with LEGO_LOG_LEVEL=debug
for more verbose details.
Additionally, be aware of the automatically created resources (see environment variables) when cleaning up or testing.
Possible resources for help:
- The official channel
#kube-lego
#cert-manager
onkubernetes.slack.com
(The old channel was renamed)
There is also a good chance to get some support on non-official support channels for kube-lego, but be aware that these are rather general kubernetes discussion channels.
#coreos
on freenode- Slack channels like
#kubernetes-users
or#kubernetes-novice
onkubernetes.slack.com
- If you absolutely just can't figure out your problem, file an issue.
To enable the pprof tool run kube-lego with environment LEGO_LOG_LEVEL=debug
.
Capture 20 seconds of the execution trace:
$ wget http://localhost:8080/debug/pprof/trace?seconds=20 -O kube-lego.trace
You can inspect the trace sample running
$ go tool trace kube-lego.trace
- Christian Simon for Jetstack Ltd
- PR contributors