Role-based access control

• Namespaces: Managing namespaces | Specification | Examples
• Resources: Namespaced resource types | Cluster-wide resource types
• Users: Managing users | Specification | Examples | Groups
• Roles and cluster roles: Managing roles | Specification | Examples
• Role bindings and cluster role bindings: Managing role bindings | Specification | Examples
• Example workflows

Sensu role-based access control (RBAC) helps different teams and projects share a Sensu instance. RBAC allows management and access of users and resources based on namespaces, groups, roles, and bindings.

• Namespaces partition resources within Sensu. Sensu entities, checks, handlers, and other namespaced resources belong to a single namespace.
• Roles create sets of permissions (get, delete, etc.) tied to resource types. Cluster roles apply permissions across namespaces and include access to cluster-wide resources like users and namespaces.
• Users represent a person or agent that interacts with Sensu. Users can belong to one or more groups.
• Role bindings assign a role to a set of users and groups within a namespace; cluster role bindings assign a cluster role to a set of users and groups cluster-wide.

Sensu access controls apply to sensuctl, the Sensu API, and the Sensu dashboard. In addition to built-in RBAC, Sensu includes commercial support for authentication using external authentication providers.

Namespaces

Namespaces help teams use different resources (entities, checks, handlers, etc.) within Sensu and impose their own controls on those resources. A Sensu instance can have multiple namespaces, each with their own set of managed resources. Resource names need to be unique within a namespace, but not across namespaces.

To create and manage namespaces, configure sensuctl as the default admin user or create a cluster role with namespaces permissions.

Default namespace

Every Sensu backend includes a default namespace. All resources created without a specified namespace are created within the default namespace.

Viewing namespaces

You can use sensuctl to view all namespaces within Sensu:

sensuctl namespace list

NOTE: For users on supported Sensu Go distributions,sensuctl namespace list will list only the namespaces that the current user has access to.

Creating a namespace

You can use sensuctl to create a namespace. For example, the following command creates a namespace called production:

sensuctl namespace create production

Namespace names can contain alphanumeric characters and hyphens, but must begin and end with an alphanumeric character.

Managing namespaces

You can use sensuctl to view, create, and delete namespaces.

To delete a namespace:

sensuctl namespace delete [NAMESPACE-NAME]

To get help managing namespaces with sensuctl:

sensuctl namespace help

Assigning a resource to a namespace

You can assign a resource to a namespace in the resource definition. Only resources belonging to a namespaced resource type (like checks, filters, and handlers) can be assigned to a namespace.

For example, to assign a check called check-cpu to the production namespace, include the namespace attribute in the check definition:

type: CheckConfig
api_version: core/v2
metadata:
  name: check-cpu
  namespace: production
spec:
  check_hooks: null
  command: check-cpu.sh -w 75 -c 90
  handlers:
  - slack
  interval: 30
  subscriptions:
  - system
  timeout: 0
  ttl: 0

{
  "type": "CheckConfig",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "check-cpu",
    "namespace": "production"
  },
  "spec": {
    "check_hooks": null,
    "command": "check-cpu.sh -w 75 -c 90",
    "handlers": ["slack"],
    "interval": 30,
    "subscriptions": ["system"],
    "timeout": 0,
    "ttl": 0
  }
}

See the reference docs for the corresponding resource type to create resource definitions.

PRO TIP: By omitting the namespace attribute from resource definitions, you can use the senusctl create --namespace flag to specify the namespace for a group of resources at the time of creation, allowing you to replicate resources across namespaces without manual editing. See the sensuctl reference for more information.

Namespace specification

Attributes

"name": "production"

Namespace example

The following examples are in yml and wrapped-json formats for use with sensuctl create.

type: Namespace
api_version: core/v2
metadata: {}
spec:
  name: default

{
  "type": "Namespace",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {},
  "spec": {
    "name": "default"
  }
}

Resources

Permissions within Sensu are scoped to resource types, like checks, handlers, and users. You can use resource types to configure permissions in Sensu roles and cluster roles.

Namespaced resource types

Namespaced resources must belong to a single namespace and can be accessed by roles and cluster roles.

Cluster-wide resource types

Cluster-wide resources cannot be assigned to a namespace and can only be accessed by cluster roles.

Special resource types

Special resources types can be accessed by both roles and cluster roles.

Users

A user represents a person or an agent which interacts with Sensu. Users and groups can be assigned one or more roles and inherit all permissions from each role assigned to them.

You can use your Sensu username and password to configure sensuctl or log in to the dashboard.

Default user

By default, Sensu includes a global admin user that you can use to manage Sensu and create new users.

We strongly recommended changing the default password for the admin user immediately. Once authenticated, you can change the password using the change-password command.

sensuctl user change-password

Sensu also includes an agent user that is used internally by the Sensu agent. You can configure an agent’s user credentials using the user and password agent configuration flags.

Viewing users

You can use sensuctl to see a list of all users within Sensu. The following example returns a list of users in yaml format for use with sensuctl create.

sensuctl user list --format yaml

Creating a user

You can use sensuctl to create a user. For example, the following command creates a user with the username alice, creates a password, and assigns the user to the ops and dev groups. Passwords must have at least eight characters.

sensuctl user create alice --password='password' --groups=ops,dev

Assigning user permissions

To assign permissions to a user:

1. Create the user.
2. Create a role or (for cluster-wide access) a cluster role.
3. Create a role binding (or cluster role binding) to assign the role to the user.

Managing users

To test the password for a user:

sensuctl user test-creds USERNAME --password 'password'

An empty response indicates valid credentials; a request-unauthorized response indicates invalid credentials.

To change the password for a user:

sensuctl user change-password USERNAME --current-password CURRENT_PASSWORD --new-password NEW_PASSWORD

To disable a user:

sensuctl user disable USERNAME

To re-enable a disabled user:

sensuctl user reinstate USERNAME

User specification

Attributes

"username": "alice"

"password": "P@ssw0rd!"

"groups": ["dev", "ops"]

"disabled": false

User example

The following examples are in yml and wrapped-json formats for use with sensuctl create.

type: User
api_version: core/v2
metadata: {}
spec:
  disabled: false
  groups:
  - ops
  - dev
  password: P@ssw0rd!
  username: alice

{
  "type": "User",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {},
  "spec": {
    "username": "alice",
    "password": "P@ssw0rd!",
    "disabled": false,
    "groups": ["ops", "dev"]
  }
}

Groups

A group is a set of users within Sensu. Groups can be assigned one or more roles and inherit all permissions from each role assigned to them. Users can be assigned to one or more groups. Groups are not a resource type within Sensu; you can create and manage groups only within user definitions.

Default group

Sensu includes a default cluster-admins group that contains the default admin user and a system:agents group used internally by Sensu agents.

Assigning a user to a group

Groups are created and managed within user definitions. You can use sensuctl to add users to groups.

To add a user to a group:

sensuctl user add-group USERNAME GROUP

To set the groups for a user:

sensuctl user set-groups USERNAME GROUP1[,GROUP2, ...[,GROUPN]]

Removing a user from a group

You can use sensuctl to remove users from groups.

To remove a user from a group:

sensuctl user remove-group USERNAME GROUP

To remove a user from all groups:

sensuctl user remove-groups USERNAME

Roles and cluster roles

A role is a set of permissions controlling access to Sensu resources. Roles specify permissions for resources within a namespace while cluster roles can include permissions for cluster-wide resources. You can use role bindings to assign roles to user and groups. To avoid re-creating commonly used roles in each namespace, create a cluster role and use a role binding (not a cluster role binding) to restrict permissions within a specific namespace.

To create and manage roles cluster-wide, configure sensuctl as the default admin user or create a cluster role with roles permissions. To create and manage roles within a namespace, create a role with roles permissions within that namespace.

Cluster roles

Cluster roles can specify access permissions for cluster-wide resources like users and namespaces as well as namespaced resources like checks and handlers. They can also be used to grant access to namespaced resources across all namespaces (needed to run sensuctl check list --all-namespaces, for example) when used in conjunction with cluster role bindings. Cluster roles use the same specification as roles and can be managed using the same sensuctl commands with cluster-role substituted for role.

To create and manage cluster roles, configure sensuctl as the default admin user or create a cluster role with permissions for clusterroles.

Default roles

Every Sensu backend includes:

Viewing roles

You can use sensuctl to see a list of roles within Sensu:

sensuctl role list

To see the permissions and scope for a specific role:

sensuctl role info admin

To view cluster roles, use the cluster-role command:

sensuctl cluster-role list

Creating a role

You can use sensuctl to create a role. For example, the following command creates an admin role restricted to the production namespace.

sensuctl role create prod-admin --verb get,list,create,update,delete --resource * --namespace production

Once you’ve create the role, create a role binding (or cluster role binding) to assign the role to users and groups. For example, to assign the prod-admin role created above to the oncall group, create the following role binding.

sensuctl role-binding create prod-admin-oncall --role=prod-admin --group=oncall

Creating a cluster-wide role

You can use sensuctl to create a cluster role. For example, the following command creates a global event reader role that can read only events across all namespaces within Sensu.

sensuctl cluster-role create global-event-reader --verb get,list --resource events

Managing roles

You can use sensuctl to view, create, edit, and delete roles. To use any of these commands with cluster roles, substitute the cluster-role command for the role command.

To edit a role:

sensuctl edit roles [ROLE-NAME] [flags]

To delete a role:

sensuctl role delete [ROLE-NAME]

To get help managing roles with sensuctl:

sensuctl role help

Role and cluster role specification

Role attributes

"name": "admin"

"namespace": "production"

"rules": [
  {
    "verbs": ["get", "list"],
    "resources": ["checks"],
    "resource_names": [""]
  }
]

Rule attributes

A rule is an explicit statement which grants a particular permission to a resource.

"verbs": ["get", "list"]

"resources": ["checks"]

"resource_names": ["check-cpu"]

Role example

The following examples are in yml and wrapped-json formats for use with sensuctl create.

type: Role
api_version: core/v2
metadata:
  name: namespaced-resources-all-verbs
  namespace: default
spec:
  rules:
  - resource_names: []
    resources:
    - assets
    - checks
    - entities
    - events
    - filters
    - handlers
    - hooks
    - mutators
    - rolebindings
    - roles
    - silenced
    verbs:
    - get
    - list
    - create
    - update
    - delete

{
  "type": "Role",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "namespaced-resources-all-verbs",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "rules": [
      {
        "resource_names": [],
        "resources": [
          "assets", "checks", "entities", "events", "filters", "handlers",
          "hooks", "mutators", "rolebindings", "roles", "silenced"
        ],
        "verbs": ["get", "list", "create", "update", "delete"]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Cluster role example

The following examples are in yml and wrapped-json formats for use with sensuctl create.

type: ClusterRole
api_version: core/v2
metadata:
  name: all-resources-all-verbs
spec:
  rules:
  - resource_names: []
    resources:
    - assets
    - checks
    - entities
    - events
    - filters
    - handlers
    - hooks
    - mutators
    - rolebindings
    - roles
    - silenced
    - cluster
    - clusterrolebindings
    - clusterroles
    - namespaces
    - users
    - authproviders
    - license
    verbs:
    - get
    - list
    - create
    - update
    - delete

{
  "type": "ClusterRole",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "all-resources-all-verbs"
  },
  "spec": {
    "rules": [
      {
        "resource_names": [],
        "resources": [
          "assets", "checks", "entities", "events", "filters", "handlers",
          "hooks", "mutators", "rolebindings", "roles", "silenced",
          "cluster", "clusterrolebindings", "clusterroles",
          "namespaces", "users", "authproviders", "license"
        ],
        "verbs": ["get", "list", "create", "update", "delete"]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Role bindings and cluster role bindings

A role binding assigns a role or cluster role to users and groups within a namespace. A cluster role binding assigns a cluster role to users and groups across namespaces and resource types.

To create and manage role bindings within a namespace, create a role with rolebindings permissions within that namespace, and log in by configuring sensuctl.

Cluster role bindings

Cluster role bindings can assign a cluster role to users and groups. Cluster role bindings use the same specification as role bindings and can be managed using the same sensuctl commands with cluster-role-binding substituted for role-binding.

To create and manage cluster role bindings, configure sensuctl as the default admin user or create a cluster role with permissions for clusterrolebindings.

Viewing role bindings

You can use sensuctl to see a list of role bindings within Sensu:

sensuctl role-binding list

To see the details for a specific role binding:

sensuctl role-binding info [BINDING-NAME]

To see a list of cluster role bindings:

sensuctl cluster-role-binding list

Creating a role binding

You can use sensuctl to see a create a role binding that assigns a role:

sensuctl role-binding create [NAME] --role=NAME [--user=username] [--group=groupname]

Or a role binding that assigns a cluster role:

sensuctl role-binding create [NAME] --cluster-role=NAME [--user=username] [--group=groupname]

To create a cluster role binding:

sensuctl cluster-role-binding create [NAME] --cluster-role=NAME [--user=username] [--group=groupname]

Managing role bindings

You can use sensuctl to see a list, create, and delete role bindings and cluster role bindings. To use any of these commands with cluster roles, substitute the cluster-role-binding command for the role-binding command.

To delete a role binding:

sensuctl role-binding delete [ROLE-NAME]

To get help managing role bindings with sensuctl:

sensuctl role-binding help

Role binding and cluster role binding specification

"roleRef": {
  "type": "Role",
  "name": "event-reader"
}

"subjects": [
  {
    "type": "User",
    "name": "alice"
  }
]

roleRef specification

"type": "Role"

"name": "event-reader"

subjects specification

"type": "User"

"name": "alice"

"name": "ad:alice"

Role binding example

The following examples are in yml and wrapped-json formats for use with sensuctl create.

type: RoleBinding
api_version: core/v2
metadata:
  name: event-reader-binding
  namespace: default
spec:
  role_ref:
    name: event-reader
    type: Role
  subjects:
  - name: bob
    type: User

{
  "type": "RoleBinding",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "event-reader-binding",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "role_ref": {
      "name": "event-reader",
      "type": "Role"
    },
    "subjects": [
      {
        "name": "bob",
        "type": "User"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Cluster role binding example

The following examples are in yml and wrapped-json formats for use with sensuctl create.

type: ClusterRoleBinding
api_version: core/v2
metadata:
  name: cluster-admin
spec:
  role_ref:
    name: cluster-admin
    type: ClusterRole
  subjects:
  - name: cluster-admins
    type: Group

{
  "type": "ClusterRoleBinding",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "cluster-admin"
  },
  "spec": {
    "role_ref": {
      "name": "cluster-admin",
      "type": "ClusterRole"
    },
    "subjects": [
      {
        "name": "cluster-admins",
        "type": "Group"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Role and role binding examples

The following role and role binding give a dev group access to create and manage Sensu workflows within the default namespace.

{
  "type": "Role",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "workflow-creator",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "rules": [
      {
        "resource_names": [],
        "resources": ["checks", "hooks", "filters", "events", "filters", "mutators", "handlers"],
        "verbs": ["get", "list", "create", "update", "delete"]
      }
    ]
  }
}
{
  "type": "RoleBinding",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "dev-binding",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "role_ref": {
      "name": "workflow-creator",
      "type": "Role"
    },
    "subjects": [
      {
        "name": "dev",
        "type": "Group"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Role and role binding examples with a group prefix

In the following code example, if a groups prefix of ad is configured for Active Directory authentication, this role and role binding will give a dev group access to create and manage Sensu workflows within the default namespace.

{
  "type": "Role",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "workflow-creator",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "rules": [
      {
        "resource_names": [],
        "resources": ["checks", "hooks", "filters", "events", "filters", "mutators", "handlers"],
        "verbs": ["get", "list", "create", "update", "delete"]
      }
    ]
  }
}
{
  "type": "RoleBinding",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "dev-binding-with-groups-prefix",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "role_ref": {
      "name": "workflow-creator",
      "type": "Role"
    },
    "subjects": [
      {
        "name": "ad:dev",
        "type": "Group"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Example workflows

• Assigning user permissions within a namespace
• Assigning group permissions within a namespace
• Assigning group permissions across all namespaces

Assigning user permissions within a namespace

To assign permissions to a user:

1. Create the user.
2. Create a role.
3. Create a role binding to assign the role to the user.

For example, the following configuration creates a user alice, a role default-admin, and a role binding alice-default-admin, giving alice full permissions for namespaced resource types within the default namespace. You can add these resources to Sensu using sensuctl create.

{
  "type": "User",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {},
  "spec": {
    "disabled": false,
    "username": "alice"
  }
}
{
  "type": "Role",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "default-admin",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "rules": [
      {
        "resource_names": [],
        "resources": [
          "assets", "checks", "entities", "events", "filters", "handlers",
          "hooks", "mutators", "rolebindings", "roles", "silenced"
        ],
        "verbs": ["get", "list", "create", "update", "delete"]
      }
    ]
  }
}
{
  "type": "RoleBinding",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "alice-default-admin",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "role_ref": {
      "name": "default-admin",
      "type": "Role"
    },
    "subjects": [
      {
        "name": "alice",
        "type": "User"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Assigning group permissions within a namespace

To assign permissions to group of users:

1. Create at least once user assigned to a group.
2. Create a role.
3. Create a role binding to assign the role to the group.

For example, the following configuration creates a user alice assigned to the group ops, a role default-admin, and a role binding ops-default-admin, giving the ops group full permissions for namespaced resource types within the default namespace. You can add these resources to Sensu using sensuctl create.

{
  "type": "User",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {},
  "spec": {
    "disabled": false,
    "username": "alice"
  }
}
{
  "type": "Role",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "default-admin",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "rules": [
      {
        "resource_names": [],
        "resources": [
          "assets", "checks", "entities", "events", "filters", "handlers",
          "hooks", "mutators", "rolebindings", "roles", "silenced"
        ],
        "verbs": ["get", "list", "create", "update", "delete"]
      }
    ]
  }
}
{
  "type": "RoleBinding",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "ops-default-admin",
    "namespace": "default"
  },
  "spec": {
    "role_ref": {
      "name": "default-admin",
      "type": "Role"
    },
    "subjects": [
      {
        "name": "ops",
        "type": "Group"
      }
    ]
  }
}

PRO TIP: To avoid re-creating commonly used roles in each namespace, create a cluster role and use a role binding to restrict permissions within a specific namespace.

Assigning group permissions across all namespaces

To assign cluster-wide permissions to group of users:

1. Create at least once user assigned to a group.
2. Create a cluster role.
3. Create a cluster role binding) to assign the role to the group.

For example, the following configuration creates a user alice assigned to the group ops, a cluster role default-admin, and a cluster role binding ops-default-admin, giving the ops group full permissions for namespaced resource types and cluster-wide resource types across all namespaces. You can add these resources to Sensu using sensuctl create.

{
  "type": "User",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {},
  "spec": {
    "disabled": false,
    "username": "alice",
    "groups": ["ops"]
  }
}
{
  "type": "ClusterRole",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "default-admin"
  },
  "spec": {
    "rules": [
      {
        "resource_names": [],
        "resources": [
          "assets", "checks", "entities", "events", "filters", "handlers",
          "hooks", "mutators", "rolebindings", "roles", "silenced",
          "cluster", "clusterrolebindings", "clusterroles",
          "namespaces", "users", "authproviders", "license"
        ],
        "verbs": ["get", "list", "create", "update", "delete"]

      }
    ]
  }
}
{
  "type": "ClusterRoleBinding",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "ops-default-admin"
  },
  "spec": {
    "role_ref": {
      "name": "default-admin",
      "type": "ClusterRole"
    },
    "subjects": [
      {
        "name": "ops",
        "type": "Group"
      }
    ]
  }
}