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tokenaut: GitHub App Installation Access Token Controller

Docker Repository on Quay

tokenaut is a controller for managing GitHub App Installation Access Tokens (server-to-server tokens, ghs).

Problem Solved

GitHub Apps issue relatively short-lived Installation Access Tokens. These tokens are often needed for tools like ArgoCD, FluxCD, or Crossplane provider-github. (While ArgoCD and provider-github support GitHub App private keys, you might prefer not to distribute private keys to various pods.) In such cases, it's necessary to maintain an active token that's always within its validity period. This project aims to solve this challenge using the Kubernetes controller pattern.

Controller's Role

The controller periodically recreates the GitHub token contained in the Secret resource to prevent it from expiring, keeping the Secret resource up-to-date.

Mechanism

A Secret resource is created based on the InstallationAccessToken resource. When there's a change to the InstallationAccessToken resource, the Secret resource is updated.

To operate this controller, you need the GitHub App's private key. First, create a Secret containing this key with the name "github-app-private-key":

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: github-app-private-key
  namespace: default
type: tokenaut.appthrust.io/private-key
stringData:
  privateKey: |
    -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
    ...
    -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

NOTE: The name and namespace can be customized using the "Explicit Private Key" method described later. This allows handling multiple private keys or using preferred names.

Next, create the InstallationAccessToken resource, which is the source for the Secret. This resource requires at least two fields: appId and installationId, specifying which GitHub App and which installation to use.

apiVersion: tokenaut.appthrust.io/v1alpha1
kind: InstallationAccessToken
metadata:
  name: our-github-token
  namespace: default
spec:
  appId: "12345"
  installationId: "1234567890"

When the controller discovers this InstallationAccessToken resource, it creates a Secret like this:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: our-github-token
  namespace: default
type: Opaque
stringData:
  token: ghs_16C7e42F292c6912E7710c838347Ae178B4a

By default, the created Secret follows these simple rules:

  • metadata.name: Inherited from the InstallationAccessToken's metadata.name.
  • metadata.namespace: Inherited from the InstallationAccessToken's metadata.namespace. The Secret is created in the same namespace.
  • data.token: Contains the Base64 encoded token directly.

NOTE: This behavior can be modified using the "Custom Secret" method described below.

Installation

tokenaut is a Kubernetes controller for managing GitHub App Installation Access Tokens. To install the tokenaut Helm chart, use the following command:

helm install my-tokenaut oci://quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut-helm/tokenaut --version 0.1.0

Configuration

The following table lists the configurable parameters of the tokenaut chart and their default values.

Parameter Description Default
controllerManager.replicas Number of tokenaut controller replicas 1
controllerManager.manager.image.repository Image repository quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut
controllerManager.manager.image.tag Image tag v0.1.0
controllerManager.manager.args.enable-http2 Enable HTTP/2 for the metrics and webhook servers false
controllerManager.manager.args.health-probe-bind-address The address the probe endpoint binds to ":8081"
controllerManager.manager.args.leader-elect Enable leader election for controller manager true
controllerManager.manager.args.metrics-bind-address The address the metrics endpoint binds to "0"
controllerManager.manager.args.metrics-secure Serve metrics endpoint securely via HTTPS true
controllerManager.manager.args.token-refresh-interval The interval at which to refresh the GitHub token "50m"
controllerManager.manager.args.zap-devel Enable Zap development mode true
controllerManager.manager.args.zap-encoder Zap log encoding "console"
controllerManager.manager.args.zap-log-level Zap log level "info"
controllerManager.manager.args.zap-stacktrace-level Zap stacktrace capture level "error"
controllerManager.manager.args.zap-time-encoding Zap time encoding "epoch"
controllerManager.manager.extraArgs Additional arguments to pass to the manager []
controllerManager.manager.resources.limits.cpu CPU resource limit "500m"
controllerManager.manager.resources.limits.memory Memory resource limit "128Mi"
controllerManager.manager.resources.requests.cpu CPU resource request "10m"
controllerManager.manager.resources.requests.memory Memory resource request "64Mi"
controllerManager.manager.containerSecurityContext.allowPrivilegeEscalation Allow privilege escalation for the container false
controllerManager.manager.containerSecurityContext.capabilities.drop Linux capabilities to drop ["ALL"]

Customizing the Installation

To customize the installation, you can create a values.yaml file with your desired configurations:

controllerManager:
  replicas: 2
  manager:
    args:
      token-refresh-interval: "30m"
    resources:
      limits:
        cpu: "1"
        memory: "256Mi"

Then, use this file during installation:

helm install my-tokenaut oci://quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut-helm/tokenaut --version 0.1.0 -f values.yaml

Alternatively, you can override values directly in the command line:

helm install my-tokenaut oci://quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut-helm/tokenaut --version 0.1.0 --set controllerManager.replicas=2

Post-Installation

After installation, you'll need to create a Secret containing your GitHub App's private key and a CustomResource (CR) for the InstallationAccessToken. Refer to the Usage section for more details on how to set these up.

Explicit Private Key

By default, the controller looks for a Secret named "github-app-private-key" in the "default" namespace and tries to recognize its "privateKey" field as the private key.

You can explicitly specify the private key if you want to:

  • Use a different metadata.name for the private key Secret.
  • Use a namespace other than "default".
  • Use a field name other than "privateKey".
  • Use multiple private keys.

To explicitly specify the private key, set spec.privateKeyRef in the InstallationAccessToken. For example, to use a Secret named "my-key":

 apiVersion: tokenaut.appthrust.io/v1alpha1
 kind: InstallationAccessToken
 metadata:
   name: our-github-token
   namespace: default
 spec:
   appId: "12345"
   installationId: "1234567890"
+  privateKeyRef:
+    name: my-key

To specify the namespace and field name as well:

 apiVersion: tokenaut.appthrust.io/v1alpha1
 kind: InstallationAccessToken
 metadata:
   name: our-github-token
   namespace: default
 spec:
   appId: "12345"
   installationId: "1234567890"
+  privateKeyRef:
+    name: my-key
+    namespace: my-space
+    key: pem

This specification will look for a Secret with the following structure:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: my-key
  namespace: my-space
type: tokenaut.appthrust.io/private-key
stringData:
  pem: ...snip...

Custom Secret

When converting InstallationAccessToken to Secret, the controller follows these rules:

  1. Copy metadata.name from InstallationAccessToken to Secret's metadata.name.
  2. Copy metadata.namespace from InstallationAccessToken to Secret's metadata.namespace.
  3. Write the Base64 encoded token to Secret's data.token.

This default behavior can be changed using spec.template in the InstallationAccessToken.

For example, to store the token in a "password" field:

 apiVersion: tokenaut.appthrust.io/v1alpha1
 kind: InstallationAccessToken
 metadata:
   name: our-github-token
   namespace: default
 spec:
   appId: "12345"
   installationId: "1234567890"
+  template:
+    data:
+      password: "{{ .Token }}"

This generates a Secret like:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: our-github-token
  namespace: default
type: Opaque
data:
  password: "(Base64 encoded token)"

To change the name or namespace, specify them in the template:

 apiVersion: tokenaut.appthrust.io/v1alpha1
 kind: InstallationAccessToken
 metadata:
   name: our-github-token
   namespace: default
 spec:
   appId: "12345"
   installationId: "1234567890"
   template:
+    metadata:
+      name: custom-secret-name
+      namespace: custom-namespace
     data:
       password: "{{ .Token }}"

This generates:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: custom-secret-name
  namespace: custom-namespace
type: Opaque
data:
  password: "(Base64 encoded token)"

The template can specify any field of a Secret object, including type:

 apiVersion: tokenaut.appthrust.io/v1alpha1
 kind: InstallationAccessToken
 metadata:
   name: our-github-token
   namespace: default
 spec:
   appId: "12345"
   installationId: "1234567890"
   template:
     metadata:
       name: custom-secret-name
       namespace: custom-namespace
+    type: my-custom-type
     data:
       password: "{{ .Token }}"

Sometimes you might want to handle a string with an embedded token, such as a URL for git clone:

https://[email protected]/my-org/my-repo.git

You can generate such a URL using {{ .Token }} for string interpolation:

 apiVersion: tokenaut.appthrust.io/v1alpha1
 kind: InstallationAccessToken
 metadata:
   name: our-github-token
   namespace: default
 spec:
   appId: "12345"
   installationId: "1234567890"
   template:
     stringData:
+      cloneUrl: "https://{{ .Token }}@github.com/my-org/my-repo.git"

Access Token Scope

NOTE: This feature is a future idea that may be implemented.

By default, the created access tokens have no scope settings. If you want to narrow the scope of access tokens by repository or permissions, you can specify this in spec.scope of the InstallationAccessToken.

 apiVersion: tokenaut.appthrust.io/v1alpha1
 kind: InstallationAccessToken
 metadata:
   name: our-github-token
   namespace: default
 spec:
   appId: "12345"
   installationId: "1234567890"
+  scope:
+    repositories:
+      - repo1
+      - repo2
+    permissions:
+      contents: write
+      metadata: read

The configurable scopes are as follows:

Item Description Data Type
repositories Repository names string[]
repositoryIds Repository IDs int[]
permissions Permissions. For settable permissions, refer to: GitHub Docs map[string]string

Duplicate Token Elimination

NOTE: This feature is a future idea that may be implemented.

GitHub App installation access tokens have a limit of 10 per hour for each combination of user * app * scope. If this limit is exceeded, the oldest token is revoked. Therefore, it's desirable not to create duplicate tokens with the same role.

To solve this limitation, if a token with the same combination already exists, it will be reused. The token for reuse is stored as a normal Secret. As a marker, the type is set to tokenaut.appthrust.io/access-token-cache.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: github-app-access-token-{random}
  namespace: default
  annotations:
    tokenaut.appthrust.io/repositories: '["foo","bar"]'
    tokenaut.appthrust.io/repository-ids: '[123,456]'
    tokenaut.appthrust.io/permissions: '{"contents":"write","metadata":"read"}'
type: tokenaut.appthrust.io/access-token-cache
stringData:
  token: "ghs_16C7e42F292c6912E7710c838347Ae178B4a"

NOTE: This design guarantees duplicate elimination at the cluster level. It does not consider eliminating duplicates across multiple clusters or between a cluster and non-Kubernetes systems. This design may be revisited from scratch.

Token Refresh Frequency

GitHub App installation access tokens have a lifespan of 1 hour. The controller refreshes all tokens at a frequency of 50 minutes. This is to ensure that the token is always valid and to avoid the token becoming invalid during the update process. If you need to change the update frequency, you can specify -token-refresh-interval in the controller's command line arguments.

Manual Trigger for Token Update

You might want to update a token manually without waiting for an hour. In such cases, you can prompt the controller to update by making a change to the InstallationAccessToken object, such as changing its metadata.annotations.

Status

The status of an InstallationAccessToken includes the following information, which can be used for operational reference or automation:

status:
  conditions:
    - type: Token
      status: "True"
      reason: Created
      message: "Token successfully created"
      lastTransitionTime: "2023-04-01T12:00:00Z"
    - type: Secret
      status: "True"
      reason: Updated
      message: "Secret successfully created/updated"
      lastTransitionTime: "2023-04-01T12:00:05Z"
    - type: Ready
      status: "True"
      reason: AllReady
      message: "InstallationAccessToken is ready for use"
      lastTransitionTime: "2023-04-01T12:00:05Z"
  secretRef:
    name: "our-github-token"
    namespace: "default"
  token:
    expiresAt: "2023-04-01T13:00:00Z"
    permissions:
      issues: "write"
      contents: "read"
    repositorySelection: "selected"
    repositories:
      - "octocat/Hello-World"
    repositoryIds:
      - 1296269

Conditions

type=Token

Status Reason Message Description
True Created Token successfully created Token was successfully created
False Failed Failed to create token: {error_message} Failed to create token. Includes error message
Unknown Pending Token creation in progress Token creation is in progress

type=Secret

Status Reason Message Description
True Updated Secret successfully created/updated Secret resource was successfully created or updated
False Failed Failed to create/update Secret: {error_message} Failed to create or update Secret resource. Includes error message
Unknown Pending Secret creation/update in progress Secret resource creation or update is in progress

type=Ready

Status Reason Message Description
True AllReady InstallationAccessToken is ready for use Token has been generated and Secret resource has been successfully created/updated
False TokenNotReady Token is not ready: {reason} Token is not in a usable state. Includes reason
False SecretNotReady Secret is not ready: {reason} Secret resource is not in a usable state. Includes reason
False InvalidConfiguration Invalid configuration: {details} Resource configuration is invalid. Includes details
Unknown Pending Resource reconciliation in progress Resource reconciliation is in progress

Secret Deletion

When an InstallationAccessToken is deleted, the associated Secret is automatically deleted as well. This ensures that no orphaned Secrets are left in the cluster after an InstallationAccessToken is removed.

The deletion process follows these steps:

  1. When an InstallationAccessToken is marked for deletion, the controller initiates the cleanup process.
  2. The controller attempts to delete the associated Secret, as specified in the InstallationAccessToken's status.
  3. If the Secret deletion is successful or the Secret is not found (possibly already deleted), the controller proceeds with removing the InstallationAccessToken.
  4. If there's an error during the Secret deletion (other than "not found"), the controller will retry the operation.

This automatic cleanup ensures that your cluster remains tidy and that sensitive information (the access token) is properly removed when it's no longer needed.

Note: Ensure that the controller has the necessary permissions to delete Secrets in the relevant namespaces. If you're using InstallationAccessTokens across different namespaces, you may need to adjust your RBAC settings accordingly.

Secret Metadata

To improve the manageability and traceability of Secrets created by tokenaut, we've implemented additional metadata for these Secrets. This metadata helps operators easily identify which Secrets are managed by tokenaut and track their relationship to InstallationAccessTokens.

Labels

Each Secret created by tokenaut includes the following labels:

  • app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: tokenaut: Indicates that this Secret is managed by tokenaut.
  • tokenaut.appthrust.io/installation-access-token: <namespace>.<name>: Identifies the specific InstallationAccessToken resource that this Secret is associated with, including its namespace to ensure uniqueness across the cluster.

Annotations

The following annotations are added to each Secret:

  • tokenaut.appthrust.io/last-updated: Timestamp of when the Secret was last updated.
  • tokenaut.appthrust.io/app-id: The GitHub App ID associated with this Secret.
  • tokenaut.appthrust.io/installation-id: The GitHub App Installation ID associated with this Secret.
  • tokenaut.appthrust.io/source-namespace: The namespace of the source InstallationAccessToken.
  • tokenaut.appthrust.io/source-name: The name of the source InstallationAccessToken.

Use Cases

These metadata additions enable several useful operations:

  1. List all Secrets managed by tokenaut:

    kubectl get secrets -l app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=tokenaut

  2. Find the Secret associated with a specific InstallationAccessToken:

    kubectl get secrets -l tokenaut.appthrust.io/installation-access-token=<namespace>.<name>

  3. View detailed information about a Secret, including its associated GitHub App and InstallationAccessToken:

    kubectl describe secret <secret-name>

  4. Find all Secrets associated with a specific GitHub App:

    kubectl get secrets -o json | jq '.items[] | select(.metadata.annotations."tokenaut.appthrust.io/app-id"=="<app-id>")'

  5. Find all Secrets from a specific namespace's InstallationAccessTokens:

    kubectl get secrets -o json | jq '.items[] | select(.metadata.annotations."tokenaut.appthrust.io/source-namespace"=="<namespace>")'

These metadata additions make it easier for operators to manage and track the Secrets created by tokenaut, enhancing the overall observability and maintainability of the system.

Best Practices

Annotating the GitHub App Private Key Secret

When creating the github-app-private-key Secret, it's beneficial to include additional metadata as annotations. While the privateKey field is the only required data, adding extra information can greatly improve key management and traceability. Consider including the following annotations:

  • sha256: The SHA256 fingerprint of the private key
  • created-at: The creation date of the private key
  • github-app-url: The URL of the GitHub App

Here's an example of how to create the Secret with these annotations:

 apiVersion: v1
 kind: Secret
 metadata:
   name: github-app-private-key
   namespace: default
+  annotations:
+    example.com/sha256: 6Bh3506/pnTDWJ/YxCU22p5RZgx7NDvoPfy7UMEXsJ8=
+    example.com/created-at: 2024-04-01T12:00:00Z
+    example.com/github-app-url: https://github.com/organizations/your-org/settings/apps/your-app-slug
 type: tokenaut.appthrust.io/private-key
 stringData:
   privateKey: |
     -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
     ...
     -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Benefits of this approach:

  1. Easy Identification: The SHA256 fingerprint is displayed in the GitHub UI, making it easy to match the Secret with the correct key in your GitHub App settings.
  2. Auditing: The creation date helps track when the key was generated, useful for key rotation policies and auditing.
  3. Simplified Maintenance: These annotations make it easier to manage multiple keys or troubleshoot issues related to key expiration or mismatch.
  4. Clear Association: The GitHub App URL provides a direct link to the associated app, eliminating any ambiguity about which app the key belongs to.

By following this practice, you can significantly improve the manageability and traceability of your GitHub App private keys within your Kubernetes cluster. The added GitHub App URL annotation ensures that you can quickly navigate to the correct app settings, which is particularly helpful when managing multiple GitHub Apps or in large organizations.

Troubleshooting

Error: "Failed to create token: unexpected status code: 401: A JSON web token could not be decoded"

If you encounter this error, it typically means that the GitHub App's private key is incorrect, and GitHub is rejecting the attempt to issue a token with an invalid JWT.

To resolve this issue:

  1. Verify that the GitHub App's private key is correctly stored in the Secret resource.
  2. Double-check that you've copied the entire private key, including the -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- and -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY----- lines.
  3. If the problem persists, try regenerating a new private key for your GitHub App and update the Secret accordingly.

Remember to always keep your private key secure and never expose it in your code or version control systems.

Development Guide

Publishing the tokenaut Image to Quay.io

Prerequisites

  • Docker is installed
  • Docker Buildx is enabled
  • You have a Quay.io account

Important Notes

  • The tokenaut repository on Quay.io is public.
  • Currently, the build and push process is not automated. Follow these steps to build and push locally.

Steps

  1. Log in to Quay.io

    docker login quay.io

    Enter your Quay.io username and password when prompted.

  2. Build multi-architecture image

    make docker-buildx IMG=quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:<version>

    Example: make docker-buildx IMG=quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:v0.1.0

    This command builds images for both ARM64 and AMD64 architectures.

  3. Verify the image

    docker buildx imagetools inspect quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:<version>

    Example: docker buildx imagetools inspect quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:v0.1.0

    This command checks the manifest and supported architectures of the built image.

  4. Push the image

    make docker-push IMG=quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:<version>

    Example: make docker-push IMG=quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:v0.1.0

    This command pushes the multi-architecture image to Quay.io.

  5. Update the latest tag

    docker tag quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:<version> quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:latest
docker push quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:latest

    Example:

    docker tag quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:v0.1.0 quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:latest
docker push quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut:latest

    This updates the latest tag to point to the new version.

  6. Verify on Quay.io web interface Log in to the Quay.io website and check the appthrust/tokenaut repository. Confirm that the newly pushed tags (specified version and latest) are displayed.

Helm Chart Release Process

This guide outlines the steps to release the tokenaut Helm chart to quay.io.

Important Note: Ideally, the Helm Chart release process should be automated. However, as of now, the automation is not yet in place. Therefore, developers need to follow this manual process on their local environment. In the future, we aim to integrate this process into our CI/CD pipeline for automation.

Prerequisites

  • Access to the appthrust organization on quay.io

Release Steps

  1. Update Version Open the chart/Chart.yaml file and update the version field:

    version: X.Y.Z  # Update to the new version number

    Also update the appVersion if necessary.

  2. Package the Chart

    helm package ./chart

    This will generate a tokenaut-X.Y.Z.tgz file.

  3. Login to quay.io

    helm registry login quay.io

    Enter your quay.io credentials when prompted.

  4. Push the Chart

    helm push tokenaut-X.Y.Z.tgz oci://quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut-helm

  5. Verify the Push Check the tokenaut-helm repository in the appthrust organization on quay.io to ensure the new version was pushed correctly.

  6. Test Installation Install the newly released chart in a test environment to verify it functions correctly:

    helm install test-tokenaut oci://quay.io/appthrust/tokenaut-helm/tokenaut --version X.Y.Z