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Secure Internal Authentication with X.509

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This guide instructs you on how to configure:

  • X.509 internal authentication between MongoDB nodes in each cluster in your multi-Kubernetes-cluster deployments.
  • X.509 authentication from clients to your MongoDB instances.

Prerequisites

Before you secure your multi-Kubernetes-cluster deployment using TLS encryption, complete the following tasks:

Enabling X.509 authentication at the project level configures all agents to use X.509 client authentication when communicating with MongoDB deployments.

X.509 client authentication requires one of the following:

  • Cloud Manager
  • Ops Manager 5.0.7 or later

Configure X.509 Internal Authentication for a MongoDBMulti Resource

1

Create the secret for your agent’s X.509 certificate of your MongoDBMulti custom resource.

Run the kubectl command to create a new secret that stores the agent’s X.509 certificate:

copy 
kubectl --context $MDB_CENTRAL_CLUSTER_FULL_NAME \
  --namespace=<metadata.namespace> \
create secret tls <prefix>-<metadata.name>-agent-certs \
  --cert=<agent-tls-cert> \
  --key=<agent-tls-key>
2

Create the secret for the member cluster’s internal X.509 certificate.

Run the kubectl command to create a new secret that stores the internal cluster member’s X.509 certificate. The member clusters are defined in your MongoDBMulti custom resource.

copy 
kubectl --context $MDB_CENTRAL_CLUSTER_FULL_NAME \
  --namespace=<metadata.namespace> \
create secret tls <prefix>-<metadata.name>-clusterfile \
  --cert=<resource-clusterfile-tls-cert> \
  --key=<resource-clusterfile-tls-key>
3

Update your MongoDBMulti custom resource to enable X509 authentication.

Update your MongoDB multi-cluster resource with security settings from the Kubernetes Operator MongoDB resource specification. Add the internalCluster setting, under spec.authentication, and set it to "X509". The resulting configuration should look as follows:

copy 
apiVersion: mongodb.com/v1
kind: MongoDBMulti
metadata:
 name: multi-replica-set
spec:
 version: 5.0.0-ent
 type: ReplicaSet
 persistent: false
 duplicateServiceObjects: true
 credentials: my-credentials
 opsManager:
   configMapRef:
     name: my-project
 security:
   tls:
     ca: custom-ca
   certsSecretPrefix: <prefix>
 authentication:
   enabled: true
   modes: ["X509"]
   agents:
     mode: "X509"
   internalCluster: "X509"
 clusterSpecList:
   clusterSpecs:
   - clusterName: ${MDB_CLUSTER_1_FULL_NAME}
     members: 3
   - clusterName: ${MDB_CLUSTER_2_FULL_NAME}
     members: 2
   - clusterName: ${MDB_CLUSTER_3_FULL_NAME}
     members: 3

The Kubernetes Operator copies the ConfigMap with the CA created in the central cluster to each member cluster, generates a concatenated PEM secret, and distributes it to the member clusters.

4

Verify that the MDB resources are running.

  1. For member clusters, run the following commands to verify that the MongoDB Pods are in the running state:

    copy 
    kubectl get pods \
 --context=$MDB_CLUSTER_1_FULL_NAME \
 --namespace mongodb
    copy 
    kubectl get pods \
 --context=$MDB_CLUSTER_2_FULL_NAME \
 --namespace mongodb
    copy 
    kubectl get pods \
 --context=$MDB_CLUSTER_3_FULL_NAME \
 --namespace mongodb

  2. In the central cluster, run the following commands to verify that the MongoDBMulti custom resource is in the running state:

    copy 
    kubectl --context=$MDB_CENTRAL_CLUSTER_FULL_NAME \
  --namespace mongodb \
  get mdbm multi-replica-set -o yaml -w

Renew Internal Authentication X.509 Certificates for a MongoDBMulti Resource

If you have already created certificates, we recommend that you renew them periodically using the following procedure.

1

Renew the secret for a MongoDBMulti resource.

Run this kubectl command to renew an existing secret that stores the MongoDBMulti resource’s certificates:

copy 
kubectl --context $MDB_CENTRAL_CLUSTER_FULL_NAME \
--namespace=<metadata.namespace> \
create secret tls <prefix>-<metadata.name>-cert \
--cert=<resource-tls-cert> \
--key=<resource-tls-key> \
--dry-run=client \
-o yaml |
kubectl apply -f -
2

Renew the secret for your agent’s X.509 certificates.

Run the kubectl command to renew an existing secret that stores the MongoDBMulti resource’s agent certificates:

copy 
kubectl --context $MDB_CENTRAL_CLUSTER_FULL_NAME \
  --namespace=<metadata.namespace> \
create secret tls <prefix>-<metadata.name>-agent-certs \
  --cert=<agent-tls-cert> \
  --key=<agent-tls-key> \
  --dry-run=client \
  -o yaml | kubectl apply -f -
3

Renew the secret for internal members’s X.509 certificates of the MongoDBMulti resource.

Run the kubectl command to renew an existing secret that stores X.509 certificates for internal members of the MongoDBMulti resource:

copy 
kubectl --context $MDB_CENTRAL_CLUSTER_FULL_NAME \
  --namespace=<metadata.namespace> \
create secret tls <prefix>-<metadata.name>-clusterfile \
  --cert=<resource-clusterfile-tls-cert> \
   --key=<resource-clusterfile-tls-key> \
   --dry-run=client \
   -o yaml | kubectl apply -f -

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