vmware-system-user account expired on TKGS Guest Cluster nodes

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere with Tanzu

Issue/Introduction

This article provides a daemonset that can be applied on Guest Clusters to update the vmware-system-user password expiry, allowing SSH sessions to Guest Cluster nodes if required

Symptoms:

• Users are unable to connect via SSH directly to TKGS Guest Cluster nodes using vmware-system-user account
• TKR 1.23.8 vmware-system-user password is set to expire in 60 days as part of STIG Hardening.
• While this is implemented as part of Security Hardening this impacts the ssh login to the nodes once the password has expired.

 

 

Environment

VMware vSphere 7.0 with Tanzu

Resolution

Change the vmware-system-user password expiry on Existing Clusters using the following daemonset:

 

1. Create a yaml file called pass_expiry.yaml using the following command, copy from cat <<EOF>> until the EOF line at the bottom:
   
   

   # cat <<EOF>> pass_expiry.yaml
   ---
   apiVersion: apps/v1
   kind: DaemonSet
   metadata:
     name: cluster-admin
   spec:
     selector:
       matchLabels:
         tkgs: cluster-admin
     template:
       metadata:
         labels:
           tkgs: cluster-admin
       spec:
         volumes:
           - name: hostfs
             hostPath:
               path: /
         initContainers:
           - name: init
             image: ubuntu:23.04
             command:
               - /bin/sh
               - -xc
               - |
                 chroot /host chage -l vmware-system-user \
                 && chroot /host chage -m 0 -M -1 vmware-system-user \
                 && echo expiry updated \
                 && chroot /host chage -l vmware-system-user \
                 && echo done
             volumeMounts:
               - name: hostfs
                 mountPath: /host
         containers:
           - name: sleep
             image: localhost:5000/vmware.io/pause:3.6
         tolerations:
         - effect: NoSchedule
           key: node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane
           operator: Exists
         - effect: NoSchedule
           key: node-role.kubernetes.io/master
           operator: Exists
         - key: CriticalAddonsOnly
           operator: Exists
         - effect: NoExecute
           key: node.alpha.kubernetes.io/notReady
           operator: Exists
         - effect: NoExecute
           key: node.alpha.kubernetes.io/unreachable
           operator: Exists
         - effect: NoSchedule
           key: kubeadmNode
           operator: Equal
           value: master
   EOF

   
   
   This will create a yaml file called pass_expiry.yaml which we can apply to the Guest Cluster.
   
   
   
2. Use the kubectl vsphere login command to log into your Guest Cluster:
   
   
   # kubectl vsphere login --insecure-skip-tls-verify --server <SUPERVISOR_VIP> --tanzu-kubernetes-cluster-namespace <GUEST_CLUSTER_NAMESPACE> --tanzu-kubernetes-cluster-name <GUEST_CLUSTER_NAME>
   
   
   
3. Apply the daemonset yaml created in Step 1:
   
   
   # kubectl apply -f pass_expiry.yaml

*Important*:

In newer TKC versions supported on vSphere 7.x and 8.x, the DaemonSet fails to configure the vmware-system-user account to never expire on the control plane (master) nodes.

To resolve this, the toleration for running on the control plane nodes was updated as follows:

  - effect: "NoSchedule"
    key: "node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane"
    operator: "Exists"
    

The control plane node is tainted with the node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane key, rather than being specifically tainted as a master node. All other tolerations are left unchanged.