# Role Based Access Control (RBAC) - NGINX Ingress Controller

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# Role Based Access Control (RBAC)

## Overview

This example applies to nginx-ingress-controllers being deployed in an environment with RBAC enabled.

Role Based Access Control is comprised of four layers:

1. `ClusterRole` - permissions assigned to a role that apply to an entire cluster
2. `ClusterRoleBinding` - binding a ClusterRole to a specific account
3. `Role` - permissions assigned to a role that apply to a specific namespace
4. `RoleBinding` - binding a Role to a specific account

In order for RBAC to be applied to an nginx-ingress-controller, that controller should be assigned to a `ServiceAccount`. That `ServiceAccount` should be bound to the `Role`s and `ClusterRole`s defined for the nginx-ingress-controller.

## Service Accounts created in this example

One ServiceAccount is created in this example, `nginx-ingress-serviceaccount`.

## Permissions Granted in this example

There are two sets of permissions defined in this example. Cluster-wide permissions defined by the `ClusterRole` named `nginx-ingress-clusterrole`, and namespace specific permissions defined by the `Role` named `nginx-ingress-role`.

### Cluster Permissions

These permissions are granted in order for the nginx-ingress-controller to be able to function as an ingress across the cluster. These permissions are granted to the ClusterRole named `nginx-ingress-clusterrole`

- `configmaps`, `endpoints`, `nodes`, `pods`, `secrets`: list, watch
- `nodes`: get
- `services`, `ingresses`: get, list, watch
- `events`: create, patch
- `ingresses/status`: update

### Namespace Permissions

These permissions are granted specific to the nginx-ingress namespace. These permissions are granted to the Role named `nginx-ingress-role`

- `configmaps`, `pods`, `secrets`: get
- `endpoints`: get

Furthermore to support leader-election, the nginx-ingress-controller needs to have access to a `configmap` using the resourceName `ingress-controller-leader-nginx`

> Note that resourceNames can NOT be used to limit requests using the “create” verb because authorizers only have access to information that can be obtained from the request URL, method, and headers (resource names in a “create” request are part of the request body).

- `configmaps`: get, update (for resourceName `ingress-controller-leader-nginx`)
- `configmaps`: create

This resourceName is the concatenation of the `election-id` and the `ingress-class` as defined by the ingress-controller, which defaults to:

- `election-id`: `ingress-controller-leader`
- `ingress-class`: `nginx`
- `resourceName` : `<election-id>-<ingress-class>`

Please adapt accordingly if you overwrite either parameter when launching the nginx-ingress-controller.

### Bindings

The ServiceAccount `nginx-ingress-serviceaccount` is bound to the Role `nginx-ingress-role` and the ClusterRole `nginx-ingress-clusterrole`.

The serviceAccountName associated with the containers in the deployment must match the serviceAccount. The namespace references in the Deployment metadata, container arguments, and POD_NAMESPACE should be in the nginx-ingress namespace.