Chapter 1. Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes 3.73
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes (RHACS) is an enterprise-ready, Kubernetes-native container security solution that protects your vital applications across build, deploy, and runtime stages of the application lifecycle. It deploys in your infrastructure and integrates with your DevOps tools and workflows to deliver better security and compliance and to enable DevOps and InfoSec teams to operationalize security.
RHACS version | Released on |
---|---|
| 6 December 2022 |
| 19 December 2022 |
| 6 February 2023 |
| 6 March 2023 |
| 11 April 2023 |
| 31 May 2023 |
1.1. About this release
RHACS 3.73 includes:
- Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security Cloud Service (Field Trial)
- Improved Vulnerability management dashboard for ACSCS users
- PostgreSQL database option (Technology Preview)
- Build-time Kubernetes network policy generator (Technology Preview)
- Feature enhancements and bug fixes
1.2. New features
1.2.1. Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security Cloud Service
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security Cloud Service (ACSCS) is a Red Hat managed service that simplifies and accelerates RHACS deployments.
ACSCS is available as a Field Trial release. A Field Trial provides approved customers access to Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security Cloud Service for trial purposes. For more information, contact Red Hat Sales.
With ACSCS, Red Hat hosts and maintains your RHACS Central instance. Red Hat assures high availability of your instance with an industry-standard service level agreement (SLA). After launching an ACSCS instance, you can connect your secured clusters and image repositories, and configure integrations to secure your hybrid Kubernetes infrastructure across Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
For more information and to try ACSCS, see Request early access to Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security Cloud Service.
The following new documentation topics are available for ACSCS installation:
The following documentation topics do not apply to ACSCS:
- Installing Central services for RHACS on Red Hat OpenShift
- Optional - Configuring Central configuration options for RHACS using the Operator
- Installing Central services for RHACS on other platforms
- Changing configuration options after deploying the central-services Helm charts
- Upgrading the Central cluster
- Enabling offline mode
- Exposing the RHACS portal over HTTP
- Configuring a proxy for external network access
- Configuring endpoints
- Monitoring with Prometheus
- Configuring OpenShift Container Platform OAuth server as an identity provider
- Backing up Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes
- Restoring from a backup
1.2.1.1. Improved Vulnerability management dashboard for ACSCS users
ACSCS includes a few updates in the vulnerability management dashboard in the RHACS portal. On-premise RHACS installations will eventually include these updates in future versions. ACSCS includes the following changes:
- The vulnerability management dashboard now groups Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) into Image CVEs, Node CVEs, and Platform CVEs categories. You can access these categories when you click CVEs on the Vulnerability Management view header. Or, when viewing a list of entities, these categories are listed under All entities.
In the Node CVEs and Image CVEs list views:
- A new Operating System column shows the base operating system of the image that contains the CVE.
- A new Severity column shows the severity of the package’s vulnerability in the operating system context. One CVE may have different severity levels depending on the operating system.
- Some CVEs may occur in more than one category. When you select the Defer and Approve option for a CVE from a specific category, that CVE gets deferred only for the selected category. For example, if a CVE applies to both Node CVEs and Image CVEs, when you defer that CVE from the Node CVEs category, it still appears in the Image CVEs category.
1.2.2. PostgreSQL database option (Technology Preview)
PostgreSQL support is a Technology Preview feature only. Technology Preview features are not supported with Red Hat production service level agreements (SLAs) and might not be functionally complete. Red Hat does not recommend using them in production. These features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process.
For more information about the support scope of Red Hat Technology Preview features, see Technology Preview Features Support Scope.
RHACS will use PostgreSQL as its backend database in the future, replacing the in-memory RocksDB database used today. This transition will be a part of a future release upgrade, with a fully-automated migration from the current architecture to PostgreSQL-based architecture.
With PostgreSQL, customers benefit from improved performance, standard database procedures for scaling the database, backup and restore, and recovery from a disaster using PostgreSQL database backups. In addition, you can use your existing PostgreSQL infrastructure to provision a PostgreSQL database for RHACS.
With RHACS version 3.73, the PostgreSQL option is available as a Technology Preview feature. If you are interested in participating in the Tech Preview program, Red Hat will work with you to manually migrate to PostgreSQL so that you can explore these benefits in a test environment before we release this feature. Contact your Red Hat account representative to participate.
When Red Hat releases this feature, PostgreSQL will become a requirement for RHACS, and you will not be able to upgrade RHACS without using PostgreSQL.
1.2.3. Build-time Kubernetes network policy generator (Technology Preview)
Build-time Kubernetes network policy generator is a Technology Preview feature only. Technology Preview features are not supported with Red Hat production service level agreements (SLAs) and might not be functionally complete. Red Hat does not recommend using them in production. These features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process.
For more information about the support scope of Red Hat Technology Preview features, see Technology Preview Features Support Scope.
RHACS 3.73 introduces a new build-time capability in the roxctl
command-line interface (CLI), to generate Kubernetes network policies based on Application YAML manifests. You can use it to develop network policies as part of the CI/CD pipeline before deploying applications on your cluster.
Red Hat developed this feature in partnership with the developers of the NP-Guard project. The build-time network policy generator analyzes Kubernetes manifests in a local folder, including service manifests, configuration maps and workload manifests such as Pod, Deployment, ReplicaSet, Job, DaemonSet, and StatefulSet. It discovers the required connectivity and creates the Kubernetes network policies to achieve pod isolation. These policies allow no more and no less than the needed ingress and egress traffic. For the build-time network policy generation feature, roxctl
CLI does not need to communicate with RHACS Central. Therefore you can use it in any development environment.
For more details, see Using build-time network policy generator.
1.3. Notable technical changes
- RHACS uses GraphQL internally to show data in the RHACS portal. However, Red Hat does not support querying RHACS using GraphQL. Instead, use the REST API queries to access data. The RHACS 3.73 release introduces some breaking changes in the existing GraphQL queries. If you are using GraphQL, see https://access.redhat.com/articles/6986289 and contact Red Hat Consulting.
-
Sensor no longer uses
anyuid
Security Context Constraint (SCC). Instead, the default SCC for Sensor is nowrestricted[-v2]
orstackrox-sensor
, depending on the settings. In addition, therunAsUser
andfsGroup
for the Admission control and Sensor deployments are no longer hard-coded to4000
on OpenShift clusters to allow using therestricted
andrestricted-v2
SCCs. (ROX-9342) The service account
central
, which the Central deployment uses, now includesget
andlist
access to the following resources in the namespace where you deploy Central:- pods
- events
- Namespaces
-
The CSV export API
/api/vm/export/csv
now requires theCVE Type
filter as part of the input query parameter. Requests that do not have the filter returns an error. Supported values forCVE Type
areIMAGE_CVE
,K8S_CVE
,ISTIO_CVE
,NODE_CVE
, andOPENSHIFT_CVE
.
1.4. Deprecated and removed features
Some features available in previous releases have been deprecated or removed.
Deprecated functionality is still included in RHACS and continues to be supported; however, it will be removed in a future release of this product and is not recommended for new deployments. For the most recent list of major functionality deprecated and removed, refer to the table below. Additional information about some removed or deprecated functionality is available after the table.
In the table, features are marked with the following statuses:
- GA: General Availability
- TP: Technology Preview
- DEP: Deprecated
- REM: Removed
- NA: Not applicable
Feature | RHACS 3.71 | RHACS 3.72 | RHACS 3.73 |
---|---|---|---|
RenamePolicyCategory and DeletePolicyCategory Application Programming Interface (API) endpoints | DEP | DEP | REM |
Support for violation tags and process tags | DEP | REM | NA |
Permissions: | DEP | DEP | REM |
Retrieving groups by property | DEP | DEP | REM |
| DEP | DEP | REM |
| DEP | DEP |
|
| DEP | DEP |
|
| DEP | DEP | REM |
Scanning support for Ubuntu 21.10 | GA | REM | NA |
Permission | GA | DEP | DEP |
| GA | DEP | DEP |
Environment variable | NA | NA | REM |
1.4.1. Removed features
This section provides additional information about some of the removed features listed in the previous table.
-
The
ROX_WHITELIST_GENERATION_DURATION
environment variable is removed in the RHACS 3.73 release. You can useROX_BASELINE_GENERATION_DURATION
instead. -
Red Hat has removed
whitelist_statuses
from the response of the/v1/deploymentswithprocessinfo
endpoint. -
The
ids
field in the/v1/cves/suppress
and/v1/cves/unsuppress
API payload is renamed tocves
in the RHACS 3.73 release. -
The
cves.ids
field of thestorage.VulnerabilityRequest
object in the response ofVulnerabilityRequestService
endpoints is renamed tocves.cves
in the RHACS 3.73 release. -
For the
/v1/groups
endpoint, you can no longer use the Get, Update, Mutate, and Remove functions without specifying a value forprops.id
field when using theprops
field. (ROX-11592) -
Red Hat has removed the
ComplianceRunSchedule
resource, which RHACS did not use. Red Hat has simplified the RHACS access permissions. The following list describes the new permissions and indicates the removed permissions in the RHACS 3.73.0 release:
-
The
Access
permission replaces theAuthPlugin
,AuthProvider
,Group
,Licenses
,Role
, andUser
permissions. -
The
DeploymentExtension
permission replaces theIndicator
,NetworkBaseline
,ProcessWhitelist
, andRisk
permissions. -
The
Integration
permission deprecates theAPIToken
,BackupPlugins
,ImageIntegration
,Notifier
, andSignatureIntegration
permissions. -
The
Image
permission replaces theImageComponent
permission.
-
The
-
Central reaches out to Scanner on the
scanner.<namespace>.svc
endpoint instead ofscanner.<namespace>
to respect OpenShift Container Platform’sNO_PROXY
configuration. If you are usingNO_PROXY
and you experience connectivity issues for image scanning, add*.svc
orscanner.<namespace>.svc
to yourNO_PROXY
configuration. (ROX-13034) Label
andAnnotation
search options are removed in the RHACS 3.73 release. They are replaced by the search options listed in the following table:Table 1.3. Search options Resource Deprecated search option New search option Node
Label
Node Label
Node
Annotation
Node Annotation
Namespace
Label
Namespace Label
Deployment
Label
Deployment Label
ServiceAccount
Label
Service Account Label
ServiceAccount
Annotation
Service Account Annotation
K8sRole
Label
Role Binding Label
K8sRoleAnnotation
Annotation
Role Binding Annotation
1.4.2. Deprecated features
The following list describes the new permissions and indicates the deprecated permissions that will be removed in a future release:
-
New permission
Administration
will deprecate the permissionsAllComments
,Config
,DebugLogs
,NetworkGraphConfig
,ProbeUpload
,ScannerBundle
,ScannerDefinitions
,SensorUpgradeConfig
, andServiceIdentity
. -
The permission
Compliance
will deprecate the permissionComplianceRuns
.
1.4.3. Notice of upcoming in-product docs removal
Beginning in the RHACS 3.74 release, Red Hat will remove the in-product docs accessible from the help menu. If you are using the in-product docs, you can instead download the required documentation in PDF format from Red Hat Customer Portal. (link:ROX-12839)
1.5. Known issues
ACSCS: PKI authentication for user certificates is not supported in this release.
1.6. Bug fixes
1.6.1. Resolved in version 3.73.0
-
Previously, if you were using StackRox Kubernetes Security Platform - Splunk Technology Add-on, results for the
ocp4-cis-node
compliance standard was missing from Splunk. The Splunk integration now includes theocp4-cis-node
compliance standard results. (ROX-11937) -
Previously, Central failed on the
v1 CronJob
deployment YAML check. This issue is fixed. (ROX-13500) -
Previously, when you rebooted the OpenShift Container Platform cluster
scanner-db
pod would get stuck in theinit
state. This issue is fixed. (ROX-12556)
1.6.2. Resolved in version 3.73.1
-
Previously, after upgrading to RHACS 3.73.0, the Central pod entered a
CrashLoopBackOff
state because of a failing readiness probe. The patch release 3.73.1 fixes this issue. - The patch release 3.73.1 fixes an issue where the Compliance dashboard in the RHACS portal failed to load compliance results.
1.6.3. Resolved in version 3.73.2
- The patch release 3.73.2 fixes an issue where Central crashed during the migration from rocksDB to PostgreSQL. (ROX-14469)
-
Because of an issue in RHACS Operator versions 3.73.0 and 3.73.1, when you tried to update, the Operator incorrectly removed the
metadata.ownerReferences
field on the central PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC), and you could not update Central and Scanner. The patch release 3.73.2 fixes this issue. (ROX-14335)
1.6.4. Resolved in version 3.73.3
Release date: 6 March 2023
- This release of RHACS fixes CVE-2022-47629 in the Docker base image.
- Before this update, RHACS did not show runtime data when the secured cluster was running OpenShift Container Platform 4.12. For more information, refer to the Red Hat Knowledgebase article RHACS is not showing runtime data. This issue is now fixed.
- Previously, due to an issue with the alert reconciliation workflow, Central could crash when reconciling stored and new runtime policy violations. RHACS now logs an error when an unexpected runtime process alert occurs. (ROX-15198)
1.6.5. Resolved in version 3.73.4
Release date: 11 April 2023
- This release of RHACS includes a fix for RHSA-2023:1405 OpenSSL security update for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.
1.6.6. Resolved in version 3.73.5
Release date: 31 May 2023
- This release of RHACS includes a fix for CVE-2023-24540 by building RHACS with updated Golang.
1.7. Image versions
Image | Description | Current version |
---|---|---|
Main |
Includes Central, Sensor, Admission controller, and Compliance. Also includes |
|
Scanner | Scans images and nodes. |
|
Scanner DB | Stores image scan results and vulnerability definitions. |
|
Collector | Collects runtime activity in Kubernetes or OpenShift Container Platform clusters. |
|