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Ensure that the controller manager pod specification file ownership is set to root:root.

Risk Level

Medium

Address

Security

Compliance Standards

  • CIS Kubernetes

Triage and Remediation

Remediation

Manual Steps

  1. On every control plane node, confirm the controller manager manifest exists and check its current ownership:
  2. On every control plane node, set the file owner and group to root:
  3. (Optional) On every control plane node, ensure any configuration management or bootstrap scripts (if present) also set the correct ownership so it is not reverted. For example, inspect for references:
  4. Be aware that editing files under /etc/kubernetes/manifests can trigger a restart of the corresponding static pod, but changing ownership only should not modify the pod content. Proceed during a maintenance window if your change process requires it.
  5. On every control plane node, verify the ownership is now root:root:
    The output must be:
Kubectl cannot modify host-level file ownership for /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-controller-manager.yaml; this must be corrected directly on every control plane node via OS tools (for example, chown). See the Manual Steps section for the exact commands to run on the nodes.

Additional Reading: