More Info:
Ensure that the kubelet service file has permissions of 644 or more restrictiveRisk Level
MediumAddress
SecurityCompliance Standards
- CIS Kubernetes
Triage and Remediation
- Remediation
Remediation
Manual Steps
Manual Steps
-
On every worker node, check the current permissions of the kubelet service file:
-
On every worker node, set the permissions to 644 (owner read/write, group read, others read):
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(Optional but recommended) Confirm ownership is root:root to avoid unexpected access:
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On every worker node, reload systemd so it recognizes any unit file permission/metadata changes:
-
Verify the permissions are now compliant on every worker node:
The output must show:
Using kubectl
Using kubectl
kubectl cannot modify host-level systemd unit files such as
/etc/systemd/system/kubelet.service.d/10-kubeadm.conf on worker nodes. To remediate this finding, you must change file permissions directly on each worker node over SSH; see the Manual Steps section for the exact commands.Automation
Automation
- Copy this script to a file, e.g.
/usr/local/sbin/fix-kubelet-perms.sh. - Make it executable:
- Run on every worker node:

