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More Info:

The kubelet.conf kubeconfig file should be owned by root:root so only privileged users can access the kubelets API credentials. Incorrect ownership could expose those credentials.

Risk Level

Medium

Address

Security

Compliance Standards

  • CIS Kubernetes

Triage and Remediation

Remediation

Manual Steps

  1. On every worker node, check current ownership of the kubelet kubeconfig file:
  2. On every worker node, if ownership is not root:root, change it:
  3. On every worker node, ensure correct permissions are also set (optional but recommended: read/write for root only):
  4. On every worker node, verify the ownership is now correct:
kubectl cannot modify file ownership on nodes, so it cannot be used to fix /etc/kubernetes/kubelet.conf permissions. This change must be made directly on every worker node’s host filesystem; follow the guidance in the Manual Steps section to apply and verify the fix.