Authentication
Authentication is about proving your identity. You might see or hear it shortened to authN, pronounced “auth en”.
Credentials are at the heart of authentication, and all requests to the API server include credentials. It’s the responsibility of the authentication layer to verify them. If verification fails, the API server returns an HTTP 401 and denies the request. If it succeeds, the request moves on to authorization.
The authentication layer in Kubernetes is pluggable, and popular modules include client certs, webhooks, and integration with external identity management systems such as Active Directory (AD) and cloud-based Identity Access Management (IAM). In fact, Kubernetes does not have its own built-in identity database. Instead, it forces you to use an external system. This avoids creating yet another identity management silo.
Out-of-the-box, most Kubernetes clusters support client certificates, but you’ll want to integrate with your...
