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Prisma Cloud Administrator’s Guide (Compute)

Kubernetes

Table of Contents

Kubernetes

This topic helps you install Prisma Cloud in your Kubernetes cluster quickly. There are many ways to install Prisma Cloud, but use this workflow to quickly deploy Defenders and verify how information is accessible from the Prisma Cloud Console. After completing this procedure, you can modify the installation to match your needs.

To better understand clusters, read our cluster context topic.

To deploy Prisma Cloud Defenders, you use the command-line utility called , which is bundled with the Prisma Cloud software. The process has the following steps to give you full control over the created objects.

The twistcli utility generates YAML configuration files or Helm charts for the Defender.

You create the required objects in your cluster with the kubectl create command.

You can inspect, customize, and manage the YAML configuration files or Helm charts before deploying the Prisma Cloud Console and Defender. You can place the files or charts under source control to track changes, to integrate them with Continuos Integration and Continuos Development (CI/CD) pipelines, and to enable effective collaboration.

Each Prisma Cloud Defender is deployed as a DaemonSet to ensure that a Prisma Cloud Defender instance runs on each worker node of your cluster.

Prerequisites

To deploy your Defenders smoothly, you must meet the following requirements.

You have a valid Prisma Cloud license key and access token.

You have a valid access key and secret key created for the admin user inside Prisma Cloud

You provisioned a Kubernetes cluster that meets the minimum system requirements and runs a supported Kubernetes version.

You set up a Linux or macOS system to control your cluster, and you can access the cluster using the kubectl command-line utility.

The nodes in your cluster can reach Prisma Cloud’s cloud registry at registry-auth.twistlock.com.

Your cluster uses any of the following runtimes. For more information about the runtimes that Prisma Cloud supports, see the system requirements.

Docker Engine

CRI-O

CRI-containerd

Install the Prisma Cloud command-line utility called twistcli, which is bundled with the Prisma Cloud software. You use twistcli to deploy the Defenders.

Required Permissions

You can create and delete namespaces in your cluster.

You can run the kubectl create command.

Required Firewall and Port Configuration

Open the following ports in your firewall.

Ports for the Prisma Cloud Defenders
:

Incoming: None

Outgoing: 443

Install the Prisma Cloud Command-Line Utility

To use Prisma Cloud as part of your Kubernetes deployment, you need the twistcli command-line utility and the Prisma Cloud Defenders.

Use the twistcli command-line utility to deploy the Prisma Cloud Defenders in your Kubernetes cluster.

The twistcli utility is included with every Prisma Cloud release.

Ensure that your cluster configuration allows the Defenders to connect to the Prisma Cloud Console service. The Defenders connect to the Prisma Cloud Console service using a websocket over port 443 to retrieve policies and send data.

Install the Prisma Cloud Defender

To install the Prisma Cloud Defender, deploy the Defenders as DaemonSet custom resources. This approach ensures that a Defender instance runs on every node in the cluster. To deploy the Prisma Cloud Defender, use a macOS or Linux cluster controller with kubectl enabled and follow these steps:

Use the twistcli command-line utility to generate the DaemonSet YAML configuration file for the Defender.

Deploy the generated custom resource with kubectl.

This approach is called declarative object management. It allows you to work directly with the YAML configuration files. The benefit is that you get the full source code for the custom resources you create in your cluster, and you can use a version control tool to manage and track modifications. With YAML configuration files under version control, you can delete and reliably recreate DaemonSets in your environment.

If you don’t have kubectl access to your cluster, you can deploy Defender DaemonSets directly from the Console UI.

This procedure shows you how to deploy Defender DaemonSets using the twistcli command-line utility and declarative object management. You can also generate the installation commands using the Prisma Cloud Console UI under Manage > Defenders > Deploy > Defenders
. Installation scripts are provided for Linux and MacOS workstations. Use the twistcli command-line utility to generate the Defender DaemonSet YAML configuration files from Windows workstations. Deploy the custom resources with kubectl following this procedure.

Get the PRISMA_CLOUD_COMPUTE_CONSOLE_URL value.

Sign into Prisma Cloud.

Go to Compute > Manage > System > Utilities
.

Copy the URL under Path to Console
.

Retrieve the hostname of the Prisma Cloud Console hostname to use as the value for PRISMA_CLOUD_COMPUTE_HOSTNAME.

The hostname can be derived from the URL by removing the protocol scheme and path. It is simply the host part of the URL. You can also retrieve the hostname directly by following Step 3-D below.

Generate the DaemonSet custom resource for the Defender.

Go to Compute > Manage > Defenders > Defenders: Deployed > Manual deploy
.

Select Orchestrator
.

Select Kubernetes
from Step 2: Choose the orchestrator type
.

Copy the hostname from Step 3: The name that Defender will use to connect to this Console
.

Generate the defender.yaml file using the following twistcli command with the described parameters.

$ <PLATFORM>./twistcli defender export kubernetes \
  --user <ADMIN_USER_ACCESS_KEY> \
  --address <PRISMA_CLOUD_COMPUTE_CONSOLE_URL> \
  --cluster-address <PRISMA_CLOUD_COMPUTE_HOSTNAME> \
  --container-runtime containerd

<PLATFORM> can be linux, osx, or windows.

<ADMIN_USER_ACCESS_KEY> is the access key of the Prisma Cloud user with the System Admin role.

<PRISMA_CLOUD_COMPUTE_CONSOLE_URL> specifies the address of the Prisma Cloud Compute Console.

<PRISMA_CLOUD_COMPUTE_HOSTNAME> specifies the address Defender uses to connect to Prisma Cloud Console. You can use the external IP address exposed by your load balancer or the DNS name that you manually set up.

Once you run the given command, after altering the fields for your environment, you will get a prompt requesting a password. The password is the secret key of the Prisma Cloud user with the System Admin role that you should have created as part of the prerequisite.

For provider managed clusters, Prisma Cloud automatically gets the cluster name from your cloud provider.

To override the cluster name used that your cloud provider has, use the --cluster option.

For self-managed clusters, such as those built with kops, manually specify a cluster name with the --cluster option.

When using the CRI-O or containerd runtimes, pass the --container-runtime crio or --container-runtime containerd flag to twistcli when you generate the YAML configuration file or the Helm chart.

When using an AWS Bottlerocket-based EKS cluster, pass the --container-runtime crio flag when creating the YAML file.

To use Defenders in GKE on ARM
, you must prepare your workloads.

Deploy the Defender DaemonSet custom resource.

$ kubectl create -f ./defender.yaml

In Prisma Cloud Compute, go to Manage > Defenders > Defenders: Deployed > Manual deploy
to see a list of deployed Defenders.

Install Prisma Cloud with Helm charts

You can use twistcli to create Helm charts for the Prisma Cloud Console and the Defenders. Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes, and a chart is a Helm package.

Follow the main install flow, with the following changes.

Pass the --helm_ option to _twistcli to generate a Helm chart. Don’t change the other options passed to twistcli since they configure the chart.

Deploy your Defender with the helm install command instead of kubectl create.

The following procedure shows the modified commands.

Create a Defender DaemonSet Helm chart.

$ <PLATFORM>./twistcli defender export kubernetes \
  --address https://yourconsole.example.com:8083 \
  --helm \
  --user <ADMIN_USER_ACCESS_KEY> \
  --cluster-address twistlock-console \
  --container-runtime containerd

Install the Defender.

$ helm install twistlock-defender-ds \
  --namespace twistlock \
  --create-namespace \
  ./twistlock-defender-helm.tar.gz

Install Prisma Cloud on a CRI (non-Docker) cluster

Deploy Defenders as DaemonSets

Kubernetes lets you set up a cluster with the container runtime of your choice. Prisma Cloud supports Docker Engine, CRI-O, and cri-containerd.

When generating the YAML file or Helm chat to deploy the Defender DaemonSet, you can select the Container Runtime type
on Console UI under Manage > Defenders > Defenders: Deployed > Manual deploy
.

Since Defenders need to have a view of other containers, this option is necessary to guide the communication.

If you use containerd on GKE, and you install Defender without selecting the CRI-O Container Runtime type
, everything will appear to work properly, but you’ll have no images or container scan reports in Monitor > Vulnerability
and Monitor > Compliance pages
and you’ll have no runtime models in Monitor > Runtime
. This happens because the Google Container Optimized Operating system (GCOOS) nodes have Docker Engine installed, but Kubernetes doesn’t use it. Defender thinks everything is OK because all of the integrations succeed, but the underlying runtime is actually different.

If you’re deploying Defender DaemonSets with twistcli, use the following flag with one of the container runtime types:

--container-runtime docker

--container-runtime crio

--container-runtime containerd

$ <PLATFORM>/twistcli defender export kubernetes \
  --container-runtime crio
  --address https://yourconsole.example.com:443 \
  --user <ADMIN_USER> \
  --cluster-address yourconsole.example.com

When generating YAML from Console or twistcli, there is a simple change to the yaml file as seen below.

In this abbreviated version DEFENDER_TYPE:daemonset will use the Docker interface.

...
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: twistlock-defender
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: twistlock-service
      restartPolicy: Always
      containers:
      - name: twistlock-defender-19-03-321
        image: registry-auth.twistlock.com/tw_<token>/twistlock/defender:defender_19_03_321
        volumeMounts:
        - name: host-root
          mountPath: "/host"
        - name: data-folder
          mountPath: "/var/lib/twistlock"
          ...
        env:
        - name: WS_ADDRESS
          value: wss://yourconsole.example.com:443
        - name: DEFENDER_TYPE
          value: daemonset
        - name: DEFENDER_LISTENER_TYPE
          value: "none"
          ...

In this abbreviated version DEFENDER_TYPE:cri will use the CRI.

...
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: twistlock-defender
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: twistlock-service
      restartPolicy: Always
      containers:
      - name: twistlock-defender-19-03-321
        image: registry-auth.twistlock.com/tw_<token>/twistlock/defender:defender_19_03_321
        volumeMounts:
        - name: host-root
          mountPath: "/host"
        - name: data-folder
          mountPath: "/var/lib/twistlock"
          ...
        env:
        - name: WS_ADDRESS
          value: wss://yourconsole.example.com:443
        - name: DEFENDER_TYPE
          value: cri
        - name: DEFENDER_LISTENER_TYPE
          value: "none"
          ...

Troubleshooting

Kubernetes CrashLoopBackOff Error

Error

Back-off restarting failed container

To get the error logs, run the command: kubectl describe pod[name].

Reason

This is caused due to a temporary memory resource overload. When running WAAS Out-of-Band (OOB), the Defender automatically increases the cgroup memory limit to 4 GB (as OOB needs more memory). But since the Defenders' cgroup in K8s is hierarchically under the cgroup of the K8s pod with a limit of 512 MB, this results in an Out-Of-Memory error.

Increase the Defender Pod Limit

Increase the Pod limit to 4 GB when activating WAAS OOB on K8s cluster.

For running Defenders

Run kubectl edit ds twistlock-defender-ds -n twistlock and change the value under resources > limits > memory
to 4096Mi
in the Daemonset spec *.yaml file.

Save
the file to restart the Defenders with the increased memory limit.

When deploying Defenders

With YAML
:

Change the value of resources > limits > memory
to 4096Mi
.

Deploy the *.yaml file.

With HELM
:

Change the value of limit_memory
to 4096Mi
in "values.yaml" file.

With script
:

Deploy the Defender using the install script.

Run kubectl edit ds twistlock-defender-ds -n twistlock and change the value under resources > limits > memory
to 4096Mi
.

Save
the file to restart the Defenders with the increased memory limit.

Pod Security Policy

If Pod Security Policy is enabled in your cluster, you might get the following error when trying to create a Defender DaemonSet.

Error creating: pods "twistlock-defender-ds-" is forbidden: unable to validate against any pod security policy ..Privileged containers are not allowed

Kubernetes has deprecated Pod Security Policy. The following troubleshooting steps only apply to the deprecated PodSecurityPolicy custom resource.

If you get this error, then you must create a PodSecurityPolicy for the Defender and the necessary ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding for the twistlock namespace. You can use the following Pod Security Policy, ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding:

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: PodSecurityPolicy
metadata:
 name: prismacloudcompute-service
spec:
 privileged: false
 seLinux:
  rule: RunAsAny
 allowedCapabilities:
  - AUDIT_CONTROL
  - NET_ADMIN
  - SYS_ADMIN
  - SYS_PTRACE
  - MKNOD
  - SETFCAP
 volumes:
  - "hostPath"
  - "secret"
 allowedHostPaths:
  - pathPrefix: "/etc"
  - pathPrefix: "/var"
  - pathPrefix: "/run"
  - pathPrefix: "/dev/log"
  - pathPrefix: "/"
 hostNetwork: true
 hostPID: true
 supplementalGroups:
  rule: RunAsAny
 runAsUser:
  rule: RunAsAny
 fsGroup:
  rule: RunAsAny

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
 name: prismacloudcompute-defender-role
rules:
- apiGroups: ['policy']
  resources: ['podsecuritypolicies']
  verbs: ['use']
  resourceNames:
  - prismacloudcompute-service

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
 name: prismacloudcompute-defender-rolebinding
roleRef:
 apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
 kind: ClusterRole
 name: prismacloudcompute-defender-role
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: twistlock-service
  namespace: twistlock

Deploy Windows Defender

Deploy Orchestrator Defenders on Amazon ECS

Prisma Cloud Administrator’s Guide (Compute)

Kubernetes

Kubernetes

Prerequisites

Required Permissions

Required Firewall and Port Configuration

Install the Prisma Cloud Command-Line Utility

Install the Prisma Cloud Defender

Install Prisma Cloud with Helm charts

Install Prisma Cloud on a CRI (non-Docker) cluster

Deploy Defenders as DaemonSets

Troubleshooting

Kubernetes CrashLoopBackOff Error

Increase the Defender Pod Limit

Pod Security Policy

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