AKS cluster should enable Azure RBAC for Kubernetes

Medium Azure General aks-rbac-2

Applies to

Microsoft.ContainerService/managedClusters

What CGPulse checks

A resource passes this rule when aadProfile.enableAzureRbac must equal true. Anything else is reported as a finding with the evaluated property value attached as evidence.

How to fix it

Switch to Azure RBAC for finer-grained permissions and Azure AD integration. In Azure Portal: AKS cluster > Access configuration > switch to Azure role-based access control. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/manage-azure-rbac

Careful: Enabling Azure RBAC replaces Kubernetes RBAC with Azure role assignments. Assign roles before enabling

CLI

az aks update --ids "{id}" --enable-azure-rbac

Terraform

resource "azurerm_kubernetes_cluster" "{name}" {
  name                = "{name}"
  resource_group_name = "{rg}"
  location            = var.location
  dns_prefix          = "{name}"
  azure_active_directory {
    managed            = true
    azure_rbac_enabled = true
  }
  default_node_pool {
    name       = "default"
    node_count = 1
    vm_size    = "Standard_D2s_v5"
  }
  identity { type = "SystemAssigned" }
}

Compliance frameworks

Cloud Security: Azure Foundations

Vendor documentation

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