Pomerium

# Install Pomerium using Helm

This quick-start will show you how to deploy Pomerium with Helm (opens new window) on Kubernetes (opens new window).

# Prerequisites

  • Install kubectl (opens new window).
  • Install helm (opens new window).
  • A Kubernetes provider.

    • A cluster, with your local kubectl authorized to interact with it. The cluster configuration and node pool will depend on your provider and the scope of your project.

    • Export the configuration file from your Kubernetes host and export it to your KUBECONFIG environment variable (usually by placing it in ~/.kube).

      See Organizing Cluster Access Using kubeconfig Files (opens new window) for more information.

    • A namespace in the cluster for Pomerium. This document assumes the namespace pomerium, which you can create with kubectl create namespace pomerium.

  • A configured identity provider.
  • A domain space. The steps below use *.localhost.pomerium.io as a placeholder value. We have set DNS records for this domain space to point to 127.0.0.1 (localhost), so you can use this domain space when testing Pomerium locally.
  • TLS certificates. If you don't yet have a production environment with trusted certificates, this page will cover using mkcert (opens new window) to create locally trusted certificates, and cert-manager (opens new window) to manage them in the cluster.

TIP

This configuration installs Redis as the data broker service. While this isn't strictly required when running Pomerium by itself, it is necessary for Pomerium Enterprise, and still highly recommended if not.

The configuration detailed below uses the Pomerium Ingress Controller. See our Ingress Controller doc for more detailed information and configuration options.

# Certificates

This setup uses mkcert (opens new window) to generate certificates that are trusted by your local web browser for testing, and cert-manager to manage them. If you already have a certificate solution, you can skip the steps below and move on to the next stage.

# Install mkcert

After installing mkcert (opens new window), confirm the presence and names of your local CA files:

mkcert -install
The local CA is already installed in the system trust store! 👍
The local CA is already installed in the Firefox and/or Chrome/Chromium trust store! 👍

ls "$(mkcert -CAROOT)"
rootCA-key.pem  rootCA.pem

The output of mkcert -install may vary depending on your operating system.

# Install and Configure cert-manager

If you haven't already, install cert-manager and create a CA issuer. You can follow their docs (listed below) or use the steps provided:

  1. Create a namespace for cert-manager:

    kubectl create namespace cert-manager

  2. Add the jetstack.io repository and update Helm:

    helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
helm repo update

  3. Install cert-manager to your cluster:

    helm install cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager --namespace cert-manager --create-namespace \
--version v1.4.0 --set installCRDs=true

  4. Confirm deployment with kubectl get pods --namespace cert-manager:

    kubectl get pods --namespace cert-manager
NAME                                       READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
cert-manager-5d7f97b46d-8g942              1/1     Running   0          33s
cert-manager-cainjector-69d885bf55-6x5v2   1/1     Running   0          33s
cert-manager-webhook-8d7495f4-s5s6p        1/1     Running   0          33s

  5. In your Pomerium namespace, create a Kubernetes secret for the rootCA-key file in your local CA root:

    kubectl create secret tls pomerium-tls-ca --namespace=pomerium \
--cert="$(mkcert -CAROOT)/rootCA.pem" --key="$(mkcert -CAROOT)/rootCA-key.pem"

  6. Define an Issuer configuration in issuer.yaml:

    apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Issuer
metadata:
  name: pomerium-issuer
  namespace: pomerium
spec:
  ca:
    secretName: pomerium-tls-ca

  7. Apply and confirm:

    kubectl apply -f issuer.yaml
issuer.cert-manager.io/pomerium-issuer created

kubectl get issuers.cert-manager.io --namespace pomerium
NAME              READY   AGE
pomerium-issuer   True    10s

# Install Pomerium

  1. Set your kubectl context to the Pomerium namespace:

    kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=pomerium

  2. Create certificate configurations for Pomerium. Our example is named pomerium-certificates.yaml, to differentiate from a configuration file for Pomerium Enterprise, if you choose to install it later:

    apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Certificate
metadata:
  name: pomerium-cert
  namespace: pomerium
spec:
  secretName: pomerium-tls
  issuerRef:
    name: pomerium-issuer
    kind: Issuer
  usages:
    - server auth
    - client auth
  dnsNames:
    - pomerium-proxy.pomerium.svc.cluster.local
    - pomerium-authorize.pomerium.svc.cluster.local
    - pomerium-databroker.pomerium.svc.cluster.local
    - pomerium-authenticate.pomerium.svc.cluster.local
    - authenticate.localhost.pomerium.io
    # TODO - If you're not using the Pomerium Ingress controller, you may want a wildcard entry as well.
    #- "*.localhost.pomerium.io" # Quotes are required to escape the wildcard
---
apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Certificate
metadata:
  name: pomerium-redis-cert
  namespace: pomerium
spec:
  secretName: pomerium-redis-tls
  issuerRef:
    name: pomerium-issuer
    kind: Issuer
  dnsNames:
    - pomerium-redis-master.pomerium.svc.cluster.local
    - pomerium-redis-headless.pomerium.svc.cluster.local
    - pomerium-redis-replicas.pomerium.svc.cluster.local

    TIP

    If you already have a domain space for Pomerium with a certificate solution, use it in place of .localhost.pomerium.io.

  3. Apply the certificate configuration, and confirm:

    kubectl apply -f pomerium-certificates.yaml

    kubectl get certificate
NAME                    READY   SECRET                 AGE
pomerium-cert           True    pomerium-tls           10s
pomerium-redis-cert     True    pomerium-redis-tls     10s

  4. Create a values file for Helm to use when installing Pomerium. Our example is named pomerium-values.yaml.

    authenticate:
  ingress:
    tls:
      secretName: pomerium-tls
  existingTLSSecret: pomerium-tls
  idp:
    provider: "google"
    clientID: YOUR_CLIENT_ID
    clientSecret: YOUR_SECRET
    serviceAccount: YOUR_SERVICE_ACCOUNT
  proxied: false

proxy:
  existingTLSSecret: pomerium-tls

databroker:
  existingTLSSecret: pomerium-tls
  storage:
    connectionString: rediss://pomerium-redis-master.pomerium.svc.cluster.local
    type: redis
    clientTLS:
      existingSecretName: pomerium-tls
      existingCASecretKey: ca.crt

authorize:
  existingTLSSecret: pomerium-tls

redis:
  enabled: true
  auth:
    enabled: false
  usePassword: false
  generateTLS: false
  tls:
    certificateSecret: pomerium-redis-tls

ingressController:
  enabled: true

ingress:
  enabled: false

config:
  rootDomain: localhost.pomerium.io
  existingCASecret: pomerium-tls
  generateTLS: false # On by default, disabled when cert-manager or another solution is in place.
# The policy block isn't required when using the Pomerium Ingress Controller, as routes are defined
# by the addition of Ingress Resources.
#  routes:
#      # This will be our testing app, to confirm that Pomerium is authenticating and routing traffic.
#    - from: https://authenticate.localhost.pomerium.io
#      to: https://pomerium-authenticate.pomerium.svc.cluster.local
#      preserve_host_header: true
#      allow_public_unauthenticated_access: true
#      policy:

    TIP

    The options required in the authenticate.idp block will vary depending on your identity provider.

    If you changed the *.localhost.pomerium.io value in pomerium-certificates.yaml update config.rootDomain to match, omitting the *.

    Default Certificate

    If you're using a single wildcard certificate for all routes managed by Pomerium, you can set it in an annotation for the ingress controller.

    Add a block defining the default certificate to pomerium-values.yaml:

    ingressController:
  ingressClassResource:
    defaultCertSecret: 'namespace/certSecretName'

    Now when defining ingresses you need not specify individual certificates, as documented in our example service below.

  5. Add Pomerium's Helm repo:

    helm repo add pomerium https://helm.pomerium.io

  6. Install Pomerium to the cluster:

    helm upgrade --install pomerium pomerium/pomerium --values ./pomerium-values.yaml

# Define a Test Service

  1. So that we can create a valid test route, add Bitnami's Helm repo to pull nginx from:

    helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami

  2. Update Helm:

    helm repo update

  3. Install nginx to the cluster:

    helm upgrade --install nginx bitnami/nginx --set service.type=ClusterIP

  4. Create a new Ingress manifest (example-ingress.yaml) for our test service:

    apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: hello
  annotations:
    cert-manager.io/issuer: pomerium-issuer
    ingress.pomerium.io/policy: '[{"allow":{"and":[{"domain":{"is":"example.com"}}]}}]'
spec:
  ingressClassName: pomerium
  rules:
  - host: hello.localhost.pomerium.io
    http:
      paths:
      - backend:
          service:
            name: nginx
            port:
              name: http
        path: /
        pathType: Prefix
  tls:
  - hosts:
    - hello.localhost.pomerium.io
    secretName: hello.localhost.pomerium.io-tls

  5. Apply the nginx Ingress manifest to the cluster:

    kubectl apply -f example-ingress.yaml

If you are installing Pomerium with a valid domain name and certificates, update your DNS records to point to the external IP address of the pomerium-proxy service:

kubectl get svc pomerium-proxy
NAME             TYPE           CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)                        AGE
pomerium-proxy   LoadBalancer   10.128.117.25    192.0.2.20       443:30006/TCP,9090:30707/TCP   2m37s

For development and testing, you can use kubectl to create a local proxy:

sudo -E kubectl --namespace pomerium port-forward service/pomerium-proxy 443:443

Open a browser and navigate to hello.localhost.pomerium.io.

You can also navigate to the special pomerium endpoint hello.localhost.pomerium.io/.pomerium/ to see your current user details.

currently logged in user

# Next Steps

Congratulations on installing Pomerium to your Kubernetes cluster!

Edit this page on GitHub (opens new window)
Last Updated: 5/5/2022, 8:51:39 PM


Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. Pomerium is a registered trademark.

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