`validateKubeConfig` ignores `CertificateAuthority` and only looks at `CertificateAuthorityData`

[rohitagarwal003]

What keywords did you search in kubeadm issues before filing this one?

"got the wrong CA cert"

Is this a BUG REPORT or FEATURE REQUEST?

BUG REPORT

Versions

kubeadm version (use kubeadm version): v1.23.6

Environment:

• Kubernetes version (use kubectl version): v1.23.6
• Cloud provider or hardware configuration: AWS EC2 c6i
• OS (e.g. from /etc/os-release): Amazon Linux 2
• Others: Using an external CA (i.e. no ca.key in /etc/kubernetes/pki)

What happened?

Got the following error while running kubeadm init phase kubelet-start --config=/path/to/kubeadm.conf

the controller-manager.conf file does not exists or it is not valid: a kubeconfig file "/etc/kubernetes/controller-manager.conf" exists already but has got the wrong CA cert

What you expected to happen?

Didn't expect this error to happen, because our controller-manager kubeconfig has:

apiVersion: v1
clusters:
- cluster:
    certificate-authority: /etc/kubernetes/pki/ca.crt
    server: https://xyz.example.com:6443
  name: xyz
contexts:
- context:
    cluster: xyz
    user: controller-manager
  name: default
current-context: default
kind: Config
preferences: {}
users:
- name: controller-manager
  user:
    client-certificate: /etc/kubernetes/pki/controller-manager.crt
    client-key: /etc/kubernetes/pki/controller-manager.key

The root CA is the exact same file.

How to reproduce it (as minimally and precisely as possible)?

1. Use an external CA (i.e. no ca.key in /etc/kubernetes/pki.
2. Use a controller-manager conf that uses certificate-authority instead of certificate-authority-data.
3. Run kubeadm init phase kubelet-start --config=/path/to/kubeadm.conf

Anything else we need to know?

https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/v1.23.6/cmd/kubeadm/app/phases/kubeconfig/kubeconfig.go#L240 is looking at just CertificateAuthorityData. It should also read the contents of the file pointed by CertificateAuthority if CertificateAuthorityData is empty.

[neolit123]

looking at just CertificateAuthorityData. It should also read the contents of the file pointed by CertificateAuthority if CertificateAuthorityData is empty.

hi, this was never a supported use case and i believe you are the first user requesting it.

what prevents you from embedding the client cert/key like kubeadm does by default?

i would not mind a change to validate external files, but we are in code freeze for 1.25 and i think this is a feature and not a bug fix, thus not backportable to < .25 too.

[SataQiu]

/assign