Listing namespaces is denied on k9s with capsule-proxy

[ktoulliou]

Bug description

With capsule-proxy, we can't list namespaces on K9s. But with kubectl, I have no problem.

Error on K9s: Watcher failed for v1/namespace : [list] access denied on resource "":"v1/namespace".

This only concerns list/watch/get namespaces, as we can directly access specific namespaces with k9s -n <namespace> or inside k9s: :namespace <namespace> without autocomplete...

How to reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Capsule Chart configuration values.yaml :

crds:
  install: true
nodeSelector:
  node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane: ""
manager:
  kind: DaemonSet
  options:  
    capsuleConfiguration: default
    capsuleUserGroups:
%{ for tenantname, values in tenants }
      # Tenant : ${tenantname}
%{ for group, val in values.tenant_groups }
      - "oidc:${val}"
%{ endfor ~}%{ endfor ~}
# webhooks:
#   hooks:
#     nodes: 
#       failurePolicy: Ignore

proxy:
  enabled: true
  kind: DaemonSet
  webhooks:
    enabled: true
  nodeSelector:
    node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane: ""
  certManager:
    generateCertificates: true
  options:
    generateCertificates: false
    oidcUsernameClaim: "preferred_username"
    extraArgs:
    - "--feature-gates=ProxyClusterScoped=true"
    - "--feature-gates=ProxyAllNamespaced=true"
  resources:
    requests:
      memory: "512Mi"
      cpu: "250m"
    limits:
      memory: "1Gi"
      cpu: "500m"
  service:
    type: ClusterIP
    port: 9001
  ingress:
    enabled: true
    className: "nginx-private"
    annotations:
      nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/backend-protocol: "HTTPS"
      nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/server-snippet: |
        proxy_ssl_verify off;
      # nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/ssl-redirect: "true"
    hosts:
    - host: "capsule-proxy.${cluster.ingress_private_domain}"
      paths: ["/"]
    tls:
      - secretName: capsule-proxy-tls
        hosts:
          - capsule-proxy.${cluster.ingress_private_domain}
  auth:
    tokenAuth:
      enabled: true

2. Provide all managed Kubernetes resources

I've created two tenants and users have access to this two tenants through oidc connexion.

apiVersion: capsule.clastix.io/v1beta2
kind: Tenant
metadata:
  name: ${tenant_name}
spec:
  owners:
    - kind: Group
      name: oidc:${tenant_group_owners}
      clusterRoles:
      - admin
      - capsule-namespace-deleter
      - terraform:tenant-${tenant_name}-default
    - kind: Group
      name: oidc:${tenant_group_users}
      clusterRoles:
      - admin
      - terraform:tenant-${tenant_name}-default # with or without this, same error
    - kind: Group
      name: oidc:${tenant_group_viewers}
      clusterRoles:
      - view
  preventDeletion: true
  containerRegistries:
    allowed:
    - docker.io
    allowedRegex: '.mycompany.com'
  namespaceOptions:
    quota: ${tenant_namespace_count}
  resourceQuotas:
    scope: Tenant
    items:
    - hard:
        limits.cpu: "${tenant_limits_cpu}"
        limits.memory: "${tenant_limits_memory}"
        requests.cpu: "${tenant_requests_cpu}"
        requests.memory: "${tenant_requests_memory}"
    - hard:
        requests.storage: "${tenant_requests_storage}"
        persistentvolumeclaims: ${tenant_pvc_count}
    - hard:
        pods: ${tenant_pods_count}

  storageClasses:
    allowed:
%{for class in tenant_storageclasses }
      - "${class}"
%{ endfor ~}

3. Capsule-system namespace have this label : pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce: privileged

Expected behavior

Apparently, k9s doesn't work the same way as kubectl.

Perhaps there's a problem with cluster-scoped resources? (Perhaps "selfsubjectaccessreviews", "selfsubjectrulesreviews", or "v1/namespace").

I don't use k9s daily, but users are complaining about this issue.

Logs

No particular Logs

Additional context

• Capsule version: 0.10.8
• Helm Chart version: 0.10.8
• Kubernetes version: 1.33.4
• Kubectl version: 1.34.1
• K9S version : 0.50.12

[oliverbaehler]

Thanks for the detailed report. I am currently on vacation. But can you add a log line of a failed call?

[Banh-Canh]

Hey, I believe it's the same issue from k9s repo, if it can be of any help. https://github.com/derailed/k9s/issues/2408

The workaround works, but i don't think it's ideal.

[oliverbaehler]

@Svarrogh1337 Maybe something you can look into it. It's definitly because we are not handling the SubjectAccessRevbiew (auth can-i)

[ktoulliou]

Hi @oliverbaehler , I keep running into this issue. Here are the logs:

^[[2m2025-10-23T12:36:30Z^[[0m ^[[93mWRN^[[0m No nodes metrics access ^[[2merror=^[[0m"`list access denied for user on \"\":metrics.k8s.io/v1beta1/nodes"
^[[2m2025-10-23T12:36:35Z^[[0m ^[[91mERR^[[0m Failed to obtain list of namespaces ^[[2merror=^[[0m"user not authorized to list all namespaces"
^[[2m2025-10-23T12:36:35Z^[[0m ^[[91mERR^[[0m Failed to obtain list of namespaces ^[[2merror=^[[0m"user not authorized to list all namespaces"
^[[2m2025-10-23T12:36:35Z^[[0m ^[[91mERR^[[0m Flash error ^[[2merror=^[[0m"[list] access denied on resource \"\":\"v1/namespaces\"" ^[[2mmessage=^[[0m"Watcher failed for v1/namespaces -- [list] access denied on resource \"\":\"v1/namespaces\""
^[[2m2025-10-23T12:36:35Z^[[0m DBG History ^[[2mstack=^[[0m"[ns ns]"
^[[2m2025-10-23T12:36:37Z^[[0m ^[[91mERR^[[0m Failed to obtain list of namespaces ^[[2merror=^[[0m"user not authorized to list all namespaces"
^[[2m2025-10-23T12:36:37Z^[[0m ^[[93mWRN^[[0m Namespace validation failed ^[[2mns=^[[0mmyinfra-prod ^[[2merror=^[[0m"user not authorized to list all namespaces"