Skip to content

Dex

Overview

Dex can be used to delegate authentication to external identity providers like GitHub, SAML and others. SSO configuration of Argo CD requires updating the Argo CD CR with Dex connector settings.

Installing & Configuring Dex

Using .spec.sso.provider

Dex configuration has moved to .spec.sso in release v0.4.0. Dex can be enabled by setting .spec.sso.provider to dex in the Argo CD CR.

Note

It is now mandatory to specify .spec.sso.dex either with OpenShift configuration through openShiftOAuth: true or valid custom configuration supplied through .spec.sso.dex.config. Absence of either will result in an error due to failing health checks on Dex.

Note

Specifying .spec.sso.dex without setting dex as the provider will result in an error.

An example of correctly configured dex would look as follows:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ArgoCD
metadata:
  name: example-argocd
spec:
  sso:
    provider: dex
    dex:
      openShiftOAuth: true

Using the DISABLE_DEX environment variable

Warning

DISABLE_DEX is deprecated and support will be removed in Argo CD operator v0.6.0. Please use .spec.sso.provider to enable/disable Dex.

Until release v0.4.0 of Argo CD operator, Dex resources were created by default unless the DISABLE_DEX environment variable was explicitly set to true. However, v0.4.0 onward, DISBALE_DEX being either unset, or set to false will not trigger creation of Dex resources, unless there is valid Dex configuration expressed through .spec.dex. Users can continue setting DISABLE_DEX to true to uninstall dex resources until v0.6.0.

Warning

.spec.dex is deprecated and support will be removed in Argo CD operator v0.6.0. Please use .spec.sso.dex to configure Dex.

An example of correctly configured dex would look as follows:

Set the DISABLE_DEX to false in the Subscription resource of the operator.

spec:
  config:
    env:
    - name: DISABLE_DEX
      value: "false"

and supply .spec.dex with valid configuration

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ArgoCD
metadata:
  name: example-argocd
spec:
  dex:
    openShiftOAuth: true

Dex OpenShift OAuth Connector

The below section describes how to configure Argo CD SSO using OpenShift connector as an example. Dex makes use of the users and groups defined within OpenShift by querying the platform provided OAuth server.

The openShiftOAuth property can be used to trigger the operator to auto configure the built-in OpenShift OAuth server. The groups property is used to mandate users to be part of one or all the groups in the groups list. The RBAC Policy property is used to give the admin role in the Argo CD cluster to users in the OpenShift cluster-admins group.

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ArgoCD
metadata:
  name: example-argocd
  labels:
    example: openshift-oauth
spec:
  dex:
    openShiftOAuth: true
    groups:
     - default
  rbac:
    defaultPolicy: 'role:readonly'
    policy: |
      g, cluster-admins, role:admin
    scopes: '[groups]'

Role Mappings

To have a specific user be properly atrributed with the role:admin upon SSO through Openshift, the user needs to be in a group with the cluster-admin role added. If the user only has a direct ClusterRoleBinding to the Openshift role for cluster-admin, the Argo CD role will not map.

A quick fix will be to create a group named cluster-admins group, add the user to the group and then apply the cluster-admin ClusterRole to the group.

oc adm groups new cluster-admins
oc adm groups add-users cluster-admins USER
oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-group cluster-admin cluster-admins

Dex GitHub Connector

The below section describes how to configure Argo CD SSO using GitHub (OAuth2) as an example, but the steps should be similar for other identity providers.

  1. Register the application in the identity provider as explained here.

  2. Update the Argo CD CR.

In the dex.config key, add the github connector to the connectors sub field. See the Dex GitHub connector documentation for explanation of the fields. A minimal config should populate the clientID, clientSecret generated in Step 1. You will very likely want to restrict logins to one or more GitHub organization. In the connectors.config.orgs list, add one or more GitHub organizations. Any member of the org will then be able to login to Argo CD to perform management tasks.

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ArgoCD
metadata:
  name: example-argocd
  labels:
    example: openshift-oauth
spec:
  dex:
    config: |
      connectors:
        # GitHub example
        - type: github
          id: github
          name: GitHub
          config:
            clientID: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
            clientSecret: $dex.github.clientSecret # Alternatively $<some_K8S_secret>:dex.github.clientSecret
            orgs:
            - name: dummy-org

Uninstalling Dex

Using .spec.sso

Dex can be uninstalled either by removing .spec.sso from the Argo CD CR, or switching to a different SSO provider.

Using the DISABLE_DEX environment variable

Dex can be uninstalled by setting DISABLE_DEX to true in the Subscription resource of the operator.

spec:
  config:
    env:
    - name: DISABLE_DEX
      value: "true"

Warning

DISABLE_DEX is deprecated and support will be removed in Argo CD operator v0.6.0. Please use .spec.sso.provider to enable/disable Dex.

Using .spec.dex

Dex can be uninstalled by either removing .spec.dex from the Argo CD CR, or ensuring .spec.dex.config is empty and .spec.dex.openShiftOAuth is set to false.

Warning

.spec.dex is deprecated and support will be removed in Argo CD operator v0.6.0. Please use .spec.sso.dex to configure Dex.