To run in a cluster the operator needs certain permissions, you can see them in this directory:

• role.yaml file - basic set of cluster roles for launching an operator.
• leader_election_role.yaml file - set of roles with permissions to do leader election (is necessary to run the operator in several replicas for high availability).

Also, you can use single-namespace mode with minimal permissions, see this section for details.

Also in the same directory are files with a set of separate permissions to view or edit operator resources to organize fine-grained access:

• file <RESOURCE_NAME>_viewer_role.yaml - permissions for viewing (get, list and watch) some resource of vmoperator.
• file <RESOURCE_NAME>_editor_role.yaml - permissions for editing (create, delete, patch, update and deletecollection) some resource of vmoperator (also includes viewing permissions).

For instance, vmalert_editor_role.yaml file contain permission for editing vmagent custom resources.

VictoriaMetrics operator provides several security features, such as PodSecurityPolicies, PodSecurityContext.

PodSecurityPolicy was deprecated in Kubernetes v1.21, and removed from Kubernetes in v1.25.

If your Kubernetes version is under v1.25 and want to use PodSecurityPolicy, you can set env VM_PSPAUTOCREATEENABLED: "true" in operator, it will create serviceAccount for each cluster resource and binds default PodSecurityPolicy to it.

Default psp:

apiVersion: policy/v1beta1
kind: PodSecurityPolicy
metadata:
  name: vmagent-example-vmagent
spec:
  allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
  fsGroup:
    rule: RunAsAny
  hostNetwork: true
  requiredDropCapabilities:
  - ALL
  runAsUser:
    rule: RunAsAny
  seLinux:
    rule: RunAsAny
  supplementalGroups:
    rule: RunAsAny
  volumes:
  - persistentVolumeClaim
  - secret
  - emptyDir
  - configMap
  - projected
  - downwardAPI
  - nfs

User may also override default pod security policy with setting: spec.podSecurityPolicyName: "psp-name".

VictoriaMetrics operator will add default Security Context to managed pods and containers if env EnableStrictSecurity: "true" is set. The following SecurityContext will be applied:

1. RunAsNonRoot: true

2. RunAsUser/RunAsGroup/FSGroup: 65534

   '65534' refers to 'nobody' in all the used default images like alpine, busybox.

   If you're using customize image, please make sure '65534' is a valid uid in there or specify SecurityContext.

3. FSGroupChangePolicy: &onRootMismatch

   If KubeVersion>=1.20, use FSGroupChangePolicy="onRootMismatch" to skip the recursive permission change when the root of the volume already has the correct permissions

4. SeccompProfile: {type: RuntimeDefault}

   Use RuntimeDefault seccomp profile by default, which is defined by the container runtime, instead of using the Unconfined (seccomp disabled) mode.

1. AllowPrivilegeEscalation: false
2. ReadOnlyRootFilesystem: true
3. Capabilities: {drop: [all]}

Also SecurityContext can be configured with spec setting. It may be useful for mounted volumes, with VMSingle for example:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMSingle
metadata:
  name: vmsingle-f
  namespace: monitoring-system
spec:
  retentionPeriod: "2"
  removePvcAfterDelete: true
  securityContext:
      runAsUser: 1000
      fsGroup: 1000
      runAsGroup: 1000
  extraArgs:
    dedup.minScrapeInterval: 10s
  storage:
    accessModes:
      - ReadWriteOnce
    resources:
      requests:
        storage: 25Gi
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: "0.5"
      memory: "512Mi"
    limits:
      cpu: "1"
      memory: "1512Mi"