Use pxctl with security enabled

Once a storage cluster with PX-Security enabled is running, a cluster admin must set up a pxctl context on each node in order to interact with the system.

The following steps will guide an Operator-based storage admin to setup pxctl contexts on each node.

1. Retrieve the admin token from the namespace in which Portworx was installed and store it in the ADMIN_TOKEN variable:

   ADMIN_TOKEN=$(kubectl -n kube-system get secret px-admin-token --template='{{index .data "auth-token" | base64decode}}')

2. Find the Portworx pod that is running on the node in which the admin wants to interact with:

   Find the node name.

   kubectl get nodes

   Now, save the node name in the variable.

   K8_NODE_NAME=kubernetes-worker-3.mylab.lan

   Once the node name is known, run the command below. Ensure that Portworx is installed in the correct namespace. In the below command, it is assumed to be installed in kube-system.

   PX_POD=$(kubectl -n kube-system get pods -l name=portworx -o jsonpath="{.items[?(@.spec.nodeName == '$K8_NODE_NAME')].metadata.name}")

3. Save the admin token in the pxctl context for that pod:

   kubectl -n kube-system exec -ti $PX_POD -- /opt/pwx/bin/pxctl context create admin --token=$ADMIN_TOKEN

4. Use kubectl exec to access the Portworx container and perform any pxctl operations:

   kubectl -n kube-system exec -ti $PX_POD -- /opt/pwx/bin/pxctl status

note

This pxctl context will need to be refreshed every time the token expires. This is 24 hours by default, but this default can be changed. See customizing security for more information.