Managing Users | Cluster Administration

Overview

This topic describes the management of user accounts, including how new user accounts are created in OpenShift Origin and how they can be deleted.

Adding a User

After new users log in to OpenShift Origin, an account is created for that user per the identity provider configured on the master. The cluster administrator can manage the access level of each user.

Viewing User and Identity Lists

OpenShift Origin user configuration is stored in several locations within OpenShift Origin. Regardless of the identity provider, OpenShift Origin internally stores details like role-based access control (RBAC) information and group membership. To completely remove user information, this data must be removed in addition to the user account.

In OpenShift Origin, two object types contain user data outside the identification provider: user and identity.

To get the current list of users:

$ oc get user
NAME      UID                                    FULL NAME   IDENTITIES
demo     75e4b80c-dbf1-11e5-8dc6-0e81e52cc949               htpasswd_auth:demo

To get the current list of identities:

$ oc get identity
NAME                  IDP NAME        IDP USER NAME   USER NAME   USER UID
htpasswd_auth:demo    htpasswd_auth   demo            demo        75e4b80c-dbf1-11e5-8dc6-0e81e52cc949

Note the matching UID between the two object types. If you attempt to change the authentication provider after starting to use OpenShift Origin, the user names that overlap will not work because of the entries in the identity list, which will still point to the old authentication method.

Managing User and Group Labels

To add a label to a user or group:

$ oc label user/<user_name> <label_name>

For example, if the user name is theuser and the label is level=gold:

$ oc label user/theuser level=gold

To remove the label:

$ oc label user/<user_name> <label_name>-

To show labels for a user or group:

$ oc describe user/<user_name>

Deleting a User

To delete a user:

Delete the user record:

$ oc delete user demo
user "demo" deleted

Delete the user identity.

The identity of the user is related to the identification provider you use. Get the provider name from the user record in oc get user.

In this example, the identity provider name is htpasswd_auth. The command is:
# oc delete identity htpasswd_auth:demo identity "htpasswd_auth:demo" deleted
If you skip this step, the user will not be able to log in again.

After you complete these steps, a new account will be created in OpenShift Origin when the user logs in again.

If your intention is to prevent the user from being able to log in again (for example, if an employee has left the company and you want to permanently delete the account), you can also remove the user from your authentication back end (like htpasswd, kerberos, or others) for the configured identity provider.

For example, if you are using htpasswd, delete the entry in the htpasswd file that is configured for OpenShift Origin with the user name and password.

For external identification management like Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or Red Hat Identity Management (IdM), use the user management tools to remove the user entry.