Layered Zero Trust

About the Layered Zero Trust Pattern

Showcases the Zero Trust capabilities across Red Hat's product portfolio in a reproducible manner.

Architecture Overview

The pattern is structured in layers, each building on the one below it:

• Validated Patterns Framework — bootstraps the cluster using OpenShift GitOps (Argo CD) and the Validated Patterns Operator. All subsequent components are deployed and reconciled by Argo CD.
• Layer 0 — Foundations — establishes a secure cluster baseline: TLS certificate management, compliance scanning, advanced cluster management, and runtime security enforcement.
• Layer 1 — Feature Sets — provisions workload identities (SPIFFE/SPIRE), manages secrets (Vault + ESO), and provides user authentication (Keycloak). Optionally includes a private image registry (Quay + NooBaa).
• Layer 2 — Mapping — deploys the demo application (qtodo) and, optionally, the full secure supply chain pipeline (RHTAS, RHTPA, OpenShift Pipelines).

See docs/diagrams/ for logical and schematic diagrams of the pattern.

Components

Components are grouped by their origin and whether they are always deployed or opt-in.

Validated Patterns Framework (provided by the VP project)

These components are part of every Validated Pattern and are not specific to ZTVP. Their Helm charts live in the validatedpatterns organization.

• OpenShift GitOps (Argo CD)
  • Deploys and continuously reconciles all pattern components via GitOps
• Validated Patterns Operator
  • Bootstraps the pattern, manages the Hub/Spoke lifecycle, and drives imperative jobs

Core ZTVP Components (always deployed)

These components are deployed by default with every ZTVP installation. Components marked with (externalized chart) use Helm charts maintained in the validatedpatterns organization rather than local charts in this repository.

• OpenShift cluster hardening
  • Compliance Operator (externalized chart)
    • Continuously scans the cluster against CIS and other security profiles
  • cert-manager
    • Manages TLS certificates for pattern components
• Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management (ACM)
  • Provides a management control plane in multi-cluster scenarios
• Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security (ACS)
  • Provides runtime security policy enforcement and image vulnerability scanning
• HashiCorp Vault
  • Secure storage of sensitive assets and dynamic secret generation
• External Secrets Operator (ESO)
  • Synchronizes secrets stored in HashiCorp Vault with OpenShift
• Red Hat Build of Keycloak (RHBK) (externalized chart)
  • Provides user identities and OIDC authentication for pattern components and workloads
• Red Hat Zero Trust Workload Identity Manager (ZTWIM) (externalized chart)
  • Automates provisioning of SPIFFE/SPIRE-based verifiable identities for workloads running within OpenShift

Optional ZTVP Components (opt-in)

These components are commented out in values-hub.yaml by default. Uncomment the relevant sections to enable them. See Deploy the pattern for details.

• Red Hat Quay (externalized chart)
  • Enables a private OCI image registry within the environment
• Multicloud Object Gateway (NooBaa MCG)
  • Provides S3-compatible object storage for Quay and RHTPA
• Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer (RHTAS)
  • Provides cryptographic signing and verification of software artifacts and container images
• Red Hat Trusted Profile Analyzer (RHTPA)
  • Stores and manages Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) with cross-referencing against CVEs and Security Advisories
• Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines
  • Enables the native CI/CD pipeline for the secure supply chain use case

Getting Started

Utilize the following steps to prepare your machine and complete any and all prerequisites needed.

Prerequisites

1. An OpenShift Container Platform 4.20+ cluster with:
   1. Publicly signed certificates for Ingress
   2. A default StorageClass which provides dynamic PersistentVolume storage
2. To customize the provided default configuration, a GitHub account and a token for it with repositories permissions, to read from and write to your forks, is required.
3. Access to Podman (or Docker) for execution of the container images used by pattern.sh script for provisioning.
4. Validated Patterns Tooling
5. Depending on the characteristics of your cluster, you may need additional hardware resources for Advanced Cluster Management (ACM) component. For a single node cluster you can start with 4 vCPUs, 16 GB of memory and 120 GB of storage. For more detailed information about ACM sizing, please refer to the official documentation.

Warning

The default deployment of this patterns assumes that none of the components associated with the pattern have been deployed previously. Ensure that your OpenShift environment does not include any of the preceding components.

Prepare for Deployment

1. While not required, it is recommended that you Fork the Validated Pattern repository.From the layered-zero-trust repository on GitHub, click the Fork button.

2. Clone the forked copy of this repository by running the following command.

   git clone git@github.com:<your-username>/layered-zero-trust.git

3. Navigate to your repository: Ensure you are in the root directory of your Git repository by using:

   cd /path/to/your/repository

4. Run the following command to set the upstream repository:

   git remote add -f upstream git@github.com:validatedpatterns/layered-zero-trust.git

5. Verify the setup of your remote repositories by running the following command:

   git remote -v

   Example Output:

   origin  git@github.com:<your-username>/layered-zero-trust.git (fetch)
   origin  git@github.com:<your-username>/layered-zero-trust.git (push)
   upstream    https://github.com/validatedpatterns/layered-zero-trust.git (fetch)
   upstream    https://github.com/validatedpatterns/layered-zero-trust.git (push)

6. Create a local copy of the secret values file that can safely include credentials. Run the following command :

   cp values-secret.yaml.template ~/values-secret-layered-zero-trust.yaml

   [!NOTE] Putting the values-secret.yaml in your home directory ensures that it does not get pushed to your Git repository. It is based on the values-secrets.yaml.template file provided by the pattern in the top level directory. When you create your own patterns you will add your secrets to this file and save. At the moment the focus is on getting started and familiar with this pattern.

7. Create a new feature branch, for example my-branch from the main branch for your content:

   git checkout -b my-branch main

8. Perform any desired changes to the Helm values files to customize the execution of the pattern (optional). Commit the changes

   git add <file(s)>
   git commit -m "Pattern customization"

9. Push the changes in the branch to your forked repository

   git push origin my-branch

Deploy the pattern

The pattern.sh script is used to deploy the Layered Zero Trust Validated pattern.

1. Login to your OpenShift cluster a. Obtain an API token by visiting https://oauth-openshift.apps../oauth/token/request. b. Log in with this retrieved token by running the following command:

   oc login --token=<retrieved-token> --server=https://api.<your-cluster>.<domain>:6443

2. Alternatively log in by referencing an existing KUBECONFIG file:

   export KUBECONFIG=~/<path_to_kubeconfig>

3. Deploy the pattern

   Default deployment (without Quay - using other registry options):

   ./pattern.sh make install

   Deployment with optional Layer 1 components (Quay Registry, RHTAS):

   To include optional components like Quay Registry + NooBaa MCG storage or RHTAS:

   1. Edit values-hub.yaml
   2. Uncomment the relevant sections for the components you want
   3. Run: ./pattern.sh make install

   Note: Optional Layer 1 components are commented out by default. Quay Registry + NooBaa MCG adds ~6 CPU cores, ~12Gi memory, ~10Gi storage when enabled.

Exploring the Deployed Pattern

Once the pattern has been successfully deployed, you can review the deployed components. Each are deployed and managed using OpenShift GitOps.

Two (2) instances of OpenShift GitOps has been deployed to your Hub Cluster. Each can be seen within the OpenShift Console by selecting the Application Selector at the top navigation bar (box with 9 smaller squares).

1. Cluster Argo CD - Deploys an Argo CD App of Apps Application called layered-zero-trust-hub which deploys the components associated with the pattern. These Applications are managed by the Hub Argo CD instance (see below)
2. Hub Argo CD - Manages the individual components associated with the pattern on the Hub OpenShift instance.

If all of the Argo CD applications are reporting healthy, the pattern has been deployed successfully.

Use cases

• Secure Multi-tier Application
• Secure Supply Chain
• ACS Deployment Details
• Confidential Containers (CoCo)

Importing existing clusters

Warning

Since ACM chart provisioning functionality uses ClusterPools and these technology is limited to Cloud environments, we do not recommend use those configuration settings. Instead, we have enabled the option to import your existing standalone clusters using the acm-managed-clusters chart.

The pattern supports importating pre-existing Openshift clusters into the Hub cluster, converting them into Managed Clusters.

1. Copy the kubeconfig file of the cluster you want to import to your local system.

2. In the values-secret.yaml file, add a new secret with the contents of the kubeconfig file.

     - name: kubeconfig-spoke
       vaultPrefixes:
       - hub
       fields:
       - name: content
         path: ~/.kube/kubeconfig-ztvp-spoke

3. In the values-hub.yaml file, add a new entry in the clusterGroup.managedClusterGroups key.

     managedClusterGroups:
       exampleRegion:
         name: group-one
         acmlabels:
           - name: clusterGroup
             value: group-one
         helmOverrides:
           - name: clusterGroup.isHubCluster
             value: false

4. Also in the values-hub.yaml file, add your cluster definition in the acmManagedClusters.clusters key.

   acmManagedClusters:
     clusters:
       - name: ztvp-spoke-1
         clusterGroup: group-one
         labels:
           cloud: auto-detect
           vendor: auto-detect
         kubeconfigVaultPath: secret/data/hub/kubeconfig-spoke

5. Deploy the pattern.

Development

Interested in developing capabilities for this pattern or performing tests against it? Head over to our Developer Documentation.