Docs Self-Managed Manage Redpanda Console Configuration Security Authorization Authorization Redpanda Console uses role-based access control (RBAC) to manage and restrict access to various system resources. This document covers how to configure and use RBAC in Redpanda Console, including binding roles to users. This section pertains to Redpanda Console in a self-hosted deployment, and this feature requires an Enterprise license. To upgrade, contact Redpanda sales. RBAC concepts RBAC in Redpanda Console allows you to control access to different resources by binding specific roles to users or groups. These roles determine the permissions that users have when interacting with Redpanda Console. You can assign existing roles (admin, editor, viewer) to individual users or groups from your configured identity providers. Users with multiple roles receive the union of all permissions defined in those roles. Default roles Redpanda Console comes with three primitive roles: Viewer The viewer role grants permission to view all resources within Redpanda Console. This includes: Viewing all topic data (messages, configs, partitions, using search filters). Viewing all cluster data (node configs, ACLs, service accounts, quotas). Viewing all consumer group data (consumer groups, group offsets, and lags). Viewing all Schema Registry data (registered schemas with their contents). Viewing all Kafka Connect data (list configured clusters and their connectors, including the status and connector configs). It does not include permissions to view the list of Console users that are allowed to use Redpanda Console. Editor The editor role grants all permissions that come with the viewer role and additionally includes: Managing all topic aspects, such as creating topics, editing topic configurations, deleting topics, and publishing and deleting topic records. Managing all cluster configuration aspects, such as editing node or cluster configs. Managing all consumer group aspects, such as editing group offsets or deleting group offsets. Managing all Kafka connect aspects, such as creating/updating/deleting or starting/pausing/stopping connectors. It does not include permission to create/remove ACLs or to create or remove a service account. Admin The admin role grants all permissions that come with the editor role and additionally includes: Managing all service account aspects (create/remove service accounts) Managing all ACL aspects (create/remove ACLs) Configure roles and role bindings Both roles and role binding configurations are applied through separate YAML files that Redpanda Console loads at startup. You need to specify the file paths to the roles configuration file and the role bindings configuration file in the main Redpanda Console configuration file. These file paths are set using the rolesFilepath and roleBindingsFilepath options under the enterprise.rbac configuration block. Here is an example of how to configure these file paths in your Redpanda Console configuration file: # Path to your redpanda.license file licenseFilepath: "/etc/redpanda/redpanda.license" enterprise: rbac: enabled: true roleBindingsFilepath: "/etc/redpanda/role-bindings.yaml" roleBindingsFilepath specifies the path to your role bindings file. This file should contain the role bindings that associate the default roles with specific users or groups. Ensure that the paths provided are correct and that the Redpanda Console process has read access to these files. The role-bindings.yaml file should be stored in a secure location, with appropriate file permissions to prevent unauthorized access or modification. Regularly review and update the role-bindings.yaml file to ensure that they reflect your organization’s current access control policies. After making changes to this file, restart Redpanda Console to apply the updates. Role bindings To grant users the permissions defined in a role, you must bind the role to a user or a group. Each role binding holds a list of subjects (users or groups) and a reference to the role being granted. Optionally, you can add metadata (key-value pairs) which may help you to manage your role bindings. Redpanda Console shows the metadata in the UI, so that it helps you to understand how a specific user received their permissions. For example, this role binding binds Google account john.doe@redpanda.com to the role named admin: roleBindings: - roleName: admin metadata: # Metadata properties will be shown in the UI. You can omit it if you want to name: Developers creator: John Doe subjects: - kind: user provider: Google name: john.doe@redpanda.com Bind roles to groups If you want to bind roles to a set of users (for example, GitHub teams or Google Groups), you need to configure your identity provider to grant Redpanda Console additional permissions so that it can resolve the memberships of these user sets. For more information about this setup, see the respective identity provider documentation. All group memberships that are used in role bindings are resolved at startup. Group memberships are cached for 15 minutes. Resolving group memberships proactively is required in order to support nested groups. This role binding binds all Google accounts which are a member of Google group dev-team-console@redpanda.com to the role named admin. Group memberships are resolved recursively, so that members from nested groups are also considered. roleBindings: - roleName: admin metadata: # Metadata properties will be shown in the UI. You can omit it if you want to name: Developers creator: John Doe subjects: - kind: group provider: Google name: dev-team-console@redpanda.com Users who have multiple roles assigned through role bindings will inherit all these roles' permissions. Subjects Each subject has three properties that are configurable to bind a role to one or more users: kind: Supported kinds are group and user. provider: One of Google, GitHub, Okta, OIDC, or Plain. name: Depending on your kind and provider, the name property may refer to different things. Here is an overview: Kind Provider Name Reference user Google Google email address group Google Google Group Name (which is an email address) user GitHub Login handle / GitHub username group GitHub GitHub team name within your GitHub organization user Okta Login handle / email group Okta Okta Group ID (not name), for example "00gra1ajmZa1G1ks04x9" user OIDC Configurable via login.oidc.userIdentifyingClaimKey (by default, it uses the sub claim from the issued access token) user Plain Username as defined in the login.plain.credentials configuration Multiple roles and duplicate role bindings Redpanda Console allows you to assign multiple roles to users through role bindings. When a user is associated with more than one role, the user is granted all the permissions defined in each role they are assigned. For example, if a user is assigned both the viewer and editor roles, they will have all the permissions of a viewer as well as the additional permissions of an editor. Duplicate role bindings do not cause errors or conflicts. If a user is assigned the same role multiple times through role bindings, the duplicate role bindings do not affect the user’s final set of permissions, which are the same as if the role was assigned once. Example role bindings The following role-bindings.yaml configuration file includes a complete list of all roleBindings configuration properties and their descriptions. roleBindings: - roleName: admin metadata: name: Admin Users subjects: - kind: user provider: OIDC name: jane@mycompany.com # Matches the value from the claim key - kind: user provider: Google name: joe@mycompany.com - kind: user provider: Plain name: jane - kind: group provider: Google name: global-admins@mycompany.com # Google workspace group - roleName: editor metadata: name: Editors subjects: - kind: group provider: Okta name: 00gcgwvqiwitcrgge696 # Okta Group ID - kind: group provider: GitHub name: engineers # GitHub Team ID organization: redpanda-data # GitHub organization name - roleName: viewer metadata: name: Viewers subjects: - kind: group provider: Okta name: 00gcgwvqiwitcrgge696 # Okta Group ID - kind: user provider: GitHub name: nat # Refers to the GitHub handle Suggested reading Redpanda Console configuration guide Redpanda RBAC Suggested labs Enable Plain Login Authentication for Redpanda ConsoleSearch all labs Back to top × Simple online edits For simple changes, such as fixing a typo, you can edit the content directly on GitHub. 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