Skip to main content

More Info:

The kubelet —make-iptables-util-chains argument should be set to true so the kubelet manages the iptables rules needed for correct network traffic handling on the node.

Risk Level

Medium

Address

Security

Compliance Standards

  • CIS OKE

Triage and Remediation

Remediation

Manual Steps

  1. On every worker node, open the kubelet systemd drop-in for editing:
    In the line that starts with ExecStart=, ensure the kubelet is started with --make-iptables-util-chains=true, for example:
  2. If --make-iptables-util-chains is already present but set differently, change it to:
  3. Reload systemd configuration on every worker node:
  4. Restart the kubelet on every worker node (this will disrupt pod scheduling on that node briefly):
  5. Verify the kubelet is running correctly on every worker node:
  6. Confirm the flag is set as required on every worker node:
    Ensure the output command line for kubelet includes:
kubectl cannot modify kubelet process flags or host-level config files such as /etc/systemd/system/kubelet.service.d/00-default.conf or /etc/kubernetes/kubelet-config.json; this setting must be changed directly on every worker node’s OS. See the Manual Steps section for the exact systemd and configuration file changes to set --make-iptables-util-chains=true and restart the kubelet.