When you fill in the
gkeConnect section
in your admin cluster configuration file, the cluster is registered to your
fleet during creation or update. To enable
fleet management functionality, Google Cloud deploys the
Connect agent and creates a Google
service account that represents the project that the cluster is registered to.
The Connect agent establishes a connection with the service account to handle
requests to the cluster's Kubernetes API server. This enables access to
cluster and workload management features in Google Cloud, including access
to the Google Cloud console, which lets you interact with
your cluster.
The admin cluster's Kubernetes API server needs to be able to authorize requests from the Connect agent. To ensure this, the following role-based access control (RBAC) policies are configured on the service account:
An impersonation policy that authorizes the Connect agent to send requests to the Kubernetes API server on behalf of the service account.
A permissions policy that specifies the operations that are allowed on other Kubernetes resources.
The service account and RBAC policies are needed so that you can manage the lifecycle of your user clusters in the Google Cloud console.