KEP-6035keps/sig-node/6035-exec-session-identity
Exec session identity propagation
When a user runs kubectl exec, the API server authenticates the caller and records their identity in the audit log, but this information is never forwarded to the kubelet or the container runtime. This makes it impossible for runtime security tooling to attribute in-container activity to the Kubernetes user who initiated the session. This KEP proposes propag… Full summary
When a user runs kubectl exec, the API server authenticates the caller and records their identity in the audit log, but this information is never forwarded to the kubelet or the container runtime. This makes it impossible for runtime security tooling to attribute in-container activity to the Kubernetes user who initiated the session. This KEP proposes propagating the API server's audit request ID, a UUID generated per-request and recorded in the audit log, through the kubelet and into each exec session, so that runtime security agents can correlate in-container process activity with the originating request. Raw user credentials (such as usernames or tokens) are not transmitted to the node. Delivering the audit ID into the exec'd process requires a reliable CRI-level mechanism for environment variable injection. The existing workaround of prepending the exec command with the env binary is unreliable: it fails silently on distroless or minimal images, and carries no runtime contract. This KEP therefore also adds a repeated KeyValue envs field to ExecRequest in the CRI protobuf, establishing a contract that the runtime must inject the provided key-value pairs into the OCI process spec before handing off to the low-level runtime.
Facts
- Approvers
- @mrunalp@haircommander
- Reviewers
- @haircommander
- PRR approvers
- @soltyshalpha
- Tracking issue
- #6035(opens GitHub in a new tab) opensig/nodesig/api-machinerystage/alphatracked/nosig/securitylead-opted-in
- Milestones
- alpha v1.37beta v1.38stable v1.39
- Participating SIGs
- sig-securitysig-api-machinery
- Feature gates
- ExecEnvVar, ExecRequestID
- Created / last updated
- 2026-04-28 / none