linkerd / linkerd/linkerd2

SPIFFE/SPIRE support

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help wanted needs/design
Dominant language
Go
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

## Feature Request

Support using [SPIFFE](https://spiffe.io) for identity and use this provide mTLS credentials to services.

Other service meshes such as [Envoy](https://spiffe.io/docs/latest/microservices/envoy/), Istio and Consul support SPIFFE identities.

### What problem are you trying to solve?

Unifying identify management between multiple systems, for example Linkerd and [NATS](https://github.com/nats-io/nats-server/pull/1389) identities could be managed together and for securing cross-cluster communications.

### How should the problem be solved?

Installing Linkerd and SPIFFE to my cluster, Linkerd should get trust roots and/or certificates from SPIFFE/SPIRE directly so that I do not have to configure or provide keys to Linkerd at all.

### Any alternatives you've considered?

Working around Linkerd's inability to natively utilize SPIFFE, not using SPIFFE, or using Envoy.

### How would users interact with this feature?

Some modification to the default configuration of Linkerd so that it uses SPIFFE/SPIRE.

/ref https://github.com/linkerd/linkerd2/issues/768
/ref https://github.com/linkerd/linkerd2/issues/4667

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the SPIFFE/SPIRE references and linked Linkerd issues #768 and #4667, then examine how Linkerd's default configuration currently receives identity and mTLS credentials. Done means Linkerd can obtain SPIFFE/SPIRE trust roots and certificates directly, without users supplying keys, while supporting the stated cross-system identity use case.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
go, kubernetes
Domain
infrastructure, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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