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The kubelet service file governs how the kubelet starts and should not be modifiable by non-privileged users. Permissions of 600 or more restrictive prevent tampering with node startup configuration.

Risk Level

Medium

Address

Security

Compliance Standards

  • CIS Kubernetes

Triage and Remediation

Remediation

Manual Steps

  1. On every worker node, check current permissions for the kubelet service drop-in file:
  2. If the permissions are more permissive than 600 (e.g., 644, 640), restrict them:
  3. Confirm the ownership is root (optional but recommended) and adjust if needed:
  4. Reload systemd configuration so it recognizes any metadata changes (no kubelet restart is required just for permission changes):
  5. Verify the permissions are now 600 or more restrictive on each worker node:
kubectl cannot modify host-level systemd unit files such as /etc/systemd/system/kubelet.service.d/10-kubeadm.conf; this must be fixed directly on every worker node’s OS. See the Manual Steps section for the exact chmod command and verification steps to run over SSH.