headlamp-polaris-plugin

A Headlamp plugin that surfaces Fairwinds Polaris audit results directly in the Headlamp UI.

What It Does

Adds a Polaris top-level sidebar section to Headlamp with the following views:

• Overview -- cluster score as a percentage (color-coded green/amber/red), check summary (pass/warning/danger counts), and cluster info (nodes, pods, namespaces, controllers)
• Full Audit -- same as overview but includes skipped checks in the totals
• Namespace drill-down -- per-namespace score, check counts, and a resource table showing pass/warning/danger per workload. Namespace entries appear dynamically in the sidebar based on live audit data.
• External link -- quick jump to the native Polaris dashboard via the Kubernetes service proxy

Data is fetched from the Polaris dashboard API through the Kubernetes service proxy (/api/v1/namespaces/polaris/services/polaris-dashboard:80/proxy/results.json). The plugin is read-only -- it never writes to the cluster.

Results are refreshed on a user-configurable interval (1 / 5 / 10 / 30 minutes, default 5). The setting is available in Settings > Plugins > Polaris and persists in the browser's localStorage.

Error states are handled explicitly: RBAC denied (403), Polaris not installed (404/503), malformed JSON, and loading.

Prerequisites

Requirement	Minimum version
Headlamp	v0.26+
Polaris (with dashboard enabled)	Any recent release
Kubernetes	v1.24+

Polaris must be deployed in the polaris namespace with the dashboard component enabled (dashboard.enabled: true in the Helm chart, which is the default). The plugin reads from the polaris-dashboard ClusterIP service on port 80.

Installing

Option 1: Artifact Hub + Headlamp plugin manager (recommended)

The plugin is published on Artifact Hub. Configure Headlamp's pluginsManager in your Helm values to install it automatically:

pluginsManager:
  sources:
    - url: https://artifacthub.io/packages/headlamp/polaris/headlamp-polaris-plugin

Headlamp will fetch and install the plugin on startup.

Option 2: Docker init container

The plugin ships as a container image at git.farh.net/farhoodliquor/headlamp-polaris-plugin.

Add it as an init container in your Headlamp Helm values:

initContainers:
  - name: polaris-plugin
    image: git.farh.net/farhoodliquor/headlamp-polaris-plugin:v0.0.1
    command: ["sh", "-c", "cp -r /plugins/* /headlamp/plugins/"]
    volumeMounts:
      - name: plugins
        mountPath: /headlamp/plugins

volumes:
  - name: plugins
    emptyDir: {}

volumeMounts:
  - name: plugins
    mountPath: /headlamp/plugins

Option 3: Manual tarball install

Download the .tar.gz from the GitHub releases page or the Gitea releases page, then extract into Headlamp's plugin directory:

tar xzf headlamp-polaris-plugin-0.0.1.tar.gz -C /headlamp/plugins/

Option 4: Build from source

npm install
npm run build
npx @kinvolk/headlamp-plugin extract . /headlamp/plugins

RBAC / Security Setup

The plugin fetches audit data through the Kubernetes API server's service proxy sub-resource. The identity making the request (Headlamp's service account, or the user's own token in token-auth mode) must be granted:

Verb	API Group	Resource	Resource Name	Namespace
get	"" (core)	services/proxy	polaris-dashboard	polaris

Minimal RBAC manifests

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: Role
metadata:
  name: polaris-proxy-reader
  namespace: polaris
rules:
  - apiGroups: [""]
    resources: ["services/proxy"]
    resourceNames: ["polaris-dashboard"]
    verbs: ["get"]
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: RoleBinding
metadata:
  name: headlamp-polaris-proxy
  namespace: polaris
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: headlamp              # adjust to match your Headlamp service account
    namespace: kube-system      # adjust to match the namespace Headlamp runs in
roleRef:
  kind: Role
  name: polaris-proxy-reader
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

Apply with kubectl apply -f polaris-rbac.yaml.

Token-auth mode

When Headlamp is configured for user-supplied tokens (rather than a fixed service account), each user must have the RoleBinding above attached to their own identity. A 403 error in the plugin means the currently logged-in user lacks this binding.

NetworkPolicy

If the polaris namespace enforces network policies, ensure ingress is allowed from the Kubernetes API server (which performs the proxy hop) to polaris-dashboard on port 80.

Read-only access

The plugin only performs GET requests through the service proxy. No create, update, delete, or patch verbs are required. Do not grant broader access than get on services/proxy.

Audit logging

Every proxied request is recorded in Kubernetes API audit logs as a get on services/proxy in the polaris namespace. If the auto-refresh interval generates more audit volume than desired, increase the refresh interval in the plugin settings or adjust your audit policy.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
403 Access Denied	Missing RBAC binding for services/proxy	Apply the Role + RoleBinding from the RBAC section above
404 or 503	Polaris not installed, or dashboard disabled	Install Polaris with dashboard.enabled: true in the polaris namespace
No data	Polaris running but no workloads scanned yet	Wait for the next Polaris audit cycle or restart the Polaris pod
Stale data	Refresh interval too long	Lower the interval in Settings > Plugins > Polaris

Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/cpfarhood/headlamp-polaris-plugin.git
cd headlamp-polaris-plugin
npm install

Run locally (hot reload)

npm start

This starts the Headlamp plugin dev server. Point a running Headlamp instance at the dev server to see changes live.

Build for production

npm run build        # outputs dist/main.js
npm run package      # creates headlamp-polaris-plugin-<version>.tar.gz

Type-check

npm run tsc

Project Structure

src/
  index.tsx                           -- Entry point. Registers sidebar entries and routes.
  api/
    polaris.ts                        -- TypeScript types (AuditData schema), usePolarisData hook,
                                         countResults utilities, refresh interval settings.
    PolarisDataContext.tsx             -- React context provider; shared data fetch across views.
  components/
    DashboardView.tsx                 -- Overview / Full Audit page (score, check summary, cluster info).
    NamespaceDetailView.tsx           -- Per-namespace drill-down with resource table.
    DynamicSidebarRegistrar.tsx       -- Registers sidebar entries dynamically from audit namespaces.
    PolarisSettings.tsx               -- Plugin settings page (refresh interval selector).

Data Source

The plugin fetches live audit results from the Polaris dashboard HTTP API via the Kubernetes service proxy:

GET /api/v1/namespaces/polaris/services/polaris-dashboard:80/proxy/results.json

This endpoint is served by the polaris-dashboard ClusterIP service, which is created by the Polaris Helm chart when dashboard.enabled: true. The JSON response matches Polaris's AuditData schema (pkg/validator/output.go):

AuditData
  ClusterInfo      -- nodes, pods, namespaces, controllers
  Results[]        -- per-workload results
    Results{}      -- top-level check results (ResultSet)
    PodResult
      Results{}    -- pod-level check results
      ContainerResults[]
        Results{}  -- container-level check results

Each check in a ResultSet has Success (bool) and Severity ("warning", "danger", or "ignore"). The cluster score is computed client-side as pass / total * 100.

Releasing

Releases are automated via CI. To cut a release:

# Bump version in package.json and artifacthub-pkg.yml, then:
git add package.json package-lock.json artifacthub-pkg.yml
git commit -m "chore: bump version to 0.0.2"
git tag v0.0.2
git push origin main v0.0.2

This triggers two CI pipelines:

Gitea Actions (.gitea/workflows/release.yaml):

1. Build the plugin in a node:20 container
2. Package a .tar.gz tarball
3. Build and push a Docker image to git.farh.net/farhoodliquor/headlamp-polaris-plugin:{tag} and :latest
4. Create a Gitea release with the tarball attached

GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/release.yml):

1. Build and package the plugin
2. Create a GitHub release with the tarball attached (required for Artifact Hub)

The Gitea repo push-mirrors to GitHub automatically, so both pipelines trigger from a single git push.

CI secrets

Secret	Where	Purpose
REGISTRY_TOKEN	Gitea	Personal access token with package:write scope for Docker image push

The Gitea release uses the built-in github.token. The GitHub release uses the default GITHUB_TOKEN with contents: write permission.

Updating Artifact Hub

When releasing a new version, update artifacthub-pkg.yml:

• version field
• headlamp/plugin/archive-url annotation (update the version in the download URL)
• headlamp/plugin/archive-checksum annotation (SHA256 of the new tarball, printed by the CI build)

Links

• Artifact Hub
• GitHub (mirror)
• Gitea (source of truth)
• Headlamp
• Fairwinds Polaris

License

MIT