AKS Identity and Security#

AKS identity operates at three levels: who can access the cluster API (authentication), what they can do inside it (authorization), and how pods authenticate to Azure services (workload identity). Each level has Azure-specific mechanisms that replace or extend vanilla Kubernetes patterns.

Entra ID Integration (Azure AD)#

AKS supports two Entra ID integration modes.

AKS-managed Azure AD: Enable with --enable-aad at cluster creation. AKS handles the app registrations and token validation. This is the recommended approach.

Azure Terraform Patterns#

Azure’s Terraform provider (azurerm) has its own idioms, naming conventions, and gotchas that differ significantly from AWS. The biggest differences: everything lives in a Resource Group, identity management uses Managed Identity (not IAM roles), and many services require explicit Private DNS Zone configuration for private networking.

Resource Groups: Azure’s Organizational Unit#

Every Azure resource belongs to a Resource Group. This is the first thing you create and the last thing you delete.