OpenShift Pipelines 1.24.1 closes Manual Approval Gate privilege gaps
The update removes broad authenticated-user access and makes approval requirements and approver records immutable after task creation.
Red Hat has released OpenShift Pipelines 1.24.1 with a breaking access-control change and two integrity fixes for the Manual Approval Gate component. Platform teams using approval tasks should review their namespace RoleBindings before upgrading.
Broad authenticated access is removed
The release removes the system:authenticated group from the Manual Approval Gate controller RoleBinding. Red Hat says the previous binding allowed any authenticated user or service account in a cluster to approve, reject, list or describe approval tasks across namespaces without a more specific RBAC grant.
After the update, users and service accounts need explicit role bindings to manage approval tasks. Red Hat directs administrators to bind the shipped manual-approval-gate-approver ClusterRole in each relevant namespace. That role is intended to supply the minimum permissions needed for approval-task access.
This is the operationally significant part of the update: existing approval workflows that relied on the broad default binding can stop working until administrators add the narrower namespace bindings. Teams should identify the people and automation accounts that act on approval tasks and create those bindings before rolling out 1.24.1.
Approval policy fields become immutable
The update also hardens the webhook that validates approval-task changes. The webhook now prevents changes to spec.numberOfApprovalsRequired and spec.description after a task has been created. Previously, an approver could change those fields while submitting an approval, including lowering a multi-approver requirement.
A second fix adds validation for changes to spec.approvers. Red Hat says an approver previously could add entries already marked as approved during an update. The webhook now rejects attempts to add, remove or modify approver entries on existing approval tasks.
Together, the fixes move the gate closer to the behavior its name implies: authorization must be granted deliberately, and the approval policy cannot be rewritten as part of the approval action.
Availability
OpenShift Pipelines 1.24.1 is generally available for OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 and later supported versions. Because the RBAC correction is explicitly listed as a breaking change, upgrade preparation should include an inventory of Manual Approval Gate use, existing RoleBindings and the service accounts that submit approval decisions.
sources
- Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines 1.24 release notesdocs.redhat.com
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