Understanding Kubernetes: Part 29 Service Account

📢 If you’ve been following our Kubernetes series 2025, welcome back! For new readers, check out Part 28: ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding

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Kubernetes Service Account

A Service Account in Kubernetes is used to authenticate Pods and provide them with permissions to access the API server securely. Each Pod runs under a Service Account, which can be assigned specific RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) permissions.

Why Use Service Accounts?

1. Secure API Access → Provides authentication for Pods to access the Kubernetes API.
2. Fine-Grained Permissions → Grants only necessary permissions using RBAC.
3. Workload Identity Management → Helps Pods interact with cloud services securely.

Creating a Service Account

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: my-service-account
  namespace: default

• This creates a Service Account named my-service-account in the default namespace.

Assigning a Service Account to a Pod

apiVersion: v1
kind…