If you want to provide a user with access and permissions to specific projects and resources within a cluster, assign the user a project membership.

You can add members to a project as it is created, or add them to an existing project.

Tip: Want to provide a user with access to all projects within a cluster? See Adding Cluster Members instead.

Adding Members to a New Project

You can add members to a project as you create it (recommended if possible). For details on creating a new project, refer to the cluster administration section.

Adding Members to an Existing Project

Following project creation, you can add users as project members so that they can access its resources.

1. From the Global view, open the project that you want to add members to.

2. From the main menu, select Members. Then click Add Member.

3. Search for the user or group that you want to add to the project.

   If external authentication is configured:

   • Rancher returns users from your external authentication source as you type.

   • A drop-down allows you to add groups instead of individual users. The dropdown only lists groups that you, the logged in user, are included in.

   Note: If you are logged in as a local user, external users do not display in your search results.

4. Assign the user or group Project roles.

   What are Project Roles?

   Notes:

   • Users assigned the Owner or Member role for a project automatically inherit the namespace creation role. However, this role is a Kubernetes ClusterRole, meaning its scope extends to all projects in the cluster. Therefore, users explicitly assigned the Owner or Member role for a project can create namespaces in other projects they’re assigned to, even with only the Read Only role assigned.

   • For Custom roles, you can modify the list of individual roles available for assignment.

     • To add roles to the list, Add a Custom Role.
     • To remove roles from the list, Lock/Unlock Roles.

Result: The chosen users are added to the project.

• To revoke project membership, select the user and click Delete. This action deletes membership, not the user.
• To modify a user’s roles in the project, delete them from the project, and then re-add them with modified roles.