Kubernetes offers two distinct ways for clients that run within your cluster, or that otherwise have a relationship to your cluster's control plane to authenticate to the API server. A service account provides an identity for processes that run in a Pod, and maps to a ServiceAccount object. When you authenticate to the API server, you identify yourself as a particular user. Kubernetes recognises the concept of a user, however, Kubernetes itself does not have a User API.| Kubernetes
TokenRequest requests a token for a given service account.| Kubernetes
A Secret is an object that contains a small amount of sensitive data such as a password, a token, or a key. Such information might otherwise be put in a Pod specification or in a container image. Using a Secret means that you don't need to include confidential data in your application code. Because Secrets can be created independently of the Pods that use them, there is less risk of the Secret (and its data) being exposed during the workflow of creating, viewing, and editing Pods.| Kubernetes