Sessions in Kong Manager

When a user logs in to Kong Manager with their credentials, the Sessions Plugin will create a session cookie. The cookie is used for all subsequent requests and is valid to authenticate the user. The session has a limited duration and renews at a configurable interval, which helps prevent an attacker from obtaining and using a stale cookie after the session has ended.

The Session configuration is secure by default, which may require alteration if using HTTP or different domains for the Admin API and Kong Manager. Even if an attacker were to obtain a stale cookie, it would not benefit them since the cookie is encrypted. The encrypted session data may be stored either in Kong or the cookie itself.

Configuration the Sessions plugin for Kong Manager

To enable sessions authentication, configure the following:

enforce_rbac = on
admin_gui_auth = <set to desired auth type>
admin_gui_session_conf = {
    "secret":"<SET_SECRET>",
    "cookie_name":"<SET_COOKIE_NAME>",
    "storage":"<SET_STORAGE>",
    "rolling_timeout":<NUMBER_OF_SECONDS_UNTIL_RENEWAL>,
    "cookie_secure":<SET_DEPENDING_ON_PROTOCOL>,
    "cookie_same_site":"<SET_DEPENDING_ON_DOMAIN>",
    "store_metadata": true
}

Attribute	Description
`cookie_name`	A name for the cookie. For example, `"cookie_name":"kong_cookie"`
`secret`	The secret used in keyed HMAC generation. Although the Session plugin’s default is a random string, the `secret` must be manually set for use with Kong Manager since it must be the same across all Kong workers/nodes.
`storage`	The location where session data is stored. The default value is `cookie`. It may be more secure if set to `kong`, since access to the database would be required.
`cookie_lifetime`	The duration (in seconds) that the session will remain open. The default value is `3600`.
`cookie_secure`	Applies the Secure directive so that the cookie may be sent to the server only with an encrypted request over the HTTPS protocol. See Session Security for exceptions. The default value is `true`.
`cookie_same_site`	Determines whether and how a cookie may be sent with cross-site requests. See Session Security for exceptions. The default value is `strict`.
`hash_subject`	Whether to hash or not the subject when `store_metadata` is enabled. The default value is `false`.
`store_metadata`	Whether to also store metadata of sessions, such as collecting data of sessions for a specific audience belonging to a specific subject. The default value is `false`. Upon enabling this option, please also set `storage` to `kong`.

Important: The following properties must not be altered from default for use with Kong Manager:

logout_methods

logout_query_arg

logout_post_arg

For detailed descriptions of each configuration property, learn more in the Session plugin documentation.

Multiple session management

When you have multiple sessions running, sessions are isolated by default. You can choose to keep sessions valid or invalidate them on password update:

Keep current sessions valid on password update: Set store_metadata to false or set storage to `“cookie”. In these cases, the session metadata is not stored on the server side and the session cookie is kept on the client side, so current sessions remain valid.
Invalidate current sessions on password update: Set storage to "kong" and set store_metadata to true. In this case, session metadata will be stored on the server side, and all associated sessions will be invalidated upon password updates.

Session security

The Session configuration is secure by default, so the cookie uses the Secure, HttpOnly, and SameSite directives.

The following properties must be altered depending on the protocol and domains in use:

If using HTTP instead of HTTPS: "cookie_secure": false
If using different domains for the Admin API and Kong Manager: "cookie_same_site": "Lax"

Important: Sessions are not invalidated when a user logs out if "storage": "cookie" (the default) is used. In that case, the cookie is deleted client-side. Only when session data is stored server-side with "storage": "kong" set is the session actively invalidated.

Example configurations

If using HTTPS and hosting Kong Manager and the Admin API from the same domain, the following configuration could be used for Basic Auth:

enforce_rbac = on
admin_gui_auth = basic-auth
admin_gui_session_conf = {
    "cookie_name":"$4m04$",
    "secret":"change-this-secret",
    "storage":"kong"
}

In testing, if using HTTP, the following configuration could be used instead:

enforce_rbac = on
admin_gui_auth = basic-auth
admin_gui_session_conf = {
    "cookie_name":"04tm34l",
    "secret":"change-this-secret",
    "storage":"kong",
    "cookie_secure":false
}

If you want to invalidate all sessions when the password is changed, the following configuration could be used with the Basic Auth plugin:

enforce_rbac = on
admin_gui_auth = basic-auth
admin_gui_session_conf = {
    "cookie_name":"kong_cookie",
    "secret":"change-this-secret",
    "storage":"kong",
    "cookie_secure":false,
    "store_metadata":true
}

If you need to avoid storing session subjects as clear text due to PII concerns with store_metadata enabled, the following configuration can be used instead:

enforce_rbac = on
admin_gui_auth = basic-auth
admin_gui_session_conf = {
    "cookie_name":"kong_cookie",
    "secret":"change-this-secret",
    "storage":"kong",
    "cookie_secure":false,
    "hash_subject":true,
    "store_metadata":true
}