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Enable Kong Manager

If you’re running Kong Gateway with a database (either in traditional or hybrid mode), you can enable Kong Gateway’s graphical user interface (GUI), Kong Manager.

  1. Set the KONG_ADMIN_GUI_PATH and KONG_ADMIN_GUI_URL properties in the (kong.conf) configuration file to the DNS or IP address of your system, then restart Kong Gateway for the setting to take effect. For example:

     docker exec -i <KONG_CONTAINER_ID> /bin/sh -c "export KONG_ADMIN_GUI_PATH='/'; export KONG_ADMIN_GUI_URL='http://localhost:8002/manager'; kong reload; exit"

    Replace KONG_CONTAINER_ID with the ID of your Docker container.

  2. Access Kong Manager on port 8002 at the path you specified in KONG_ADMIN_GUI_PATH, or the default URL http://localhost:8002/workspaces.

  1. Update the admin_gui_url property in the kong.conf configuration file to the DNS, or IP address, of your system. For example:

     admin_gui_path = /manager
 admin_gui_url = http://localhost:8002/manager

    This setting needs to resolve to a network path that can reach the operating system (OS) host.

  2. Restart Kong Gateway for the setting to take effect, using the following command:

     kong restart -c {PATH_TO_KONG.CONF_FILE}

  3. Access Kong Manager on port 8002 at the path you specified in admin_gui_path.

Multiple domains

To configure Kong Manager to be accessible from multiple domains, you can list the domains as comma-separated values in the admin_gui_url parameter in your Kong configuration. For example:

  admin_gui_url = http://localhost:8002, http://127.0.0.1:8002

If the admin_gui_path is also set, please update the Kong configuration:

admin_gui_url = http://localhost:8002/manager, http://127.0.0.1:8002/manager
admin_gui_path = /manager

Make sure that each domain has proper DNS records and that the Kong instance is accessible from all specified domains.

If your setup involves multiple domains or subdomains, it’s generally recommended to remove the cookie_domain that setting in the admin_gui_session_conf or admin_gui_auth_conf. When cookie_domain is not specified, cookies are set for the domain initiated the request, if admin_gui_api_url is not specified. This allows the browser to manage cookies correctly for each domain independently, avoiding conflicts or scope issues. For example:

a requests to gui.konghq.com and other-gui.example.com will produce cookies for gui.konghq.com and other-gui.example.com respectively, instead ones of the root-level konghq.com domain when cookie_domain is not specified.

  admin_gui_url = http://gui.konghq.com, http://other-gui.example.com
  admin_gui_session_conf = {"secret":"Y29vbGJlYW5z","storage":"kong","cookie_secure":false} # omitted `cookie_domain`

or both requests to gui.konghq.com and other-gui.konghq.com will receive cookies for konghq.com, which makes the cookie shared across all subdomains besides konghq.com itself. This increases the cookie’s scope, which may lead to unintended side effects or security risks.

  admin_gui_url = http://gui.konghq.com, http://other-gui.konghq.com
  admin_gui_session_conf = {"secret":"Y29vbGJlYW5z","storage":"kong","cookie_secure":false,"cookie_domain":"konghq.com"}

Next steps