Key Authentication

Add Key Authentication (also sometimes referred to as an API key) to a Service or a Route (or the deprecated API entity). Consumers then add their key either in a querystring parameter or a header to authenticate their requests.

Configuration Reference

Enable the plugin on a service

curl -X POST http://{HOST}:8001/services/{SERVICE}/plugins \
    --data "name=key-auth"  \
    --data "config.key_names=apikey"

apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1
kind: KongPlugin
metadata:
  name: <key-auth-example>
config: 
  key_names:
  - apikey
plugin: key-auth

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: {SERVICE}
  labels:
    app: {SERVICE}
  annotations:
    konghq.com/plugins: <key-auth-example>
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 80
    targetPort: 80
    protocol: TCP
    name: {SERVICE}
  selector:
    app: {SERVICE}

plugins:
- name: key-auth
  service: {SERVICE}
  config: 
    key_names:
    - apikey

Enable the plugin on a route

$ curl -X POST http://{HOST}:8001/routes/{ROUTE}/plugins \
    --data "name=key-auth"  \
    --data "config.key_names=apikey"

apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1
kind: KongPlugin
metadata:
  name: <key-auth-example>
config: 
  key_names:
  - apikey
plugin: key-auth

apiVersion: networking/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: {ROUTE}
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: kong
    konghq.com/plugins: <key-auth-example>
spec:
  rules:
  - host: examplehostname.com
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /bar
        backend:
          serviceName: echo
          servicePort: 80

plugins:
- name: key-auth
  route: <route>
  config: 
    key_names:
    - apikey

Enable the plugin globally

A plugin which is not associated to any service, route, or consumer is considered global, and will be run on every request. Read the Plugin Reference and the Plugin Precedence sections for more information.

$ curl -X POST http://{HOST}:8001/plugins/ \
    --data "name=key-auth"  \
    --data "config.key_names=apikey"

apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1
kind: KongClusterPlugin
metadata:
  name: <global-key-auth>
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: kong
  labels:
    global: \"true\"
config: 
  key_names:
  - apikey
plugin: key-auth

plugins:
- name: key-auth
  config: 
    key_names:
    - apikey

Parameters

Here's a list of all the parameters which can be used in this plugin's configuration:

Note that, according to their respective specifications, HTTP header names are treated as case insensitive, while HTTP query string parameter names are treated as case sensitive. Kong follows these specifications as designed, meaning that the key_names configuration values will be treated differently when searching the request header fields, versus searching the query string. Administrators are advised against defining case-sensitive key_names values when expecting the authorization keys to be sent in the request headers.

Once applied, any user with a valid credential can access the Service/API. To restrict usage to only some of the authenticated users, also add the ACL plugin (not covered here) and create whitelist or blacklist groups of users.

Usage

In order to use the plugin, you first need to create a Consumer to associate one or more credentials to. The Consumer represents a developer using the upstream service.

Create a Consumer

You need to associate a credential to an existing Consumer object. To create a Consumer, you can execute the following request:

$ curl -X POST http://kong:8001/consumers/ \
    --data "username=<USERNAME>" \
    --data "custom_id=<CUSTOM_ID>"
HTTP/1.1 201 Created

{
    "username":"<USERNAME>",
    "custom_id": "<CUSTOM_ID>",
    "created_at": 1472604384000,
    "id": "7f853474-7b70-439d-ad59-2481a0a9a904"
}

A Consumer can have many credentials.

If you are also using the ACL plugin and whitelists with this service, you must add the new consumer to a whitelisted group. See ACL: Associating Consumers for details.

Create a Key

You can provision new credentials by making the following HTTP request:

$ curl -X POST http://kong:8001/consumers/{consumer}/key-auth -d ''
HTTP/1.1 201 Created

{
    "consumer_id": "876bf719-8f18-4ce5-cc9f-5b5af6c36007",
    "created_at": 1443371053000,
    "id": "62a7d3b7-b995-49f9-c9c8-bac4d781fb59",
    "key": "62eb165c070a41d5c1b58d9d3d725ca1"
}

• consumer: The id or username property of the Consumer entity to associate the credentials to.

Using the Key

Simply make a request with the key as a querystring parameter:

$ curl http://kong:8000/{proxy path}?apikey=<some_key>

Or in a header:

$ curl http://kong:8000/{proxy path} \
    -H 'apikey: <some_key>'

Delete a Key

You can delete an API Key by making the following HTTP request:

$ curl -X DELETE http://kong:8001/consumers/{consumer}/key-auth/{id}
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content

• consumer: The id or username property of the Consumer entity to associate the credentials to.
• id: The id attribute of the key credential object.

Upstream Headers

When a client has been authenticated, the plugin will append some headers to the request before proxying it to the upstream service, so that you can identify the Consumer in your code:

• X-Consumer-ID, the ID of the Consumer on Kong
• X-Consumer-Custom-ID, the custom_id of the Consumer (if set)
• X-Consumer-Username, the username of the Consumer (if set)
• X-Credential-Username, the username of the Credential (only if the consumer is not the ‘anonymous’ consumer)
• X-Anonymous-Consumer, will be set to true when authentication failed, and the ‘anonymous’ consumer was set instead.

You can use this information on your side to implement additional logic. You can use the X-Consumer-ID value to query the Kong Admin API and retrieve more information about the Consumer.

Paginate through keys

You can paginate through the API keys for all Consumers using the following request:

$ curl -X GET http://kong:8001/key-auths

{
   "total":3,
   "data":[
      {
         "id":"17ab4e95-9598-424f-a99a-ffa9f413a821",
         "created_at":1507941267000,
         "key":"Qslaip2ruiwcusuSUdhXPv4SORZrfj4L",
         "consumer_id":"c0d92ba9-8306-482a-b60d-0cfdd2f0e880"
      },
      {
         "id":"6cb76501-c970-4e12-97c6-3afbbba3b454",
         "created_at":1507936652000,
         "key":"nCztu5Jrz18YAWmkwOGJkQe9T8lB99l4",
         "consumer_id":"c0d92ba9-8306-482a-b60d-0cfdd2f0e880"
      },
      {
         "id":"b1d87b08-7eb6-4320-8069-efd85a4a8d89",
         "created_at":1507941307000,
         "key":"26WUW1VEsmwT1ORBFsJmLHZLDNAxh09l",
         "consumer_id":"3c2c8fc1-7245-4fbb-b48b-e5947e1ce941"
      }
   ]
}

You can filter the list using the following query parameters:

Retrieve the Consumer associated with a key

It is possible to retrieve a Consumer associated with an API Key using the following request:

curl -X GET http://kong:8001/key-auths/{key or id}/consumer

{
   "created_at":1507936639000,
   "username":"foo",
   "id":"c0d92ba9-8306-482a-b60d-0cfdd2f0e880"
}

• key or id: The id or key property of the API key for which to get the associated Consumer.