You are browsing documentation for an outdated plugin version.
This plugin is not compatible with Konnect
Looking for the plugin's configuration parameters? You can find them in the Vault Authentication configuration reference doc.
Add authentication to a service or route with an access token and a secret token. Credential tokens are stored securely via Vault.
Credential lifecycles can be managed through the Kong Admin API, or independently via Vault.
Usage
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.
Additionally, a Vault object must be created to represent the connection Kong will use to communicate with a Vault server, where access and secret tokens will be stored.
Create a consumer
You need to associate a credential to an existing consumer object. To create a consumer, execute the following request:
curl -X POST http://localhost:8001/consumers/ \
--data "username=<USERNAME>" \
--data "custom_id=<CUSTOM_ID>"
Response:
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
{
"username":"<USERNAME>",
"custom_id": "<CUSTOM_ID>",
"created_at": 1472604384000,
"id": "7f853474-7b70-439d-ad59-2481a0a9a904"
}
parameter | default | description |
---|---|---|
username semi-optional |
The username of the Consumer. Either this field or custom_id must be specified. |
|
custom_id semi-optional |
A custom identifier used to map the Consumer to another database. Either this field or username must be specified. |
A consumer can have many credentials.
If you are also using the ACL plugin and allowed lists with this service, you must add the new consumer to an allowed group. See ACL: Associating Consumers for details.
Create a Vault
The Vault Auth plugin only works with HashiCorp Vault KV Secrets Engine - Version 1.
A Vault object represents the connection between Kong and a Vault server. It defines the connection and authentication information used to communicate with the Vault API. This allows different instances of the vault-auth
plugin to communicate with different Vault servers, providing a flexible deployment and consumption model.
Vault objects can be created via the following HTTP request:
curl -X POST http://localhost:8001/vault-auth \
--header 'Content-Type: multipart/form-data' \
--form name=kong-auth \
--form mount=kong-auth \
--form protocol=http \
--form host=127.0.0.1 \
--form port=8200 \
--form vault_token=<token>
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
{
"host": "127.0.0.1",
"created_at": 1605288799,
"vault_token": "<token>",
"mount": "kong-auth",
"protocol": "http",
"name": "kong-auth",
"port": 8200,
"updated_at": 1605288799,
"id": "c22198a3-cf54-428b-bed2-59c1f3760823"
}
This assumes a Vault server is accessible via 127.0.0.1:8200
, and that a version 1 KV secrets engine has been enabled at kong-auth
. Vault KV secrets engine documentation is available via the Vault documentation.
Create an Access/Secret Token Pair
vault-auth
credentials are defined as a pair of tokens: an access
token that identifies the owner of the credential, and a secret
token that is used to authenticate ownership of the access
token.
Token pairs can be managed either via the Kong Admin API, or independently via direct access with Vault. Token pairs must be associated with an existing Kong Consumer. Creating a token pair with the Kong Admin API can be done via the following request:
curl -X POST http://localhost:8001/vault-auth/{vault}/credentials/{consumer}
Response:
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
{
"data": {
"access_token": "v3cOV1jWglS0PFOrTcdr85bs1GP0e2yM",
"consumer": {
"id": "64063284-e3b5-48e7-9bca-802251c32138"
},
"created_at": 1550538920,
"secret_token": "11XYyybbu3Ty0Qt4ImIshPGQ0WsvjLzl",
"ttl": null
}
}
When the access_token
or secret_token
values are not provided, token values will be automatically generated via a cryptographically-secure random number generator (CSPRNG).
Integrating Vault objects with Vault-Auth plugins
Vault objects are treated as foreign references in plugin configs, creating a seamless lifecycle relationship between Vault instances and plugins with which they’re associated. vault-auth
plugins require an association with a Vault object, which can be defined with the following HTTP request during plugin creation:
curl -X POST http://localhost:8001/plugins \
--data name=vault-auth \
--data config.vault.id=<uuid>
Response:
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
{
"created_at": 1550539002,
"config": {
"tokens_in_body": false,
"secret_token_name": "secret_token",
"run_on_preflight": true,
"vault": {
"id": "d3da058d-0acb-49c2-b7fe-72b3e9fd4b0a"
},
"anonymous": null,
"hide_credentials": false,
"access_token_name": "access_token"
},
"id": "b4d0cbb7-bff2-4599-ba19-67c705c15b9a",
"service": null,
"enabled": true,
"run_on": "first",
"consumer": null,
"route": null,
"name": "vault-auth"
}
Where <uuid>
is the id
of an existing Vault object.
Using Vault credentials
Simply make a request with the access_token
and secret_token
as querystring parameters:
curl http://kong:8000/{proxy path}?access_token=<access token>&secret_token=<secret token>
Or in a header:
curl http://kong:8000/{proxy path} \
-H 'access_token: <access_token>' \
-H 'secret_token: <secret_token>'
Deleting an Access/Secret Token Pair
Existing Vault credentials can be removed from the Vault server via the following API:
curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8001/vault-auth/{vault}/credentials/token/{access token}
Response:
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Token TTL
When reading a token from Vault, Kong will search the responding KV value for the presence of a ttl
field. When this is present, Kong will respect the advisory value of the ttl
field and store the value of the credential in cache for only as long as the ttl
field defines. This allows tokens created directly in Vault, outside of the Kong Admin API, to be periodically refreshed by Kong.
Extra-Kong Token Pairs
Currently vault-auth
supports creating and reading credentials based on the Vault v1 KV engine.
Kong can read access/token secret pairs that have been created directly in Vault, outside of the Kong Admin API. Create Vault KV secret values must contain the following fields:
{
access_token: <string>
secret_token: <string>
created_at: <integer>
updated_at: <integer>
ttl: <integer> (optional)
consumer: {
id: <uuid>
}
}
Additional fields within the secret are ignored. The key must be the access_token
value; this is the identifier by which Kong queries the Vault API to fetch the credential data. See the Vault documentation for version 1
for further information on the KV secrets engine.
vault-auth
token pairs can be created with the Vault HTTP API or the vault write
command:
vault write kong-auth/foo - <<EOF
{
"access_token": "foo",
"secret_token": "supersecretvalue",
"consumer": {
"id": "ce67c25e-2168-4a09-81e5-e06187a2384f"
},
"ttl": 86400
}
EOF