Using the OpenID Connect plugin, set up the OAuth2 authentication workflow with the OAuth2 plugin to retrieve and verify tokens from Kong Gateway, then use them with an IdP.
This tutorial requires Kong Gateway Enterprise. If you don’t have Kong Gateway set up yet, you can use the quickstart script with an enterprise license to get an instance of Kong Gateway running almost instantly.
Export your license to an environment variable:
export KONG_LICENSE_DATA='LICENSE-CONTENTS-GO-HERE'
Run the quickstart script:
curl -Ls https://get.konghq.com/quickstart | bash -s -- -e KONG_LICENSE_DATA
Once Kong Gateway is ready, you will see the following message:
Kong Gateway Ready
decK is a CLI tool for managing Kong Gateway declaratively with state files. To complete this tutorial, install decK version 1.43 or later.
This guide uses deck gateway apply, which directly applies entity configuration to your Gateway instance.
We recommend upgrading your decK installation to take advantage of this tool.
You can check your current decK version with deck version.
For this tutorial, you’ll need Kong Gateway entities, like Gateway Services and Routes, pre-configured. These entities are essential for Kong Gateway to function but installing them isn’t the focus of this guide. Follow these steps to pre-configure them:
Run the following command:
echo '
_format_version: "3.0"
services:
- name: example-service
url: http://httpbin.konghq.com/anything
routes:
- name: example-route
paths:
- "/anything"
service:
name: example-service
protocols:
- http
- https
' | deck gateway apply -
To learn more about entities, you can read our entities documentation.
This tutorial requires an identity provider (IdP). If you don’t have one, you can use Keycloak. The steps will be similar in other standard identity providers.
Install Keycloak (version 26 or later) on your platform.
For example, you can use the Keycloak Docker image:
docker run -p 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 \
-e KC_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_USERNAME=admin \
-e KC_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin \
quay.io/keycloak/keycloak start-dev
Open the admin console.
The default URL of the console is http://$YOUR_KEYCLOAK_HOST:8080/admin/master/console/.
|
Section |
Settings |
|---|---|
| General settings |
|
| Capability config |
|
| Login settings |
Valid redirect URIs: http://localhost:8000/*
|
In this guide, we’re going to use an example user named alex with the password doe.
Export your client secret, client ID, and issuer URL to environment variables so that you can pass them more securely. For example:
export DECK_ISSUER='http://host.docker.internal:8080/realms/master'
export DECK_CLIENT_ID='kong'
export DECK_CLIENT_SECRET='UNT3GPzCKI7zUbhAmFSUGbj4wmiBDGiW'
First, create a Consumer and assign OAuth2 credentials to them. We’ll use these credentials to generate access tokens.
echo '
_format_version: "3.0"
consumers:
- username: alex
oauth2_credentials:
- client_secret: secret
client_id: client
hash_secret: true
name: oauth2-app
' | deck gateway apply -
The OAuth2 plugin adds an OAuth 2.0 authentication layer to Kong Gateway and lets you generate access tokens for Consumers.
First, you’ll need a key to provision the plugin. Generate a UUID and export it to an environment variable:
export DECK_PROVISION_KEY="$(uuidgen)"
Apply the OAuth2 plugin to the example-route Route you created in the prerequisites:
echo '
_format_version: "3.0"
plugins:
- name: oauth2
route: example-route
config:
global_credentials: true
hide_credentials: false
enable_client_credentials: true
provision_key: "${{ env "DECK_PROVISION_KEY" }}"
' | deck gateway apply -
Using the Keycloak and Kong Gateway configuration from the prerequisites, set up an instance of the OpenID Connect plugin with Kong OAuth token authentication.
Enable the OpenID Connect plugin on the example-service Service:
echo '
_format_version: "3.0"
plugins:
- name: openid-connect
service: example-service
config:
issuer: "${{ env "DECK_ISSUER" }}"
client_id:
- "${{ env "DECK_CLIENT_ID" }}"
client_secret:
- "${{ env "DECK_CLIENT_SECRET" }}"
client_auth:
- client_secret_post
auth_methods:
- kong_oauth2
bearer_token_param_type:
- header
' | deck gateway apply -
In this example:
issuer, client ID, client secret, and client auth: Settings that connect the plugin to your IdP (in this case, the sample Keycloak app).auth_methods: Specifies that the plugin should use Kong’s OAuth2 token for authentication.bearer_token_param_type: Restricts token lookup to the request headers only.Note: Setting
config.client_authtoclient_secret_postlets you easily test the connection to your IdP, but we recommend using a more secure auth method in production. You can use any of the supported client auth methods.
Retrieve the token from the OAuth token endpoint:
_response=$(curl -k -X POST "https://localhost:8443/anything/oauth2/token" \
--no-progress-meter --fail-with-body \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
--json '{
"client_id": "client",
"client_secret": "secret",
"grant_type": "client_credentials"
}')
Export the env variables:
export =$(echo "$_response" | jq -r "")
You should see an access-token in the response.
Now, validate the setup by accessing the example-route Route and passing the bearer token you received from the Kong OAuth plugin:
curl -i -X GET "http://localhost:8000/anything" \
--no-progress-meter --fail-with-body \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN"
If Kong Gateway successfully authenticates with Keycloak, you’ll see a 200 response with your bearer token in the Authorization header.
If you make another request using the same credentials, you’ll see that Kong Gateway adds less latency to the request because it has cached the token endpoint call to Keycloak:
X-Kong-Proxy-Latency: 25
If you created a new control plane and want to conserve your free trial credits or avoid unnecessary charges, delete the new control plane used in this tutorial.
curl -Ls https://get.konghq.com/quickstart | bash -s -- -d