Client credentials grant in header

Configure the OpenID Connect plugin with the client credentials grant.

Here’s how the client credentials grant works:

 
sequenceDiagram
    autonumber
    participant client as Client 
(e.g. mobile app) participant kong as API Gateway
(Kong) participant idp as IdP
(e.g. Keycloak) participant httpbin as Upstream
(upstream service,
e.g. httpbin) activate client activate kong client->>kong: Service with
basic authentication deactivate client kong->>kong: load basic
authentication credentials activate idp kong->>idp: IdP/token
with client credentials deactivate kong idp->>idp: authenticate client activate kong idp->>kong: return tokens deactivate idp kong->>kong: verify tokens activate httpbin kong->>httpbin: request with access token httpbin->>kong: response deactivate httpbin activate client kong->>client: response deactivate kong deactivate client

In this example, the plugin will only accept client credentials sent in a header, but you can also set the client_credentials_param_type parameter to body, query, or any combination of these values.

For a complete example of authenticating with client credentials using Keycloak, see the tutorial for configuring OpenID Connect with the client credentials grant.

Note: Setting config.client_auth to client_secret_post lets 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.

Prerequisites

  • A configured identity provider (IdP)

Environment variables

  • ISSUER: The issuer authentication URL for your IdP. For example, if you’re using Keycloak as your IdP, the issuer URL looks like this: http://localhost:8080/realms/example-realm

  • CLIENT_ID: The client ID that the plugin uses when it calls authenticated endpoints of the IdP.

  • CLIENT_SECRET: The client secret needed to connect to your IdP.

Set up the plugin

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