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Getting started

This page covers requirements and instructions to deploy Authorino on a Kubernetes cluster, as well as the steps to declare, apply and try out a protection layer of authentication and authorization over your service, clean-up and complete uninstallation.

If you prefer learning with an example, check out our Hello World.

Requirements

Platform requirements

These are the platform requirements to use Authorino:

  • Kubernetes server (recommended v1.20 or later), with permission to create Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) (for bootstrapping Authorino and Authorino Operator)

    Alternative: K8s distros and platforms

    Alternatively to upstream Kubernetes, you should be able to use any other Kubernetes distribution or Kubernetes Management Platform (KMP) with support for Kubernetes Custom Resources Definitions (CRD) and custom controllers, such as Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service (IKS), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

  • Envoy proxy (recommended v1.19 or later), to wire up Upstream services (i.e. the services to be protected with Authorino) and external authorization filter (Authorino) for integrations based on the reverse-proxy architecture - example

    Alternative: Non-reverse-proxy integration

    Technically, any client that implements Envoy's external authorization gRPC protocol should be compatible with Authorino. For integrations based on the reverse-proxy architecture nevertheless, we strongly recommended that you leverage Envoy alongside Authorino.

Feature-specific requirements

A few examples are:

  • For OpenID Connect, make sure you have access to an identity provider (IdP) and an authority that can issue ID tokens (JWTs). Check out Keycloak which can solve both and connect to external identity sources and user federation like LDAP.

  • For Kubernetes authentication tokens, platform support for the TokenReview and SubjectAccessReview APIs of Kubernetes shall be required. In case you want to be able to requests access tokens for clients running outside the custer, you may also want to check out the requisites for using Kubernetes TokenRequest API (GA in v1.20).

  • For User-Managed Access (UMA) resource data, you will need a UMA-compliant server running as well. This can be an implementation of the UMA protocol by each upstream API itself or (more typically) an external server that knows about the resources. Again, Keycloak can be a good fit here as well. Just keep in mind that, whatever resource server you choose, changing-state actions commanded in the upstream APIs or other parties will have to be reflected in the resource server. Authorino will not do that for you.

Check out the Feature specification page for more feature-specific requirements.

Installation

Step: Install the Authorino Operator

The simplest way to install the Authorino Operator is by applying the manifest bundle:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kuadrant/authorino-operator/main/utils/install.sh | bash -s

The above will install the latest build of the Authorino Operator and latest version of the manifests (CRDs and RBAC), which by default points as well to the latest build of Authorino, both based on the main branches of each component. To install a stable released version of the Operator and therefore also defaults to its latest compatible stable release of Authorino, replace main with another tag of a proper release of the Operator, e.g. 'v0.2.0'.

This step will also install cert-manager in the cluster (required).

Alternatively, you can deploy the Authorino Operator using the Operator Lifecycle Manager bundles. For instructions, check out Installing via OLM.

Step: Request an Authorino instance

Choose either cluster-wide or namespaced deployment mode and whether you want TLS termination enabled for the Authorino endpoints (gRPC authorization, raw HTTP authorization, and OIDC Festival Wristband Discovery listeners), and follow the corresponding instructions below.

The instructions here are for centralized gateway or centralized authorization service architecture. Check out the Topologies section of the docs for alternatively running Authorino in a sidecar container.

Cluster-wide (with TLS)

Create the namespace: 

kubectl create namespace authorino

Create the TLS certificates (requires cert-manager; skip if you already have certificates and certificate keys created and stored in Kubernetes Secrets in the namespace): 

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kuadrant/authorino/main/deploy/certs.yaml | sed "s/\$(AUTHORINO_INSTANCE)/authorino/g;s/\$(NAMESPACE)/authorino/g" | kubectl -n authorino apply -f -

Deploy Authorino: 

kubectl -n authorino apply -f -<<EOF
apiVersion: operator.authorino.kuadrant.io/v1beta1
kind: Authorino
metadata:
  name: authorino
spec:
  replicas: 1
  clusterWide: true
  listener:
    tls:
      enabled: true
      certSecretRef:
        name: authorino-server-cert
  oidcServer:
    tls:
      enabled: true
      certSecretRef:
        name: authorino-oidc-server-cert
EOF

Cluster-wide (without TLS) 
kubectl create namespace authorino
kubectl -n authorino apply -f -<<EOF
apiVersion: operator.authorino.kuadrant.io/v1beta1
kind: Authorino
metadata:
  name: authorino
spec:
  image: quay.io/kuadrant/authorino:latest
  replicas: 1
  clusterWide: true
  listener:
    tls:
      enabled: false
  oidcServer:
    tls:
      enabled: false
EOF
Namespaced (with TLS)

Create the namespace: 

kubectl create namespace myapp

Create the TLS certificates (requires cert-manager; skip if you already have certificates and certificate keys created and stored in Kubernetes Secrets in the namespace): 

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kuadrant/authorino/main/deploy/certs.yaml | sed "s/\$(AUTHORINO_INSTANCE)/authorino/g;s/\$(NAMESPACE)/myapp/g" | kubectl -n myapp apply -f -

Deploy Authorino: 

kubectl -n myapp apply -f -<<EOF
apiVersion: operator.authorino.kuadrant.io/v1beta1
kind: Authorino
metadata:
  name: authorino
spec:
  image: quay.io/kuadrant/authorino:latest
  replicas: 1
  clusterWide: false
  listener:
    tls:
      enabled: true
      certSecretRef:
        name: authorino-server-cert
  oidcServer:
    tls:
      enabled: true
      certSecretRef:
        name: authorino-oidc-server-cert
EOF

Namespaced (without TLS) 
kubectl create namespace myapp
kubectl -n myapp apply -f -<<EOF
apiVersion: operator.authorino.kuadrant.io/v1beta1
kind: Authorino
metadata:
  name: authorino
spec:
  image: quay.io/kuadrant/authorino:latest
  replicas: 1
  clusterWide: false
  listener:
    tls:
      enabled: false
  oidcServer:
    tls:
      enabled: false
EOF

Protect a service

The most typical integration to protect services with Authorino is by putting the service (upstream) behind a reverse-proxy or API gateway, enabled with an authorization filter that ensures all requests to the service are first checked with the authorization server (Authorino).

To do that, make sure you have your upstream service deployed and running, usually in the same Kubernetes server where you installed Authorino. Then, setup an Envoy proxy and create an Authorino AuthConfig for your service.

Authorino exposes 2 interfaces to serve the authorization requests:

  • a gRPC interface that implements Envoy's External Authorization protocol;
  • a raw HTTP authorization interface, suitable for using Authorino with Kubernetes ValidatingWebhook, for Envoy external authorization via HTTP, and other integrations (e.g. other proxies).

To use Authorino as a simple satellite (sidecar) Policy Decision Point (PDP), applications can integrate directly via any of these interfaces. By integrating via a proxy or API gateway, the combination makes Authorino to perform as an external Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) completely decoupled from the application.

Life cycle

API protection life cycle

Step: Setup Envoy

To configure Envoy for proxying requests targeting the upstream service and authorizing with Authorino, setup an Envoy configuration that enables Envoy's external authorization HTTP filter. Store the configuration in a ConfigMap.

These are the important bits in the Envoy configuration to activate Authorino:

static_resources:
  listeners:
  - address: {…} # TCP socket address and port of the proxy
    filter_chains:
    - filters:
      - name: envoy.http_connection_manager
        typed_config:
          "@type": type.googleapis.com/envoy.extensions.filters.network.http_connection_manager.v3.HttpConnectionManager
          route_config: {…} # routing configs - virtual host domain and endpoint matching patterns and corresponding upstream services to redirect the traffic
          http_filters:
          - name: envoy.filters.http.ext_authz # the external authorization filter
            typed_config:
              "@type": type.googleapis.com/envoy.extensions.filters.http.ext_authz.v3.ExtAuthz
              transport_api_version: V3
              failure_mode_allow: false # ensures only authenticated and authorized traffic goes through
              grpc_service:
                envoy_grpc:
                  cluster_name: authorino
                timeout: 1s
  clusters:
  - name: authorino
    connect_timeout: 0.25s
    type: strict_dns
    lb_policy: round_robin
    http2_protocol_options: {}
    load_assignment:
      cluster_name: authorino
      endpoints:
      - lb_endpoints:
        - endpoint:
            address:
              socket_address:
                address: authorino-authorino-authorization # name of the Authorino service deployed – it can be the fully qualified name with `.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local` suffix (e.g. `authorino-authorino-authorization.myapp.svc.cluster.local`)
                port_value: 50051
    transport_socket: # in case TLS termination is enabled in Authorino; omit it otherwise
      name: envoy.transport_sockets.tls
      typed_config:
        "@type": type.googleapis.com/envoy.extensions.transport_sockets.tls.v3.UpstreamTlsContext
        common_tls_context:
          validation_context:
            trusted_ca:
              filename: /etc/ssl/certs/authorino-ca-cert.crt

For a complete Envoy ConfigMap containing an upstream API protected with Authorino, with TLS enabled and option for rate limiting with Limitador, plus a webapp served with under the same domain of the protected API, check out this example.

After creating the ConfigMap with the Envoy configuration, create an Envoy Deployment and Service. E.g.:

kubectl -n myapp apply -f -<<EOF
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: envoy
  labels:
    app: envoy
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: envoy
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: envoy
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: envoy
          image: envoyproxy/envoy:v1.19-latest
          command: ["/usr/local/bin/envoy"]
          args:
            - --config-path /usr/local/etc/envoy/envoy.yaml
            - --service-cluster front-proxy
            - --log-level info
            - --component-log-level filter:trace,http:debug,router:debug
          ports:
            - name: web
              containerPort: 8000 # matches the address of the listener in the envoy config
          volumeMounts:
            - name: config
              mountPath: /usr/local/etc/envoy
              readOnly: true
            - name: authorino-ca-cert # in case TLS termination is enabled in Authorino; omit it otherwise
              subPath: ca.crt
              mountPath: /etc/ssl/certs/authorino-ca-cert.crt
              readOnly: true
      volumes:
        - name: config
          configMap:
            name: envoy
            items:
              - key: envoy.yaml
                path: envoy.yaml
        - name: authorino-ca-cert # in case TLS termination is enabled in Authorino; omit it otherwise
          secret:
            defaultMode: 420
            secretName: authorino-ca-cert
  replicas: 1
EOF

kubectl -n myapp apply -f -<<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: envoy
spec:
  selector:
    app: envoy
  ports:
    - name: web
      port: 8000
      protocol: TCP
EOF

Step: Apply an AuthConfig

Check out the docs for a full description of Authorino's AuthConfig Custom Resource Definition (CRD) and its features.

For examples based on specific use-cases, check out the User guides.

For authentication based on OpenID Connect (OIDC) JSON Web Tokens (JWT), plus one simple JWT claim authorization check, a typical AuthConfig custom resource looks like the following:

kubectl -n myapp apply -f -<<EOF
apiVersion: authorino.kuadrant.io/v1beta2
kind: AuthConfig
metadata:
  name: my-api-protection
spec:
  hosts: # any hosts that resolve to the envoy service and envoy routing config where the external authorization filter is enabled
  - my-api.io # north-south traffic through a Kubernetes `Ingress` or OpenShift `Route`
  - my-api.myapp.svc.cluster.local # east-west traffic (between applications within the cluster)
  authentication:
    "idp-users":
      jwt:
        issuerUrl: https://my-idp.com/auth/realm
  authorization:
    "check-claim":
      patternMatching:
        patterns:
        - selector: auth.identity.group
          operator: eq
          value: allowed-users
EOF

After applying the AuthConfig, consumers of the protected service should be able to start sending requests.

Clean-up

Remove protection

Delete the AuthConfig:

kubectl -n myapp delete authconfig/my-api-protection

Decommission the Authorino instance:

kubectl -n myapp delete authorino/authorino

Uninstall

To completely remove Authorino CRDs, run from the Authorino Operator directory:

make uninstall

Next steps

  1. Read the docs. The Architecture page and the Features page are good starting points to learn more about how Authorino works and its functionalities.
  2. Check out the User guides for several examples of AuthConfigs based on specific use-cases