jwt-auth

Description

The jwt-auth Plugin is used to add JWT authentication to a Service or a Route.

A Consumer of the service then needs to provide a key through a query string, a request header or a cookie to verify its request.

The jwt-auth Plugin can be integrated with HashiCorp Vault to store and fetch secrets and RSA keys pairs from its encrypted KV engine. Learn more from the examples below.

Attributes

For Consumer:

Name	Type	Required	Default	Valid values	Description
key	string	True			Unique key for a Consumer.
secret	string	False			The encryption key. If unspecified, auto generated in the background.
public_key	string	True if `RS256` is set for the `algorithm` attribute.			RSA public key.
private_key	string	True if `RS256` is set for the `algorithm` attribute.			RSA private key.
algorithm	string	False	“HS256”	[“HS256”, “HS512”, “RS256”]	Encryption algorithm.
exp	integer	False	86400	[1,…]	Expiry time of the token in seconds.
base64_secret	boolean	False	false		Set to true if the secret is base64 encoded.
vault	object	False			Set to true to use Vault for storing and retrieving secret (secret for HS256/HS512 or public_key and private_key for RS256). By default, the Vault path is `kv/apisix/consumer/<consumer_name>/jwt-auth`.

IMPORTANT

To enable Vault integration, you have to first update your configuration file (conf/config.yaml) with your Vault server configuration, host address and access token.

Refer to the Vault attributes in the default configuration file (config-default.yaml) to learn more about these configurations.

For Route:

Name	Type	Required	Default	Description
header	string	False	authorization	The header to get the token from.
query	string	False	jwt	The query string to get the token from. Lower priority than header.
cookie	string	False	jwt	The cookie to get the token from. Lower priority than query.

API

This Plugin adds /apisix/plugin/jwt/sign as an endpoint.

note

You may need to use the public-api plugin to expose this endpoint.

Enabling the Plugin

To enable the Plugin, you have to create a Consumer object with the JWT token and configure your Route to use JWT authentication.

First, you can create a Consumer object through the Admin API:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/admin/consumers -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' -X PUT -d '
{
    "username": "jack",
    "plugins": {
        "jwt-auth": {
            "key": "user-key",
            "secret": "my-secret-key"
        }
    }
}'

note

The jwt-auth Plugin uses the HS256 algorithm by default. To use the RS256 algorithm, you can configure the public key and private key and specify the algorithm:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/admin/consumers -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' -X PUT -d '
{
    "username": "kerouac",
    "plugins": {
        "jwt-auth": {
            "key": "user-key",
            "public_key": "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\n……\n-----END PUBLIC KEY-----",
            "private_key": "-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\n……\n-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----",
            "algorithm": "RS256"
        }
    }
}'

Once you have created a Consumer object, you can configure a Route to authenticate requests:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/admin/routes/1 -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' -X PUT -d '
{
    "methods": ["GET"],
    "uri": "/index.html",
    "plugins": {
        "jwt-auth": {}
    },
    "upstream": {
        "type": "roundrobin",
        "nodes": {
            "127.0.0.1:1980": 1
        }
    }
}'

Usage with HashiCorp Vault

HashiCorp Vault offers a centralized key management solution and it can be used along with APISIX for authentication.

So, if your organization frequently changes the secret/keys (secret for HS256/HS512 or public_key and private_key for RS256) and you don’t want to update the APISIX consumer each time or if you don’t want to use the key through the Admin API (to reduce secret sprawl), you can use Vault and the jwt-auth Plugin.

note

The current version of Apache APISIX expects the key names of the secrets stored in Vault to be among secret, public_key, and private_key. The former one is for the HS256/HS512 algorithm and the latter two are for the RS256 algorithm.

Support for custom names will be added in a future release.

To use Vault, you can add an empty vault object in your configuration.

For example, if you have a stored HS256 signing secret inside Vault, you can use it in APISIX by:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/admin/consumers -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' -X PUT -d '
{
    "username": "jack",
    "plugins": {
        "jwt-auth": {
            "key": "key-1",
            "vault": {}
        }
    }
}'

The Plugin will look for a key “secret” in the provided Vault path (<vault.prefix>/consumer/jack/jwt-auth) and uses it for JWT authentication. If the key is not found in the same path, the Plugin logs an error and JWT authentication fails.

note

The vault.prefix should be set in your configuration file (conf/config.yaml) file based on the base path you have chosen while enabling the Vault kv secret engine.

For example, if you did vault secrets enable -path=foobar kv, you should use foobar in vault.prefix.

If the key is not found in this path, the Plugin will log an error.

And for RS256, both the public and private keys should stored in Vault and it can be configured by:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/admin/consumers -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' -X PUT -d '
{
    "username": "jack",
    "plugins": {
        "jwt-auth": {
            "key": "rsa-keypair",
            "algorithm": "RS256",
            "vault": {}
        }
    }
}'

The Plugin will look for keys “public_key” and “private_key” in the provided Vault path (<vault.prefix>/consumer/jack/jwt-auth) and uses it for JWT authentication.

If the key is not found in this path, the Plugin will log an error.

You can also configure the public_key in the Consumer configuration and use the private_key stored in Vault:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/admin/consumers -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' -X PUT -d '
{
    "username": "rico",
    "plugins": {
        "jwt-auth": {
            "key": "user-key",
            "algorithm": "RS256",
            "public_key": "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\n……\n-----END PUBLIC KEY-----"
            "vault": {}
        }
    }
}'

You can also use the APISIX Dashboard to complete the operation through a web UI.

Example usage

You need to first setup a Route for an API that signs the token using the public-api Plugin:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/admin/routes/jas -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' -X PUT -d '
{
    "uri": "/apisix/plugin/jwt/sign",
    "plugins": {
        "public-api": {}
    }
}'

Now, we can get a token:

Without extension payload:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/plugin/jwt/sign?key=user-key -i

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2019 10:33:31 GMT
Content-Type: text/plain
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Connection: keep-alive
Server: APISIX web server
eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJrZXkiOiJ1c2VyLWtleSIsImV4cCI6MTU2NDA1MDgxMX0.Us8zh_4VjJXF-TmR5f8cif8mBU7SuefPlpxhH0jbPVI

With extension payload:

curl -G --data-urlencode 'payload={"uid":10000,"uname":"test"}' http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/plugin/jwt/sign?key=user-key -i

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2021 06:43:59 GMT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Connection: keep-alive
Server: APISIX/2.4
eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJ1bmFtZSI6InRlc3QiLCJ1aWQiOjEwMDAwLCJrZXkiOiJ1c2VyLWtleSIsImV4cCI6MTYxOTA3MzgzOX0.jI9-Rpz1gc3u8Y6lZy8I43RXyCu0nSHANCvfn0YZUCY

You can now use this token while making requests:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/index.html -H 'Authorization: eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJrZXkiOiJ1c2VyLWtleSIsImV4cCI6MTU2NDA1MDgxMX0.Us8zh_4VjJXF-TmR5f8cif8mBU7SuefPlpxhH0jbPVI' -i

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 13175
...
Accept-Ranges: bytes
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="cn">
...

Without the token, you will receive an error:

HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
...
{"message":"Missing JWT token in request"}

You can also pass the token as query parameters:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/index.html?jwt=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJrZXkiOiJ1c2VyLWtleSIsImV4cCI6MTU2NDA1MDgxMX0.Us8zh_4VjJXF-TmR5f8cif8mBU7SuefPlpxhH0jbPVI -i

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 13175
...
Accept-Ranges: bytes
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="cn">
...

And also as cookies:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/index.html --cookie jwt=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJrZXkiOiJ1c2VyLWtleSIsImV4cCI6MTU2NDA1MDgxMX0.Us8zh_4VjJXF-TmR5f8cif8mBU7SuefPlpxhH0jbPVI -i

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 13175
...
Accept-Ranges: bytes
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="cn">
...

Disable Plugin

To disable the jwt-auth Plugin, you can delete the corresponding JSON configuration from the Plugin configuration. APISIX will automatically reload and you do not have to restart for this to take effect.

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/apisix/admin/routes/1 -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' -X PUT -d '
{
    "methods": ["GET"],
    "uri": "/index.html",
    "id": 1,
    "plugins": {},
    "upstream": {
        "type": "roundrobin",
        "nodes": {
            "127.0.0.1:1980": 1
        }
    }
}'