External Authorization

7 minute read page test

This task shows you how to set up an Istio authorization policy using a new value for the action field, CUSTOM, to delegate the access control to an external authorization system. This can be used to integrate with OPA authorization, oauth2-proxy, your own custom external authorization server and more.

Before you begin

Before you begin this task, do the following:

Read the Istio authorization concepts.
Follow the Istio installation guide to install Istio.
Deploy test workloads:
This task uses two workloads, httpbin and curl, both deployed in namespace foo. Both workloads run with an Envoy proxy sidecar. Deploy the foo namespace and workloads with the following command:
ZipZip
```
$ kubectl create ns foo
$ kubectl label ns foo istio-injection=enabled
$ kubectl apply -f @samples/httpbin/httpbin.yaml@ -n foo
$ kubectl apply -f @samples/curl/curl.yaml@ -n foo
```

Verify that curl can access httpbin with the following command:

$ kubectl exec "$(kubectl get pod -l app=curl -n foo -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name})" -c curl -n foo -- curl http://httpbin.foo:8000/ip -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n"
200

Deploy the external authorizer

First, you need to deploy the external authorizer. For this, you will simply deploy the sample external authorizer in a standalone pod in the mesh.

Run the following command to deploy the sample external authorizer:

$ kubectl apply -n foo -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/release-1.24/samples/extauthz/ext-authz.yaml
service/ext-authz created
deployment.apps/ext-authz created

Verify the sample external authorizer is up and running:

$ kubectl logs "$(kubectl get pod -l app=ext-authz -n foo -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name})" -n foo -c ext-authz
2021/01/07 22:55:47 Starting HTTP server at [::]:8000
2021/01/07 22:55:47 Starting gRPC server at [::]:9000

Alternatively, you can also deploy the external authorizer as a separate container in the same pod of the application that needs the external authorization or even deploy it outside of the mesh. In either case, you will also need to create a service entry resource to register the service to the mesh and make sure it is accessible to the proxy.

The following is an example service entry for an external authorizer deployed in a separate container in the same pod of the application that needs the external authorization.

apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1
kind: ServiceEntry
metadata:
  name: external-authz-grpc-local
spec:
  hosts:
  - "external-authz-grpc.local" # The service name to be used in the extension provider in the mesh config.
  endpoints:
  - address: "127.0.0.1"
  ports:
  - name: grpc
    number: 9191 # The port number to be used in the extension provider in the mesh config.
    protocol: GRPC
  resolution: STATIC

Define the external authorizer

In order to use the CUSTOM action in the authorization policy, you must define the external authorizer that is allowed to be used in the mesh. This is currently defined in the extension provider in the mesh config.

Currently, the only supported extension provider type is the Envoy ext_authz provider. The external authorizer must implement the corresponding Envoy ext_authz check API.

In this task, you will use a sample external authorizer which allows requests with the header x-ext-authz: allow.

Edit the mesh config with the following command:

$ kubectl edit configmap istio -n istio-system

In the editor, add the extension provider definitions shown below:

The following content defines two external providers sample-ext-authz-grpc and sample-ext-authz-http using the same service ext-authz.foo.svc.cluster.local. The service implements both the HTTP and gRPC check API as defined by the Envoy ext_authz filter. You will deploy the service in the following step.

data:
  mesh: |-
    # Add the following content to define the external authorizers.
    extensionProviders:
    - name: "sample-ext-authz-grpc"
      envoyExtAuthzGrpc:
        service: "ext-authz.foo.svc.cluster.local"
        port: "9000"
    - name: "sample-ext-authz-http"
      envoyExtAuthzHttp:
        service: "ext-authz.foo.svc.cluster.local"
        port: "8000"
        includeRequestHeadersInCheck: ["x-ext-authz"]

Alternatively, you can modify the extension provider to control the behavior of the ext_authz filter for things like what headers to send to the external authorizer, what headers to send to the application backend, the status to return on error and more. For example, the following defines an extension provider that can be used with the oauth2-proxy:

data:
  mesh: |-
    extensionProviders:
    - name: "oauth2-proxy"
      envoyExtAuthzHttp:
        service: "oauth2-proxy.foo.svc.cluster.local"
        port: "4180" # The default port used by oauth2-proxy.
        includeRequestHeadersInCheck: ["authorization", "cookie"] # headers sent to the oauth2-proxy in the check request.
        headersToUpstreamOnAllow: ["authorization", "path", "x-auth-request-user", "x-auth-request-email", "x-auth-request-access-token"] # headers sent to backend application when request is allowed.
        headersToDownstreamOnAllow: ["set-cookie"] # headers sent back to the client when request is allowed.
        headersToDownstreamOnDeny: ["content-type", "set-cookie"] # headers sent back to the client when request is denied.

Enable with external authorization

The external authorizer is now ready to be used by the authorization policy.

Enable the external authorization with the following command:

The following command applies an authorization policy with the CUSTOM action value for the httpbin workload. The policy enables the external authorization for requests to path /headers using the external authorizer defined by sample-ext-authz-grpc.

$ kubectl apply -n foo -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1
kind: AuthorizationPolicy
metadata:
  name: ext-authz
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: httpbin
  action: CUSTOM
  provider:
    # The provider name must match the extension provider defined in the mesh config.
    # You can also replace this with sample-ext-authz-http to test the other external authorizer definition.
    name: sample-ext-authz-grpc
  rules:
  # The rules specify when to trigger the external authorizer.
  - to:
    - operation:
        paths: ["/headers"]
EOF

At runtime, requests to path /headers of the httpbin workload will be paused by the ext_authz filter, and a check request will be sent to the external authorizer to decide whether the request should be allowed or denied.

Verify a request to path /headers with header x-ext-authz: deny is denied by the sample ext_authz server:

$ kubectl exec "$(kubectl get pod -l app=curl -n foo -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name})" -c curl -n foo -- curl "http://httpbin.foo:8000/headers" -H "x-ext-authz: deny" -s
denied by ext_authz for not found header `x-ext-authz: allow` in the request

Verify a request to path /headers with header x-ext-authz: allow is allowed by the sample ext_authz server:

$ kubectl exec "$(kubectl get pod -l app=curl -n foo -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name})" -c curl -n foo -- curl "http://httpbin.foo:8000/headers" -H "x-ext-authz: allow" -s | jq '.headers'
...
  "X-Ext-Authz-Check-Result": [
    "allowed"
  ],
...

Verify a request to path /ip is allowed and does not trigger the external authorization:

$ kubectl exec "$(kubectl get pod -l app=curl -n foo -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name})" -c curl -n foo -- curl "http://httpbin.foo:8000/ip" -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n"
200

Check the log of the sample ext_authz server to confirm it was called twice (for the two requests). The first one was allowed and the second one was denied:

$ kubectl logs "$(kubectl get pod -l app=ext-authz -n foo -o jsonpath={.items..metadata.name})" -n foo -c ext-authz
2021/01/07 22:55:47 Starting HTTP server at [::]:8000
2021/01/07 22:55:47 Starting gRPC server at [::]:9000
2021/01/08 03:25:00 [gRPCv3][denied]: httpbin.foo:8000/headers, attributes: source:{address:{socket_address:{address:"10.44.0.22"  port_value:52088}}  principal:"spiffe://cluster.local/ns/foo/sa/curl"}  destination:{address:{socket_address:{address:"10.44.3.30"  port_value:80}}  principal:"spiffe://cluster.local/ns/foo/sa/httpbin"}  request:{time:{seconds:1610076306  nanos:473835000}  http:{id:"13869142855783664817"  method:"GET"  headers:{key:":authority"  value:"httpbin.foo:8000"}  headers:{key:":method"  value:"GET"}  headers:{key:":path"  value:"/headers"}  headers:{key:"accept"  value:"*/*"}  headers:{key:"content-length"  value:"0"}  headers:{key:"user-agent"  value:"curl/7.74.0-DEV"}  headers:{key:"x-b3-sampled"  value:"1"}  headers:{key:"x-b3-spanid"  value:"377ba0cdc2334270"}  headers:{key:"x-b3-traceid"  value:"635187cb20d92f62377ba0cdc2334270"}  headers:{key:"x-envoy-attempt-count"  value:"1"}  headers:{key:"x-ext-authz"  value:"deny"}  headers:{key:"x-forwarded-client-cert"  value:"By=spiffe://cluster.local/ns/foo/sa/httpbin;Hash=dd14782fa2f439724d271dbed846ef843ff40d3932b615da650d028db655fc8d;Subject=\"\";URI=spiffe://cluster.local/ns/foo/sa/curl"}  headers:{key:"x-forwarded-proto"  value:"http"}  headers:{key:"x-request-id"  value:"9609691a-4e9b-9545-ac71-3889bc2dffb0"}  path:"/headers"  host:"httpbin.foo:8000"  protocol:"HTTP/1.1"}}  metadata_context:{}
2021/01/08 03:25:06 [gRPCv3][allowed]: httpbin.foo:8000/headers, attributes: source:{address:{socket_address:{address:"10.44.0.22"  port_value:52184}}  principal:"spiffe://cluster.local/ns/foo/sa/curl"}  destination:{address:{socket_address:{address:"10.44.3.30"  port_value:80}}  principal:"spiffe://cluster.local/ns/foo/sa/httpbin"}  request:{time:{seconds:1610076300  nanos:925912000}  http:{id:"17995949296433813435"  method:"GET"  headers:{key:":authority"  value:"httpbin.foo:8000"}  headers:{key:":method"  value:"GET"}  headers:{key:":path"  value:"/headers"}  headers:{key:"accept"  value:"*/*"}  headers:{key:"content-length"  value:"0"}  headers:{key:"user-agent"  value:"curl/7.74.0-DEV"}  headers:{key:"x-b3-sampled"  value:"1"}  headers:{key:"x-b3-spanid"  value:"a66b5470e922fa80"}  headers:{key:"x-b3-traceid"  value:"300c2f2b90a618c8a66b5470e922fa80"}  headers:{key:"x-envoy-attempt-count"  value:"1"}  headers:{key:"x-ext-authz"  value:"allow"}  headers:{key:"x-forwarded-client-cert"  value:"By=spiffe://cluster.local/ns/foo/sa/httpbin;Hash=dd14782fa2f439724d271dbed846ef843ff40d3932b615da650d028db655fc8d;Subject=\"\";URI=spiffe://cluster.local/ns/foo/sa/curl"}  headers:{key:"x-forwarded-proto"  value:"http"}  headers:{key:"x-request-id"  value:"2b62daf1-00b9-97d9-91b8-ba6194ef58a4"}  path:"/headers"  host:"httpbin.foo:8000"  protocol:"HTTP/1.1"}}  metadata_context:{}

You can also tell from the log that mTLS is enabled for the connection between the ext-authz filter and the sample ext-authz server because the source principal is populated with the value spiffe://cluster.local/ns/foo/sa/curl.

You can now apply another authorization policy for the sample ext-authz server to control who is allowed to access it.

Clean up

Remove the namespace foo from your configuration:
```
$ kubectl delete namespace foo
```
Remove the extension provider definition from the mesh config.

Performance expectations

See performance benchmarking.