End User Authentication

 2 minute read

With Istio, you can enable authenticating end user. Currently, the end user credential supported by the Istio authentication policy is JWT. The following is a guide for troubleshooting the end user JWT authentication.

  1. Check your Istio authentication policy, principalBinding should be set as USE_ORIGIN to authenticate the end user.

  2. If jwksUri isn’t set, make sure the JWT issuer is of url format and url + /.well-known/openid-configuration can be opened in browser; for example, if the JWT issuer is https://accounts.google.com, make sure https://accounts.google.com/.well-known/openid-configuration is a valid url and can be opened in a browser.

    apiVersion: "authentication.istio.io/v1alpha1"
kind: "Policy"
metadata:
  name: "example-3"
spec:
  targets:
  - name: httpbin
  peers:
  - mtls:
  origins:
  - jwt:
      issuer: "628645741881-noabiu23f5a8m8ovd8ucv698lj78vv0l@developer.gserviceaccount.com"
      jwksUri: "https://www.googleapis.com/service_accounts/v1/jwk/628645741881-noabiu23f5a8m8ovd8ucv698lj78vv0l@developer.gserviceaccount.com"
  principalBinding: USE_ORIGIN

  3. If the JWT token is placed in the Authorization header in http requests, make sure the JWT token is valid (not expired, etc). The fields in a JWT token can be decoded by using online JWT parsing tools, e.g., jwt.io.

  4. Get the Istio proxy (i.e., Envoy) logs to verify the configuration which Pilot distributes is correct.

    For example, if the authentication policy is enforced on the httpbin service in the namespace foo, use the command below to get logs from the Istio proxy, make sure local_jwks is set and the http response code is in the Istio proxy logs.

    $ kubectl logs httpbin-68fbcdcfc7-hrnzm -c istio-proxy -n foo
[2018-07-04 19:13:30.762][15][info][config] ./src/envoy/http/jwt_auth/auth_store.h:72] Loaded JwtAuthConfig: rules {
  issuer: "628645741881-noabiu23f5a8m8ovd8ucv698lj78vv0l@developer.gserviceaccount.com"
  local_jwks {
    inline_string: "{\n \"keys\": [\n  {\n   \"kty\": \"RSA\",\n   \"alg\": \"RS256\",\n   \"use\": \"sig\",\n   \"kid\": \"03bc39a6b56602c0d2ad421c3993d5e4f88e6f54\",\n   \"n\": \"u9gnSMDYw4ggVKInAfxpXqItv9Ii7PlUFrAcwANQMW9fbZrFpITFD45t0gUy9CK4QewkLhqDDUJSvpH7wprS8Hi0M8wAJf_lgugdRr6Nc2qK-eywjjDK-afQjhGLcMJGS0YXi3K2lyP-oWiLingMbYRiJxTi86icWT8AU8bKoTyTPFOExAJkDFnquulU0_KlteZxbjnRIVvMKfpgZ3yK9Pzv7XjtdvO7xlr59K9Zotd4mgphIUADfw1fR0lNkjHQp9N0WP9cbOsyUwm5jjDklnyVh7yBHcEk1YHccntosxnwIn-cj538PSaL_qDZgDAsJKHPZlkiP_1mjsu3NkofIQ\",\n   \"e\": \"AQAB\"\n  },\n  {\n   \"kty\": \"RSA\",\n   \"alg\": \"RS256\",\n   \"use\": \"sig\",\n   \"kid\": \"60aef5b0877e9f0d67b787b5be797636735efdee\",\n   \"n\": \"0TmzDEN12GF9UaWJI40oKwJlu53ZQihHcaVi1thLGs1l3ubdPWv8MEsc9X2DjCRxEB6Ss1R2VOImrQ2RWFuBSNHorjE0_GyEGNzvOH-0uUQ5uES2HvEN7384XfUYj9MoTPibstDEl84pm4d3Ka3R_1wk03Jrl9MIq6fnV_4Z-F7O7ElGqk8xcsiVUowd447dwlrd55ChIyISF5PvbCLtOKz9FgTz2mEb8jmzuZQs5yICgKZCzlJ7xNOOmZcqCZf9Qzaz4OnVLXykBLzSuLMtxvvOxf53rvWB0F2__CjKlEWBCQkB39Zaa_4I8dCAVxgkeQhgoU26BdzLL28xjWzdbw\",\n   \"e\": \"AQAB\"\n  },\n  {\n   \"kty\": \"RSA\",\n   \"alg\": \"RS256\",\n   \"use\": \"sig\",\n   \"kid\": \"62a93512c9ee4c7f8067b5a216dade2763d32a47\",\n   \"n\": \"0YWnm_eplO9BFtXszMRQNL5UtZ8HJdTH2jK7vjs4XdLkPW7YBkkm_2xNgcaVpkW0VT2l4mU3KftR-6s3Oa5Rnz5BrWEUkCTVVolR7VYksfqIB2I_x5yZHdOiomMTcm3DheUUCgbJRv5OKRnNqszA4xHn3tA3Ry8VO3X7BgKZYAUh9fyZTFLlkeAh0-bLK5zvqCmKW5QgDIXSxUTJxPjZCgfx1vmAfGqaJb-nvmrORXQ6L284c73DUL7mnt6wj3H6tVqPKA27j56N0TB1Hfx4ja6Slr8S4EB3F1luYhATa1PKUSH8mYDW11HolzZmTQpRoLV8ZoHbHEaTfqX_aYahIw\",\n   \"e\": \"AQAB\"\n  },\n  {\n   \"kty\": \"RSA\",\n   \"alg\": \"RS256\",\n   \"use\": \"sig\",\n   \"kid\": \"b3319a147514df7ee5e4bcdee51350cc890cc89e\",\n   \"n\": \"qDi7Tx4DhNvPQsl1ofxxc2ePQFcs-L0mXYo6TGS64CY_2WmOtvYlcLNZjhuddZVV2X88m0MfwaSA16wE-RiKM9hqo5EY8BPXj57CMiYAyiHuQPp1yayjMgoE1P2jvp4eqF-BTillGJt5W5RuXti9uqfMtCQdagB8EC3MNRuU_KdeLgBy3lS3oo4LOYd-74kRBVZbk2wnmmb7IhP9OoLc1-7-9qU1uhpDxmE6JwBau0mDSwMnYDS4G_ML17dC-ZDtLd1i24STUw39KH0pcSdfFbL2NtEZdNeam1DDdk0iUtJSPZliUHJBI_pj8M-2Mn_oA8jBuI8YKwBqYkZCN1I95Q\",\n   \"e\": \"AQAB\"\n  }\n ]\n}\n"
  }
  forward: true
  forward_payload_header: "istio-sec-8a85f33ec44c5ccbaf951742ff0aaa34eb94d9bd"
}
allow_missing_or_failed: true
[2018-07-04 19:13:30.763][15][info][upstream] external/envoy/source/server/lds_api.cc:62] lds: add/update listener '10.8.2.9_8000'
[2018-07-04T19:13:39.755Z] "GET /ip HTTP/1.1" 401 - 0 29 0 - "-" "curl/7.35.0" "e8374005-1957-99e4-96b6-9d6ec5bef396" "httpbin.foo:8000" "-"
[2018-07-04T19:13:40.463Z] "GET /ip HTTP/1.1" 401 - 0 29 0 - "-" "curl/7.35.0" "9badd659-fa0e-9ca9-b4c0-9ac225571929" "httpbin.foo:8000" "-"