Authorization Policy

Istio Authorization Policy enables access control on workloads in the mesh.

For example, the following authorization policy applies to workloads matched with label selector “app: httpbin, version: v1”.

It allows requests from: - service account “cluster.local/ns/default/sa/sleep” or - namespace “test” to access the workload with: - “GET” method at paths of prefix “/info” or, - “POST” method at path “/data”. when the request has a valid JWT token issued by “https://accounts.google.com”.

Any other requests will be rejected.

apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: AuthorizationPolicy
metadata:
 name: httpbin
 namespace: foo
spec:
 selector:
   matchLabels:
     app: httpbin
     version: v1
 rules:
 - from:
   - source:
       principals: ["cluster.local/ns/default/sa/sleep"]
   - source:
       namespaces: ["test"]
   to:
   - operation:
       methods: ["GET"]
       paths: ["/info*"]
   - operation:
       methods: ["POST"]
       paths: ["/data"]
   when:
   - key: request.auth.claims[iss]
     values: ["https://accounts.google.com"]

Access control is enabled on a workload if there is any authorization policies selecting the workload. When access control is enabled, the default behavior is deny (deny-by-default) which means requests to the workload will be rejected if the request is not allowed by any of the authorization policies selecting the workload.

Currently AuthorizationPolicy only supports “ALLOW” action. This means that if multiple authorization policies apply to the same workload, the effect is additive.

Authorization Policy scope (target) is determined by “metadata/namespace” and an optional “selector”. - “metadata/namespace” tells which namespace the policy applies. If set to root namespace, the policy applies to all namespaces in a mesh. - workload “selector” can be used to further restrict where a policy applies.

For example,

The following authorization policy applies to workloads containing label “app: httpbin” in namespace bar.

apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: AuthorizationPolicy
metadata:
 name: policy
 namespace: bar
spec:
 selector:
   matchLabels:
     app: httpbin

The following authorization policy applies to all workloads in namespace foo.

apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: AuthorizationPolicy
metadata:
 name: policy
 namespace: foo
spec:

The following authorization policy applies to workloads containing label “version: v1” in all namespaces in the mesh. (Assuming the root namespace is configured to “istio-config”).

apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: AuthorizationPolicy
metadata:
 name: policy
 namespace: istio-config
spec:
 selector:
   matchLabels:
     version: v1

AuthorizationPolicy

apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: AuthorizationPolicy
metadata:
 name: deny-all
 namespace: foo
spec:

apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: AuthorizationPolicy
metadata:
 name: allow-all
 namespace: foo
spec:
 rules:
 - {}

Condition

Operation

Rule

Rule.From

Rule.To

Source