OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials

Document updated on Mar 21, 2019

Through the OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials Grant KrakenD can request to your authorization server an access token to reach protected resources.

The client credentials authorize KrakenD, as the client, to access the protected resources. Do not confuse this with authorizing an end-user (see JWT instead).

Successfully setting the client credentials for a backend means that KrakenD can get the protected content, but the endpoint offered to the end-user is going to be public unless you protect it with JWT.

Configuring OAuth2 Client Credentials

To access a protected resource using client-credentials add under every backend the appropriate extra_config.

The namespace used is "github.com/devopsfaith/krakend-oauth2-clientcredentials". Sample configuration below:

{
  "endpoint": "/endpoint",
  "backend": [
      {
          "url_pattern": "/protected-resource",
          "extra_config": {
              "github.com/devopsfaith/krakend-oauth2-clientcredentials": {
                  "client_id": "YOUR-CLIENT-ID",
                  "client_secret": "YOUR-CLIENT-SECRET",
                  "token_url": "https://your.custom.identity.service.tld/token_endpoint",
                  "endpoint_params": {
                      "audience": ["YOUR-AUDIENCE"]
                  }
              }
          }
      }
  ]
}

The settings of this component are:

• client_id string: The Client ID provided to the Auth server
• client_secret string: The secret string provided to the Auth server
• token_url string: The endpoint URL where the negotiation of the token happens
• scopes: string,optional A comma separated list of scopes needed, e.g.: scopeA,scopeB
• endpoint_params list,optional: Any additional parameters that you want to include in the payload when requesting the token. For instance, it is frequent to add the audience request parameter that denotes the target API for which the token should be issued.

Auth0 integration

The following example demonstrates a complete configuration to fulfill the requirements of Auth0. It is essentially the same configuration we have shown above, but with some additions, explained after the code:

{
    "endpoint": "/endpoint",
    "backend": [
        {
            "url_pattern": "/backend",
            "extra_config": {
                "github.com/devopsfaith/krakend-oauth2-clientcredentials": {
                    "client_id": "YOUR-CLIENT-ID",
                    "client_secret": "YOUR-CLIENT-SECRET",
                    "token_url": "https://custom.auth0.tld/token_endpoint",
                    "endpoint_params": {
                        "client_id": ["YOUR-CLIENT-ID"],
                        "client_secret": ["YOUR-CLIENT-SECRET"],
                        "audience": ["YOUR-AUDIENCE"]
                    }
                },
                "github.com/devopsfaith/krakend-martian": {
                    "fifo.Group": {
                        "scope": ["request", "response"],
                        "aggregateErrors": false,
                        "modifiers": [
                            {
                                "header.Modifier": {
                                    "scope": ["request"],
                                    "name" : "Accept",
                                    "value" : "application/json"
                                }
                            }
                        ]
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

The code above works with Auth0. The difference with the basic example is the way both the id and the secret are passed as endpoint_params, as auth0 ignores the auth header and expects the credentials sent as JSON data or form body.