Set Up API Authentication

For security, you should only allow authenticated and authorized consumers to access your APIs. API7 Gateway provides several plugins to enable authentication and authorization.

Authentication plugins enabled on services act as locks on your APIs, while consumer credentials serve as the keys to unlock them. In API7 Gateway, you need a unique username and at least one credential to set up a consumer.

Consumers can utilize multiple credentials of different types, all are treated equally for authentication purposes.

This guide walks you through enabling a simple key-based authentication using the key-auth plugin and consumer credentials.

Prerequisite(s)

1. Install API7 Enterprise.
2. Have a running API on the gateway group.

Add a Consumer with Key Authentication

A consumer is an entity that consumes your APIs. This example will create a consumer named Alice.

Dashboard

1. Select Consumers of your gateway group from the side navigation bar.
2. Click Add Consumer.
3. From the dialog box, do the following:

• In the Name field, enter Alice.
• Click Add.

4. Under the Credentials tab, click Add Key Authentication Credential.
5. From the dialog box, do the following:

• In the Name field, enter primary-key.
• In the Key field, choose Manually Input, then enter alice-primary-key. If you have already added secret provider in the gateway group and store secret for key authentication credential, you can choose Reference from Secret Provider, then enter $secret://vault/my-vault/consumer/alice/key.
• Click Add.

ADC

adc-consumer.yaml

consumers:
  - username: Alice
    credentials:
      - name: primary-key
        type: key-auth
        config:
          key: alice-primary-key

Ingress Controller

Coming soon.

Enable Key Authentication for APIs

For a Service

To use key authentication for all routes in a service, enable the key-auth plugin on the service.

Dashboard

1. Select Published Services of your gateway group from the side navigation bar, then select the service you want to modify, for example, httpbin with version 1.0.0.
2. Select Plugins from the side navigation bar, then click Enable Plugin.
3. Search for the key-auth plugin, then click Enable.
4. In the dialog box do the following:

• Add the following configuration to the JSON Editor:

  {
  }

• Click Enable.

ADC

Update the service configuration to use key authentication:

adc-service.yaml

services:
  - name: httpbin
    upstream:
      name: default
      scheme: http
      nodes:
        - host: httpbin.org
          port: 80
          weight: 100
    plugins:
      key-auth:
        _meta:
          disable: false
    routes:
      - uris:
          - /ip
        name: get-ip
        methods:
          - GET

Synchronize the configuration to API7 Enterprise:

adc sync -f adc-consumer.yaml -f adc-service.yaml

note

ADC uses the configuration files as the single source of truth. So make sure to pass both the consumer and service configuration files to the adc sync command for both configurations to take effect.

Ingress Controller

ApisixService custom resource is not yet available.

For a Single Route

Dashboard

To use key authentication for a specific route, enable the key-auth plugin on the route instead of the service.

1. Select Published Services of your gateway group from the side navigation bar, then select the service you want to modify, for example, httpbin with version 1.0.0.
2. Under the published service, select Routes from the side navigation bar.
3. Select your target route, for example, get-ip.
4. In the Plugin field, click Enable Plugin.
5. Search for the key-auth plugin, then click Enable.
6. In the dialog box do the following:

• Add the following configuration to the JSON Editor:

  {
  }

• Click Enable.

ADC

Update the route configuration to use key authentication:

adc-route.yaml

services:
  - name: httpbin
    upstream:
      name: default
      scheme: http
      nodes:
        - host: httpbin.org
          port: 80
          weight: 100
    routes:
      - uris:
          - /ip
        name: get-ip
        methods:
          - GET
        plugins:
          key-auth:
            _meta:
              disable: false

Synchronize the configuration to API7 Gateway:

adc sync -f adc-consumer.yaml -f adc-route.yaml

note

ADC uses the configuration files as the single source of truth. So make sure to pass both the consumer and service configuration files to the adc sync command for both configurations to take effect.

Ingress Controller

Create a Kubernetes manifest file for a route, where key authentication is enabled:

httpbin-route.yaml

apiVersion: apisix.apache.org/v2
kind: ApisixRoute
metadata:
  name: get-ip
  # namespace: api7    # replace with your namespace
spec:
  http:
    - name: httpbin-route
      match:
        paths:
          - /ip
        methods:
          - GET
      backends:
        - serviceName: httpbin
          servicePort: 80
      authentication:
        enable: true
        type: keyAuth

Apply the configurations to your cluster:

kubectl apply -f httpbin-route.yaml

Validate

Follow the steps below to validate the key authentication.

Send a Request without a Key

Send a request without the apikey header:

curl -i "http://127.0.0.1:9080/ip"  

Since the key is not provided, you will receive an HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized response with the following request body:

{"message":"Missing API key found in request"}

Send a Request with a Wrong Key

Send a request with a wrong key in the apikey header:

curl -i "http://127.0.0.1:9080/ip" -H "apikey: wrongkey" 

Since the key is wrong, you will receive an HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized response with the following request body:

{"message":"Invalid API key in request"}

Send a Request with the Correct Key

Send a request with the correct key in the apikey header:

curl -i "http://127.0.0.1:9080/ip" -H "apikey: alice-primary-key" 

With the correct key in the request, you will receive an HTTP/1.1 200 OK response with the following request body:

{
  "origin": "192.168.0.102, 35.259.159.12"
}

Additional Resource(s)

• Key Concepts
  • Services
  • Routes
  • Plugins
• API Consumption
  • Manage Consumer Credentials
  • Apply list-based access control