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Proxy-based authentication
If you already have a single sign-on (SSO) solution in place, you might want to use it as an authentication backend.
Most solutions work as a proxy in front of OpenSearch and the Security plugin. If proxy authentication succeeds, the proxy adds the (verified) username and its (verified) roles in HTTP header fields. The names of these fields depend on the SSO solution you have in place.
The Security plugin then extracts these HTTP header fields from the request and uses the values to determine the user’s permissions.
Enable proxy detection
To enable proxy detection for OpenSearch, configure it in the xff
section of config.yml
:
---
_meta:
type: "config"
config_version: 2
config:
dynamic:
http:
anonymous_auth_enabled: false
xff:
enabled: true
internalProxies: '192\.168\.0\.10|192\.168\.0\.11'
remoteIpHeader: 'x-forwarded-for'
You can configure the following settings:
Name | Description |
---|---|
enabled | Enables or disables proxy support. Default is false. |
internalProxies | A regular expression containing the IP addresses of all trusted proxies. The pattern .* trusts all internal proxies. |
remoteIpHeader | Name of the HTTP header field that has the hostname chain. Default is x-forwarded-for . |
To determine whether a request comes from a trusted internal proxy, the Security plugin compares the remote address of the HTTP request with the list of configured internal proxies. If the remote address is not in the list, the plugin treats the request like a client request.
Enable proxy authentication
Configure the names of the HTTP header fields that carry the authenticated username and role(s) in the proxy
HTTP authenticator section:
proxy_auth_domain:
http_enabled: true
transport_enabled: true
order: 0
http_authenticator:
type: proxy
challenge: false
config:
user_header: "x-proxy-user"
roles_header: "x-proxy-roles"
authentication_backend:
type: noop
Name | Description |
---|---|
user_header | The HTTP header field containing the authenticated username. Default is x-proxy-user . |
roles_header | The HTTP header field containing the comma-separated list of authenticated role names. The Security plugin uses the roles found in this header field as backend roles. Default is x-proxy-roles . |
roles_separator | The separator for roles. Default is , . |
Enable extended proxy authentication
The Security plugin has an extended version of the proxy
type that lets you pass additional user attributes for use with document-level security. Aside from type: extended-proxy
and attr_header_prefix
, configuration is identical:
proxy_auth_domain:
http_enabled: true
transport_enabled: true
order: 0
http_authenticator:
type: extended-proxy
challenge: false
config:
user_header: "x-proxy-user"
roles_header: "x-proxy-roles"
attr_header_prefix: "x-proxy-ext-"
authentication_backend:
type: noop
Name | Description |
---|---|
attr_header_prefix | The header prefix that the proxy uses to provide user attributes. For example, if the proxy provides x-proxy-ext-namespace: my-namespace , use ${attr.proxy.namespace} in document-level security queries. |
Example
The following example uses an nginx proxy in front of a three-node OpenSearch cluster. For simplicity, we use hardcoded values for x-proxy-user
and x-proxy-roles
. In a real world example you would set these headers dynamically. The example also includes a commented header for use with the extended proxy.
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
http {
upstream opensearch {
server node1.example.com:9200;
server node2.example.com:9200;
server node3.example.com:9200;
keepalive 15;
}
server {
listen 8090;
server_name nginx.example.com;
location / {
proxy_pass https://opensearch;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header x-proxy-user test;
proxy_set_header x-proxy-roles test;
#proxy_set_header x-proxy-ext-namespace my-namespace;
}
}
}
The corresponding minimal config.yml
looks like:
---
_meta:
type: "config"
config_version: 2
config:
dynamic:
http:
xff:
enabled: true
internalProxies: '172.16.0.203' # the nginx proxy
authc:
proxy_auth_domain:
http_enabled: true
transport_enabled: true
order: 0
http_authenticator:
type: proxy
#type: extended-proxy
challenge: false
config:
user_header: "x-proxy-user"
roles_header: "x-proxy-roles"
#attr_header_prefix: "x-proxy-ext-"
authentication_backend:
type: noop
The important part is to enable the X-Forwarded-For (XFF)
resolution and set the IP(s) of the internal proxies correctly:
enabled: true
internalProxies: '172.16.0.203' # nginx proxy
In this case, nginx.example.com
runs on 172.16.0.203
, so add this IP to the list of internal proxies. Be sure to set internalProxies
to the minimum number of IP addresses so that the Security plugin only accepts requests from trusted IPs.
OpenSearch Dashboards proxy authentication
To use proxy authentication with OpenSearch Dashboards, the most common configuration is to place the proxy in front of OpenSearch Dashboards and let OpenSearch Dashboards pass the user and role headers to the Security plugin.
In this case, the remote address of the HTTP call is the IP of OpenSearch Dashboards, because it sits directly in front of OpenSearch. Add the IP of OpenSearch Dashboards to the list of internal proxies:
---
_meta:
type: "config"
config_version: 2
config:
dynamic:
http:
xff:
enabled: true
remoteIpHeader: "x-forwarded-for"
internalProxies: '<opensearch-dashboards-ip-address>'
To pass the user and role headers that the authenticating proxy adds from OpenSearch Dashboards to the Security plugin, add them to the HTTP header allow list in opensearch_dashboards.yml
:
opensearch.requestHeadersAllowlist: ["securitytenant","Authorization","x-forwarded-for","x-proxy-user","x-proxy-roles"]
You must also enable the authentication type in opensearch_dashboards.yml
:
opensearch_security.auth.type: "proxy"
opensearch_security.proxycache.user_header: "x-proxy-user"
opensearch_security.proxycache.roles_header: "x-proxy-roles"