Objective
Establish a secure and stateless authentication mechanism that allows microservices within the architecture to communicate with each other seamlessly.
Scenario
An organization adopts a microservices architecture to build and deploy its various services independently. To ensure secure communication between these services and maintain a lightweight authentication mechanism, The company decided to implement JWT (JSON Web Token) for API authentication.
Components
- miniOrange XecureAPI Gateway
- JSON Web Token (JWT) Authentication Policy
Solution
XecureAPI Gateway has a built-in policy to implement the JSON Web Token (JWT) authentication mechanism. XecureAPI Gateway will act as the single entry point to access the organization’s services. Through XecureAPI Gateway, the JWT authentication policy is seamlessly integrated across all APIs.
When an employee, such as Alice, attempts to access a protected resource or service through the API. Alice includes JWT in the Authorization header of the request.
API Gateway verifies the authenticity and integrity of the provided JWT. Upon successful validation, the gateway will access the requested resource/service. However, if JWT has expired or has been altered by an attacker, API Gateway will not grant access to the resource/service.
XecureAPI gateway also logs the authentication and authorization events for auditing purposes. These logs also help to troubleshoot issues related to authentication and authorization mechanisms.
Benefits
- Stateless Authentication: JWTs are stateless, eliminating the need for services to store session information. This simplifies the architecture and reduces the reliance on centralized session management.
- Decentralized Authorization: Each microservice can independently verify and authorize requests based on the information contained in the JWT, reducing the need for constant communication with a centralized authorization server.
- Interoperability: JWTs are widely supported and can be used across different programming languages and platforms, promoting interoperability within the microservices ecosystem.
- Reduced Latency: Stateless nature and the absence of constant communication with an authentication server reduce latency, making the authentication process efficient.
- Scalability: The use of JWTs simplifies the scaling of microservices, as there is no need for a shared session state or constant communication with an authentication server.
Conclusion
By implementing JWT for API authentication in their microservices architecture, the organization ensures secure and efficient communication between services while maintaining a scalable and decentralized authentication mechanism.