External Authorization

• External authorization architecture overview
• HTTP filter v2 API reference
• This filter should be configured with the name envoy.ext_authz.

The external authorization HTTP filter calls an external gRPC or HTTP service to check if the incoming HTTP request is authorized or not. If the request is deemed unauthorized then the request will be denied normally with 403 (Forbidden) response. Note that sending additional custom metadata from the authorization service to the upstream, to the downstream or to the authorization service is also possible. This is explained in more details at HTTP filter.

The content of the requests that are passed to an authorization service is specified by CheckRequest.

The HTTP filter, using a gRPC/HTTP service, can be configured as follows. You can see all the configuration options at HTTP filter.

Configuration Examples

A sample filter configuration for a gRPC authorization server:

http_filters:
  - name: envoy.ext_authz
    config:
      grpc_service:
        envoy_grpc:
          cluster_name: ext-authz
        # Default is 200ms; override if your server needs e.g. warmup time.
        timeout: 0.5s

clusters:
  - name: ext-authz
    type: static
    http2_protocol_options: {}
    hosts:
      - socket_address: { address: 127.0.0.1, port_value: 10003 }
    # This timeout controls the initial TCP handshake timeout - not the timeout for the
    # entire request.
    connect_timeout: 0.25s

A sample filter configuration for a raw HTTP authorization server:

http_filters:
  - name: envoy.ext_authz
    config:
      http_service:
          server_uri:
            uri: 127.0.0.1:10003
            cluster: ext-authz
            timeout: 0.25s
            failure_mode_allow: false

clusters:
  - name: ext-authz
    connect_timeout: 0.25s
    type: logical_dns
    lb_policy: round_robin
    hosts:
      - socket_address: { address: 127.0.0.1, port_value: 10003 }

Per-Route Configuration

A sample virtual host and route filter configuration. In this example we add additional context on the virtual host, and disabled the filter for /static prefixed routes.

route_config:
  name: local_route
  virtual_hosts:
  - name: local_service
    domains: ["*"]
    per_filter_config:
      envoy.ext_authz:
        check_settings:
          context_extensions:
            virtual_host: local_service
    routes:
    - match: { prefix: "/static" }
      route: { cluster: some_service }
      per_filter_config:
        envoy.ext_authz:
          disabled: true
    - match: { prefix: "/" }
      route: { cluster: some_service }

Statistics

The HTTP filter outputs statistics in the cluster..ext_authz. namespace.