Key Authentication | APISIX & API7 API Gateway Docs

3 min read Original article ↗
Version: 3.15.0

An API gateway's primary role is to connect API consumers and providers. For security reasons, it should authenticate and authorize consumers before allowing them to access upstream resources.

Key Authentication

APISIX has a flexible plugin extension system and a number of existing plugins for user authentication and authorization. For example:

In this tutorial, you will create a consumer, configure its credential with key authentication, and learn how to enable and disable key authentication.

Key Concepts​

Consumer​

A consumer is an application or a developer who consumes the API.

In APISIX, a consumer requires a unique username to be created. As part of the key authentication configuration, you would also add one of the authentication plugins from the list above to the consumer's plugin field.

Key Authentication​

Key authentication is a relatively simple but widely used authentication approach. The idea is as follows:

  1. Administrator adds an authentication plugin to the route.
  2. API consumers attach the key to the query string or headers for authentication when sending requests.

Prerequisite(s)​

  1. Complete Get APISIX to install APISIX in Docker.
  2. Complete Configure Routes.
  3. Install ADC or APISIX-MCP if you are using these tools.

Configure Key Authentication​

  • Admin API
  • ADC
  • APISIX-MCP

Create a Consumer

Create a consumer tom:

caution

Please use a complex key in the production environment.

curl -i "http://127.0.0.1:9180/apisix/admin/consumers" -X PUT -d '
{
  "username": "tom"
}'

You will receive an HTTP/1.1 201 Created response if the consumer was created successfully.

Configure Consumer Credential

Configure the consumer key-auth credential for tom:

curl "http://127.0.0.1:9180/apisix/admin/consumers/tom/credentials" -X PUT -d '
{
  "id": "cred-tom-key-auth",
  "plugins": {
    "key-auth": {
      "key": "secret-key"
    }
  }
}'

You will receive an HTTP/1.1 201 Created response if the consumer credential was created.

Enable Authentication

Update the getting-started-ip route from Configure Routes to add the key-auth plugin:

curl -i "http://127.0.0.1:9180/apisix/admin/routes/getting-started-ip" -X PATCH -d '
{
  "plugins": {
    "key-auth": {}
  }
}'

You will receive an HTTP/1.1 200 OK response if the route was updated successfully.

Verify​

You will be verifying if the key authentication is successfully enabled in this section.

  • Admin API
  • ADC
  • APISIX-MCP

Send a Request without Any 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 unauthorized HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized response.

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: wrong-key'

Since the key is incorrect, you will receive an HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized response.

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: secret-key'

Since the correct key is provided, you will receive an HTTP/1.1 200 OK response.

Disable Authentication​

Disable the key authentication plugin by setting the _meta.disable parameter to true.

  • Admin API
  • ADC
  • APISIX-MCP
curl "http://127.0.0.1:9180/apisix/admin/routes/getting-started-ip" -X PATCH -d '
{
  "plugins": {
    "key-auth": {
      "_meta": {
        "disable": true
      }
    }
  }
}'

Send a request without any key to verify:

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

Since key authentication is disabled, you will receive an HTTP/1.1 200 OK response.

What's Next​

You have learned how to configure key authentication for a route. In the next tutorial, you will learn how to configure rate limiting.