Authentication

charm
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In Charmed Kubeflow (CKF), authentication is based on Dex. This guide describes the authentication flow for various scenarios.

Unauthenticated request

The authentication flow for an unauthenticated request consists of these steps:

  • User makes an unauthenticated request
    • Redirected to /dex
  • User logs in via Dex
  • Redirected to gatekeeper callback endpoint
    • Sets a cookie with auth token for future requests
  • Redirected back to original page, with authorization token

The flow of an unauthenticated request is shown here:

dex-unauthenticated

  • A user makes a request that goes through Ambassador. To learn more about Ambassador authentication solutions, see here.
  • Ambassador checks with the gatekeeper service before allowing any request to go through
  • The gatekeeper service responds to Ambassador that the request is unauthenticated, and a redirect URL
  • Ambassador returns an HTTP 301 redirecting user to Dex

Logging in

dex-login

  • User makes request to /dex
  • Ambassador is configured to not check with the gatekeeper for requests to /dex
  • Dex presents a login page to the user
  • The user submits their credentials
  • Dex uses the configured connector to authenticate the user against an external auth service
    • Dex may also be configured with basic username/password support. This is the default in Charmed Kubeflow.
    • See the dex configuration section for more information on how to configure Dex with other connectors.
  • Dex redirects the user to a callback URL managed by the gatekeeper

Receive token

dex-callback

  • User makes request to callback URL
  • Ambassador sends request to gatekeeper service
  • Gatekeeper service generates JWT token in the Set-Cookie response header

Authenticated request

dex-authenticated

  • User makes authenticated request
  • Ambassador checks with the gatekeeper service to see if request is authenticated
  • Gatekeeper service affirms request is authenticated by looking at JWT token
  • Ambassador communicates with Kubeflow service for requested endpoint
  • Ambassador returns requested endpoint to user
1 Like
2

change the available connectors github url

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4

The connector configuration is described as a YAML, but the example below is JSON. Please align both of them to be in the same format. Additionally, if the expected format is JSON, please adjust the charm config description - there is explicitly written that YAML is supported.

5

YAML is a superset of JSON, so the example is technically still YAML (but agreed, it is in the form most anyone would call JSON rather than YAML). I won’t change the example above as it is technically valid, but to clarify the situation both YAML and JSON will work in this config. Note though that the config is asking for the list of connectors to put inside the Dex connectors config (example here), not the entire connectors: [ ... ] key value pair. So the pure YAML equivalent to the example above would be:

- id: ldap
  name: OpenLDAP
  type: ldap
  config:
    bindDN: cn=admin,dc=example,dc=org
    bindPW: admin
    groupSearch:
      baseDN: cn=admin,dc=example,dc=org
      filter: ''
      groupAttr: DN
      nameAttr: cn
      userAttr: DN
    host: ldap-service.auth.svc.cluster.local:389
    insecureNoSSL: true
    userSearch:
      baseDN: cn=admin,dc=example,dc=org
      emailAttr: DN
      filter: ''
      idAttr: DN
      nameAttr: cn
      username: cn
    usernamePrompt: Email Address
6

How to do programmatic authentication with Dex?

I have already tried based on the following URL: [Connect the Pipelines SDK to Kubeflow Pipelines | Kubeflow]

But still stuck in

CSRF check failed. This may happen if you opened the login form in more than 1 tabs. Please try to login again.

Could you please help me in solving this problem?

7

Hey, I’ve asked this in our channel: https://chat.charmhub.io/charmhub/pl/tjq8h9crsbgzzj3ppi8yj51euw.