dex ===== [![Docker Repository on Quay.io](https://quay.io/repository/coreos/dex/status?token=2e772caf-ea17-45d5-8455-8fcf39dae6e1 "Docker Repository on Quay.io")](https://quay.io/repository/coreos/dex) dex is a federated identity management service. It provides OpenID Connect (OIDC) to users, and can proxy to multiple remote identity providers (IdP) to drive actual authentication, as well as managing local username/password credentials. We named the project 'dex' because it is a central index of users that other pieces of software can authenticate against. ## Architecture dex consists of multiple components: - **dex-worker** is the primary server component of dex - host a user-facing API that drives the OIDC protocol - proxy to remote identity providers via "connectors" - provides an API for administrators to manage users. - **dex-overlord** is an auxiliary process responsible for various administrative tasks: - rotation of keys used by the workers to sign identity tokens - garbage collection of stale data in the database - provides an API for bootstrapping the system. - **dexctl** is a CLI tool used to manage a dex deployment - configure identity provider connectors - administer OIDC client identities - **database**; a database is used to for persistent storage for keys, users, OAuth sessions and other data. Currently Postgres is the only supported database. A typical dex deployment consists of N dex-workers behind a load balanacer, and one dex-overlord. The dex-workers directly handle user requests, so the loss of all workers can result in service downtime. The single dex-overlord runs its tasks periodically, so it does not need to maintain 100% uptime. ## Who Should Use Dex? A non-exhaustive list of those who would benfit from using dex: - Those who want a language/framework-agnostic way to manage authentication. - Those who want to federate authentication from mutiple providers of differing types. - Those who want to manage user credentials (eg. username and password) and perform authentication locally - Those who want to create an OIDC Identity Provider for multiple clients to authenticate against. - Those who want any or all of the above in a Free and Open Source project. ## Connectors Remote IdPs could implement any auth-N protocol. *Connectors* contain protocol-specific logic and are used to communicate with remote IdPs. Possible examples of connectors could be: OIDC, LDAP, Local credentials, Basic Auth, etc. dex ships with an OIDC connector, useful for authenticating with services like Google and Salesforce (or even other dex instances!) and a "local" connector, in which dex itself presents a UI for users to authenticate via dex-stored credentials. Future connectors can be developed and added as future interoperability requirements emerge. ## Relevant Specifications These specs are referenced and implemented to some degree in the `jose` package of this project. - [JWK](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-key-36) - [JWT](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-oauth-json-web-token-30) - [JWS](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-jones-json-web-signature-04) OpenID Connect (OIDC) is broken up into several specifications. The following (amongst others) are relevant: - [OpenID Connect Core 1.0](https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html) - [OpenID Connect Discovery 1.0](https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-discovery-1_0.html) - [OAuth 2.0 RFC](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749) ## Example OIDC Discovery Endpoints - https://accounts.google.com/.well-known/openid-configuration - https://login.salesforce.com/.well-known/openid-configuration # Next steps: If you want to try out dex quickly with a single process and no database (do *not* run this way in production!) take a look at the [dev guide][dev-guide]. For running the full stack check out the [getting started guide][getting-started]. [getting-started]: https://github.com/coreos/dex/blob/master/Documentation/getting-started.md [dev-guide]: https://github.com/coreos/dex/blob/master/Documentation/dev-guide.md # Coming Soon - Multiple backing Identity Providers - Identity Management - Authorization ## Similar Software ### [CloudFoundry UAA](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/uaa) >The UAA is a multi tenant identity management service, used in Cloud Foundry, but also available as a stand alone OAuth2 server. ### [OmniAuth](https://github.com/intridea/omniauth) OmniAuth provides authentication federation at the language (Ruby) level, with a [wide range of integrations](https://github.com/intridea/omniauth/wiki/List-of-Strategies) available. ### [Okta](http://developer.okta.com/product/) Okta is a commercial product which is similar to dex in that for it too, identity federation is a key feature. It connects to many more authentication providers than dex, and also does the federation in the oppposite direction - it can be used as a SSO to other identity providers. ### [Shibboleth](https://shibboleth.net/) Shibboleth is an open source system implementing the [SAML](https://www.oasis-open.org/standards#samlv2.0) standard, and can federate from a variety of backends, most notably LDAP.