102 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
102 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
dex
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=====
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[](https://quay.io/repository/coreos/dex)
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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.
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We named the project 'dex' because it is a central index of users that other pieces of software can authenticate against.
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## Architecture
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dex consists of multiple components:
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- **dex-worker** is the primary server component of dex
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- host a user-facing API that drives the OIDC protocol
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- proxy to remote identity providers via "connectors"
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- provides an API for administrators to manage users.
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- **dex-overlord** is an auxiliary process responsible for various administrative tasks:
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- rotation of keys used by the workers to sign identity tokens
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- garbage collection of stale data in the database
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- provides an API for bootstrapping the system.
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- **dexctl** is a CLI tool used to manage a dex deployment
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- configure identity provider connectors
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- administer OIDC client identities
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- **database**; a database is used to for persistent storage for keys, users,
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OAuth sessions and other data. Currently Postgres is the only supported
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database.
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A typical dex deployment consists of N dex-workers behind a load balanacer, and one dex-overlord.
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The dex-workers directly handle user requests, so the loss of all workers can result in service downtime.
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The single dex-overlord runs its tasks periodically, so it does not need to maintain 100% uptime.
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## Who Should Use Dex?
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A non-exhaustive list of those who would benfit from using dex:
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- Those who want a language/framework-agnostic way to manage authentication.
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- Those who want to federate authentication from mutiple providers of differing types.
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- Those who want to manage user credentials (eg. username and password) and perform authentication locally
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- Those who want to create an OIDC Identity Provider for multiple clients to authenticate against.
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- Those who want any or all of the above in a Free and Open Source project.
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## Connectors
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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.
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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.
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Future connectors can be developed and added as future interoperability requirements emerge.
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## Relevant Specifications
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These specs are referenced and implemented to some degree in the `jose` package of this project.
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- [JWK](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-key-36)
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- [JWT](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-oauth-json-web-token-30)
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- [JWS](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-jones-json-web-signature-04)
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OpenID Connect (OIDC) is broken up into several specifications. The following (amongst others) are relevant:
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- [OpenID Connect Core 1.0](https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html)
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- [OpenID Connect Discovery 1.0](https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-discovery-1_0.html)
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- [OAuth 2.0 RFC](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749)
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## Example OIDC Discovery Endpoints
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- https://accounts.google.com/.well-known/openid-configuration
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- https://login.salesforce.com/.well-known/openid-configuration
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# Next steps:
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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].
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For running the full stack check out the [getting started guide][getting-started].
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[getting-started]: https://github.com/coreos/dex/blob/master/Documentation/getting-started.md
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[dev-guide]: https://github.com/coreos/dex/blob/master/Documentation/dev-guide.md
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# Coming Soon
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- Multiple backing Identity Providers
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- Identity Management
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- Authorization
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## Similar Software
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### [CloudFoundry UAA](https://github.com/cloudfoundry/uaa)
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>The UAA is a multi tenant identity management service, used in Cloud Foundry, but also available as a stand alone OAuth2 server.
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### [OmniAuth](https://github.com/intridea/omniauth)
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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.
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### [Okta](http://developer.okta.com/product/)
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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.
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### [Shibboleth](https://shibboleth.net/)
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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.
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