opa-spiffe-authz

README

opa-spiffe-authz

OPA-SPIFFE Authorization Example.

Overview

This is a demo of integrating OPA and SPIRE. The goal of the demo is to show:

• How OPA can be used to authorize mTLS connections

• How OPA can be used to filter the data seen by the client

Running the Example

Step 1: Install Docker

Ensure that you have recent versions of docker and docker-compose installed.

Step 2: Build

Build the binaries for all the services.

$ ./build.sh

Step 3: Start containers

$ docker-compose up --build -d
$ docker-compose ps
             Name                           Command               State           Ports
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
opa-spiffe-demo_api-server_1     flask run --host=0.0.0.0         Up      0.0.0.0:5000->5000/tcp
opa-spiffe-demo_db_1             /bin/sh -c /usr/local/bin/ ...   Up      10000/tcp
opa-spiffe-demo_external_1       /bin/sh -c /usr/local/bin/ ...   Up      10000/tcp
opa-spiffe-demo_privileged_1     /bin/sh -c /usr/local/bin/ ...   Up      10000/tcp
opa-spiffe-demo_restricted_1     /bin/sh -c /usr/local/bin/ ...   Up      10000/tcp
opa-spiffe-demo_spire-server_1   /usr/bin/dumb-init /opt/sp ...   Up

The demo consists of a server(opa-spiffe-demo_db_1) which is a healthcare app that holds patient records.

A patient record contains the patient's Firstname, Lastname, SSN and Enrollee_Type(primary/secondary).

opa-spiffe-demo_privileged_1, opa-spiffe-demo_restricted_1 and opa-spiffe-demo_external_1 are the clients trying to retrieve patient records from the server.

Step 4: Start SPIRE Infrastructure

Start the SPIRE Agents and register the services with the SPIRE Server.

$ ./configure-spire.sh

Step 4: Exercise mTLS Policy

SPIFFE's v2 API provides methods (Listen and Dial) to create a mTLS connection using the X509-SVID obtained from the Workload API. These methods take an Authorizer which authorizes a workload given its SPIFFE ID. The library comes with some built-in authorizers that check a SPIFFE ID, a list of SPIFFE IDs etc. to make a decision.

For more complex scenarios, where the decision would depend on some dynamic properties or external context, the built-in authorizers wouldn't suffice.

OPA as an Authorizer would be perfect for such complex use-cases !

The policy we want to enforce says that:

Always allow the opa-spiffe-demo_privileged_1 and opa-spiffe-demo_restricted_1 clients to form a mTLS connection with the server. The opa-spiffe-demo_external_1 cannot connect to the server on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Check the opa-spiffe-demo_privileged_1 and opa-spiffe-demo_restricted_1 can connect to the server.

$ curl -s localhost:5000/connect/privileged | jq .
{
  "client": "spiffe://domain.test/privileged",
  "connection_status": "Created",
  "reason": "OPA allowed request: Hello spiffe://domain.test/privileged"
}

$ curl -s localhost:5000/connect/restricted | jq .
{
  "client": "spiffe://domain.test/restricted",
  "connection_status": "Created",
  "reason": "OPA allowed request: Hello spiffe://domain.test/restricted"
}

Check that opa-spiffe-demo_external_1 cannot connect to the server.

Note: This is a time-based(UTC) policy.

$ curl -s localhost:5000/connect/external | jq .
{
  "client": "spiffe://domain.test/external",
  "connection_status": "Not Created",
  "reason": "OPA denied request: unexpected peer ID spiffe://domain.test/external"
}

OPA made these decisions in-part using the SPIFFE ID provided by the Authorizer callback included in the Listen and Dial methods.

Step 5: Exercise Filter Policy

This policy attempts to demonstrate that OPA decisions can be more than boolean.

As mentioned before, the patient records contain information like Firstname as well as sensitive information like SSN.

The policy we want to enforce says that:

opa-spiffe-demo_privileged_1 should be able to see all the fields in the patient record while opa-spiffe-demo_restricted_1 shouldn't be able to see the sensitive fields in the patient record.

$ curl -s localhost:5000/getdata/privileged | jq .
{
  "client": "spiffe://domain.test/privileged",
  "patients": [
    {
      "id": "1",
      "firstname": "Iron",
      "lastname": "Man",
      "ssn": "111-11-1111",
      "enrollee_type": "Primary"
    },
    {
      "id": "2",
      "firstname": "Thor",
      "lastname": "Odinson",
      "ssn": "222-22-2222",
      "enrollee_type": "Primary"
    },
    {
      "id": "3",
      "firstname": "Peter",
      "lastname": "Parker",
      "ssn": "333-33-3333",
      "enrollee_type": "Secondary"
    },
    {
      "id": "4",
      "firstname": "Nick",
      "lastname": "Fury",
      "ssn": "444-44-4444",
      "enrollee_type": "Secondary"
    }
  ]
}

$ curl -s localhost:5000/getdata/restricted | jq .
{
  "client": "spiffe://domain.test/restricted",
  "patients": [
    {
      "id": "1",
      "firstname": "Iron",
      "lastname": "Man",
      "ssn": "***********",
      "enrollee_type": "***********"
    },
    {
      "id": "2",
      "firstname": "Thor",
      "lastname": "Odinson",
      "ssn": "***********",
      "enrollee_type": "***********"
    },
    {
      "id": "3",
      "firstname": "Peter",
      "lastname": "Parker",
      "ssn": "***********",
      "enrollee_type": "***********"
    },
    {
      "id": "4",
      "firstname": "Nick",
      "lastname": "Fury",
      "ssn": "***********",
      "enrollee_type": "***********"
    }
  ]
}

In the above response, the SSN and Enrollee_Type fields are hidden. The pii rule in the below OPA policy snippet returns a list of fields that are considered "sensitive" and then the server application hides them from the final output. The policy can also be extended to return a filtered list instead of returning the "sensitive" fields. The SPIFFE ID (input.peerID) is obtained from the server connection after a successful TLS handshake.

pii = ["SSN", "EnrolleeType"] {
    input.peerID == "spiffe://domain.test/restricted"
}

All the policies used in the demo can be modified by exec'ing into the server/client container and changing the policy.rego file. For example try modifying the pii rule as below by exec'ing into the opa-spiffe-demo_db_1 container and then run $ curl -s localhost:5000/getdata/restricted | jq . again:

pii = ["EnrolleeType"] {
    input.peerID == "spiffe://domain.test/restricted"
}

This time the SSN should be exposed !