auth-proxy/docs/security.md

Auth-gate Security Model

Authentication flow

1. Client request arrives at NGINX.
2. NGINX sends an internal auth_request subrequest to auth-gate.
3. Auth-gate checks:
   • Is the IP in the permanent whitelist? → Allow.
   • Is the IP in the temporary whitelist and not expired? → Allow.
   • Otherwise → 401 Unauthorized.
4. NGINX passes the request to the upstream service if auth-gate returned 200.
5. NGINX returns 401 to the client if auth-gate returned 401/403.

IP handling

Permanent whitelist

• Stored in SQLite permanent_whitelist table.
• Only single IPs and CIDR ranges (as strings) are supported.
• Added/removed via the /api/whitelist/perm API.

Temporary whitelist

• Stored in SQLite temp_whitelist table.
• Entries expire after their TTL.
• The cleanup goroutine runs every 60 seconds (configurable) to remove expired entries.

API key

The API key is the only secret for the /api/* endpoints. It's sent as a bearer token in the Authorization header.

• Keep it secret. Don't log it. Don't put it in the URL.
• Use a strong random string.
• Rotate it regularly.

Audit log

All whitelist operations are logged to the audit_log table in SQLite. Each entry records:

• action — what happened (add_temp, delete_temp, add_perm, delete_perm, expire_temp)
• ip or cidr — the affected IP or CIDR
• ttl_seconds — for temp entries
• reason — the reason provided
• api_client_ip — the IP that made the API call

Retrieve logs via the /api/logs endpoint.

Graceful shutdown

The service listens for SIGTERM and SIGINT. On signal:

1. Stop accepting new connections.
2. Close idle connections.
3. Wait for in-flight requests to complete (up to 30 seconds).
4. Exit.

This ensures Docker deployments can shut down cleanly.

What we don't do

• We don't support JWT/OAuth. If you need these, add them later.
• We don't support session state. The auth decision is made per-request.
• We don't support rate limiting. Use NGINX's limit_req for that.
• We don't support IP-based rate limiting. Use NGINX's limit_conn for that.
• We don't support IPv6. If you need IPv6, add it later.
• We don't support TLS. The auth endpoint should always be served over TLS.
• We don't support logging to a file. Logs go to stdout (Docker).
• We don't support metrics. If you need metrics, add them later.
• We don't support health checks with Prometheus. The /status endpoint is a simple text response.
• We don't support configuration via a config file. Use environment variables.
• We don't support multiple domains. The auth-gate service doesn't care about domains.
• We don't support HTTP/2. The auth-gate service uses HTTP/1.1 only.
• We don't support WebSocket. The auth-gate service doesn't need WebSocket.
• We don't support gRPC. The auth-gate service is a simple REST API.