Authentication

Authentication and authorization

Authentication and authorization are closely related concepts, and sometimes abbreviated as AuthN and AuthZ. Authentication (AuthN) is the process of verifying the identity of a user, while authorization (AuthZ) is the process of determining what permissions the user has.

Weaviate controls access through user authentication via API keys or OpenID Connect (OIDC), with an option for anonymous access. Users can then be assigned different authorization levels, as shown in the diagram below.

For example, a user logging in with the API key jane-secret may be granted administrator permissions, while another user logging in with the API key ian-secret may be granted read-only permissions.

In summary, Weaviate allows the following authentication methods:

• API key
• OpenID Connect (OIDC)
• Anonymous access (no authentication, strongly discouraged except for development or evaluation)

Note that API key and OIDC authentication can be both enabled at the same time.

The way to configure authentication differs by your deployment method, depending on whether you are running Weaviate in Docker or Kubernetes. Below, we provide examples for both.

What about Weaviate Cloud (WCD)?

For Weaviate Cloud (WCD) instances, authentication is pre-configured with API key access. You can authenticate against Weaviate with API keys.

API Key Authentication

API key authentication is a simple and effective way to authenticate users. Each user is assigned a unique API key, which is used to authenticate the user.

API keys: Database users

When creating database users programmatically, each user is assigned a distinct API key at creation time. These API keys can also be regenerated (rotated).

API keys: Docker

API key authentication can be configured using environment variables. In Docker Compose, set them in the configuration file (docker-compose.yml) such as in the following example:

services:
  weaviate:
    ...
    environment:
      ...
      # Disable anonymous access.
      AUTHENTICATION_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS_ENABLED: 'false'

      # Enables API key authentication.
      AUTHENTICATION_APIKEY_ENABLED: 'true'

      # List one or more keys in plaintext separated by commas. Each key corresponds to a specific user identity below.
      AUTHENTICATION_APIKEY_ALLOWED_KEYS: 'user-a-key,user-b-key'

      # List one or more user identities, separated by commas. Each identity corresponds to a specific key above.
      AUTHENTICATION_APIKEY_USERS: 'user-a,user-b'

This configuration:

• Disables anonymous access
• Enables API key authentication
• Defines plaintext API keys in AUTHENTICATION_APIKEY_ALLOWED_KEYS
• Associates users with the API keys in AUTHENTICATION_APIKEY_USERS

These users can now be assigned permissions based on the authorization settings.

TIP: User management API available from v1.30

Instead of adding additional users via the AUTHENTICATION_APIKEY_USERS environment variable, we suggest using the user management API which you can use to create and delete users, manage their roles and rotate their API keys.

note

Note that you can either:

• Set one user for all API keys, or
• Define one user per API key (the number of users must match the number of API keys)

Make sure all listed users are also configured in the authorization settings.

API keys: Kubernetes

For Kubernetes deployments using Helm, API key authentication can be configured in the values.yaml file under the authentication section. Here's an example configuration:

authentication:
  anonymous_access:
    # Disable anonymous access.
    enabled: false

  apikey:
    # Enables API key authentication.
    enabled: true

    # List one or more keys in plaintext separated by commas. Each key corresponds to a specific user identity below.
    allowed_keys:
      - user-a-key
      - user-b-key

    # List one or more user identities, separated by commas. Each identity corresponds to a specific key above.
    users:
      - user-a
      - user-b

This configuration:

• Disables anonymous access
• Enables API key authentication
• Defines plaintext API keys in allowed_keys
• Associates users with the API keys in users

Environment Variables Take Precedence

If you configure API keys using environment variables, those settings will take precedence over the values in values.yaml. To use the Helm values configuration, ensure you have not set the corresponding environment variables.

For enhanced security in production environments, you can store API keys in Kubernetes secrets and reference them using environment variables instead of storing them as plaintext in the Helm values.

OIDC Authentication

OIDC authentication requires the resource (Weaviate) to validate tokens issued by an identity provider. The identity provider authenticates the user and issues tokens, which are then validated by Weaviate.

Any "OpenID Connect" compatible token issuer that implements OpenID Connect Discovery is compatible with Weaviate.

This document discusses how to configure Weaviate as the resource. For details on OIDC flows, token handling, and configuring a token issuer, see the OIDC configuration guide.

More about OIDC

With OpenID Connect (based on OAuth2), an external identity provider and token issuer ('token issuer' hereafter) is responsible for managing users.

OIDC authentication requires obtaining a valid token from the token issuer so that it can be sent in the header of any request to Weaviate. This applies to both REST and GraphQL requests.

When Weaviate receives a token (JSON Web Token or JWT), it verifies that it was indeed signed by the configured token issuer. If the signature is correct, all contents of the token are trusted, which authenticates the user based on the information in the token.

TIP: OIDC and RBAC

The user management API allows you to assign custom roles and permissions to OIDC users via Role-Based Access Control (RBAC).

OIDC: Docker

To configure Weaviate for OIDC-based authentication, add the following environment variables to your configuration file.

An example docker-compose.yml file looks like this:

services:
  weaviate:
    ...
    environment:
      ...
      # enabled (optional - defaults to false) turns OIDC auth on. All other fields in
      # this section will only be validated if enabled is set to true.
      AUTHENTICATION_OIDC_ENABLED: 'true'

      # issuer (required) tells weaviate how to discover the token issuer. This
      # endpoint must implement the OpenID Connect Discovery spec, so that weaviate
      # can retrieve the issuer's public key.
      #
      # The example URL below uses the path structure commonly found with keycloak
      # where an example realm 'my-weaviate-usecase' was created. The exact
      # path structure depends on the token issuer. See the token issuer's documentation
      # about which endpoint implements OIDC Discovery.
      AUTHENTICATION_OIDC_ISSUER: 'http://my-token-issuer/auth/realms/my-weaviate-usecase'

      # client_id (required unless skip_client_id_check is set to true) tells
      # Weaviate to check for a particular OAuth 2.0 client_id in the audience claim.
      # This is to prevent that a token which was signed by the correct issuer
      # but never intended to be used with Weaviate can be used for authentication.
      #
      # For more information on what clients are in OAuth 2.0, see
      # https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749#section-1.1
      AUTHENTICATION_OIDC_CLIENT_ID: 'my-weaviate-client'

      # username_claim (required) tells Weaviate which claim in the token to use for extracting
      # the username. The username will be passed to the authorization plugin.
      AUTHENTICATION_OIDC_USERNAME_CLAIM: 'email'

      # skip_client_id_check (optional, defaults to false) skips the client_id
      # validation in the audience claim as outlined in the section above.
      # Not recommended to set this option as it reduces security, only set this
      # if your token issuer is unable to provide a correct audience claim
      AUTHENTICATION_OIDC_SKIP_CLIENT_ID_CHECK: 'false'

      # scope (optional) these will be used by clients as default scopes for authentication
      AUTHENTICATION_OIDC_SCOPES: ''

OIDC and Azure

As of November 2022, we were aware of some differences in Microsoft Azure's OIDC implementation compared to others. If you are using Azure and experiencing difficulties, this external blog post may be useful.

OIDC: Kubernetes

For Kubernetes deployments using Helm, OIDC authentication can be configured in the values.yaml file under the authentication section. Here's an example configuration:

authentication:
  anonymous_access:
    # Disable anonymous access.
    enabled: false
  oidc:
    # enabled (optional - defaults to false) turns OIDC auth on. All other fields in
    # this section will only be validated if enabled is set to true.
    enabled: true

    # issuer (required) tells weaviate how to discover the token issuer. This
    # endpoint must implement the OpenID Connect Discovery spec, so that weaviate
    # can retrieve the issuer's public key.
    #
    # The example URL below uses the path structure commonly found with keycloak
    # where an example realm 'my-weaviate-usecase' was created. The exact
    # path structure depends on the token issuer. See the token issuer's documentation
    # about which endpoint implements OIDC Discovery.
    issuer: "http://my-token-issuer/auth/realms/my-weaviate-usecase"

    # client_id (required unless skip_client_id_check is set to true) tells
    # Weaviate to check for a particular OAuth 2.0 client_id in the audience claim.
    # This is to prevent that a token which was signed by the correct issuer
    # but never intended to be used with Weaviate can be used for authentication.
    #
    # For more information on what clients are in OAuth 2.0, see
    # https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749#section-1.1
    client_id: "my-weaviate-client"

    # username_claim (required) tells Weaviate which claim in the token to use for extracting
    # the username. The username will be passed to the authorization plugin.
    username_claim: "email"

    # skip_client_id_check (optional, defaults to false) skips the client_id
    # validation in the audience claim as outlined in the section above.
    # Not recommended to set this option as it reduces security, only set this
    # if your token issuer is unable to provide a correct audience claim
    skip_client_id_check: "false"

    # scope (optional) these will be used by clients as default scopes for authentication
    scopes: ""

    # groups_claim: ''

Anonymous Access

Weaviate can be configured to accept anonymous requests. This is strongly discouraged except for development or evaluation purposes.

Users that send requests without explicit authentication are authenticated as user: anonymous.

You can use the authorization plugin to specify which permissions to apply to this anonymous user. If anonymous access is disabled altogether, any request without an allowed authentication scheme returns 401 Unauthorized.

Anonymous access: Docker

To enable anonymous access in Docker Compose, add the following environment variable to your configuration file:

services:
  weaviate:
    ...
    environment:
      ...
      AUTHENTICATION_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS_ENABLED: 'true'

Anonymous access: Kubernetes

To enable anonymous access in Kubernetes, add the following configuration to your values.yaml file:

authentication:
  anonymous_access:
    enabled: true

Further resources

• Configuration: Authorization and RBAC
• References: Environment variables / Authentication and Authorization

Questions and feedback

If you have any questions or feedback, let us know in the user forum.

Technical questions

If you have questions feel free to post on our Community forum.

Documentation feedback

Leave feedback by opening a GitHub issue.