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Use Okta as OAuth 2.0 server

Demonstrate how to authenticate using OAuth 2.0 protocol and Okta as Authorization Server using the following flows:

  1. Access management UI via a browser

Prerequisites to follow this guide​

  • Have an Okta account
  • Docker
  • A local clone of a GitHub repository for branch next that contains all the configuration files and scripts used on this example.

Create your app integration in Okta UI​

When using Okta as OAuth 2.0 server, your client app (in our case RabbitMQ) needs a way to trust the security tokens issued to it by the Okta OIDC Sign-In Widget.

The first step in establishing that trust is by creating your app with the identity platform in Okta. To learn more about App registration in Okta, please refer to Okta documentation.

Once you have logged onto your account in Okta, follow below steps:

  1. In the Admin Console, go to Applications.
  2. Click Create App Integration.
  3. To create an OIDC app integration, select OIDC - OpenID Connect as the Sign-in method.
  4. Choose the type of application to integrate with Okta. Select Single-Page Application(SPA).
  5. Click Next.

The App Integration Wizard for OIDC has three sections:

In General Settings, provide the following information:

In Trusted Origins (for Web and Native app integrations), choose keep the default values.

In Assignments, choose Allow everyone in your organization to access.

warning

Deactivate Federation Broker Mode. Our testing suggests that if the Federation Broker Mode was activated (this is what Okta recommends), it would not possible to assign this application to groups and users.

Finally, prepare to copy and save a value that will be displayed on one of the following screens, then click on Save.

important

After clicking Save, take note of the following values, the will be necessary later to configure RabbitMQ:

  • ClientID

Create Okta OAuth 2.0 Authorization Server, Scopes and Claims​

An authorization server is used to authenticate users and issue access tokens that can be used to access protected resources. In Okta, an authorization server can be used to define scopes, which are essentially permissions that determine what resources a user can access. By defining scopes, you can control the level of access that different users have to your resources.

Here are the steps to create scopes for admin and dev groups using the default authorization server in Okta:

  1. Log in to your Okta account and navigate to the Authorization Servers tab in the Okta Console under Security-> API.

  2. Click on the default authorization server that is provided.

tip

Take note of the following fields associated to the default authorization server, as you will need them later to configure RabbitMQ.

  • Issuer.
  • Metadata URI.

  1. Click on the Scopes tab and then click the Add Scope button.

  2. Enter admin as the name of the scope and a description if desired.

  3. Repeat step 4 to create a scope for dev.

  4. Save your changes.

And below are the steps to create a claim for role to distinguish admin and dev groups when authenticating using the default authorization server in Okta:

  1. Log in to your Okta account and navigate to the Authorization Servers tab in the Okta Console under Security-> API.

  2. Click on the default authorization server that is provided.

  3. Click on the Claims tab and then click the Add Claim button.

  4. Enter role as the name of the claim.

  5. Choose Access Token as Include in token type.

  6. Choose Expression as Value type

  7. In Value field enter the following expression: isMemberOfGroupName("admin") ? "admin" : isMemberOfGroupName("monitoring") ? "monitoring" : ""

  8. Click on create.

Note: the expression above returns a claim named role with value admin if the user is a member of the admin group, and monitoring if the user is a member of the monitoring group:

Create Groups to Allow Access to Management UI​

  1. Log in to your Okta Admin Dashboard and navigate to the Groups page by clicking on the Groups tab in the top menu.

  2. Click the Add Group button in the top right corner of the page.

  3. In the Add Group dialog box, enter a name for the group in the Group Name field. You can also enter a description for the group in the Description field, although this is optional.

  4. If you want to add members to the group right away, you can do so by clicking the Add People button in the Members section of the dialog box. You can search for users by name or email address, and add them to the group by selecting their name and clicking the Add button.

  5. If you want to set group rules, you can do so by clicking the Rules tab in the dialog box. Group rules allow you to automatically add or remove users from the group based on criteria such as their email domain, job title, or department.

  6. Once you've finished configuring the group, click the Create Group button to create the group.

Assign App and Users to Groups​

Next step is to assign a user to a group in Okta, and grant them access to an app associated with that group. For our use case we want to assign some users to dev and admin group and assign the rabbitmq-oauth2 app to both groups.

  1. Log in to your Okta Admin Dashboard and navigate to the Users page by clicking on the Directory tab in the top menu, and then selecting People.

  2. Find the user you want to assign to the groups, and click on their name to open their user profile.

  3. In the user profile, click on the Groups tab to view the groups that the user is currently a member of.

  4. To add the user to a group, click the Add Group button in the top right corner of the page. Select the group you want to add the user to from the list of available groups, and click the Add button to add the user to the group.

  5. To grant the user access to an app associated with the group, navigate to the Applications tab in the user profile. Find the app you want to grant access to, and click on the app name to open its settings.

  6. In the app settings, click on the Assignments tab to view the users and groups that are currently assigned to the app.

  7. To add the user to the app, click the Assign button in the top right corner of the page. Select the group you want to assign the user to from the list of available groups, and click the Assign button to assign the user to the app for that group.

  8. Repeat steps 4-7 to add the user to any additional groups and apps.

Once you've added the user to the appropriate groups and apps, they should have access to the app and any resources associated with those groups.

Create access policy and rule​

This step is necessary otherwise the tokens do not carry any of the scopes granted to the users.

  1. Create access policy following these instructions.
  2. Create rule for the access policy following these instructions.

[Optional] Test the tokens issued by Okta​

This is totally optional but it can save you time.

  1. Go to the default Authorization Server.
  2. Click on Token Preview tab.
  3. Fill in all the fields. For grant type choose Authorization Code.
  4. Click on Preview Token button.
  5. Check the claim role to see if it contains the roles you assigned to your user.

Configure RabbitMQ to use Okta as OAuth 2.0 Authentication Backend​

The configuration on Okta side is done. You now have to configure RabbitMQ to use the resources you just created. You took note of the following values:

  • okta_client_app_ID associated to the okta app that you registered in okta for rabbitMQ.
  • okta-Issuer associated to the default Authorization server.
  • okta-Metadata-URI associated to the default Authorization server.

Clone rabbitmq.conf.tmpl as rabbitmq.conf (in the same folder as rabbitmq.conf.tmpl). There is a second configuration file, advanced.config, that you keep it as it is. This is the RabbitMQ advanced configuration that maps RabbitMQ scopes to the permissions previously configured in Okta.

Edit rabbitmq.conf and proceed as follows:

  1. Replace {okta_client_app_ID} with your okta_client_app_ID
  2. Replace {okta-issuer} with your okta-Issuer
  3. Ensure okta-Metadata-URI matches this value {okta-issuer}/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server or {okta-issuer}/.well-known/openid-configuration
  4. Else you need to determine the path that follows the uri in {okta-issuer} and update auth_oauth2.discovery_endpoint_path accordingly. For instance, if okta-Metadata-URI is {okta-issuer}/some-other-endpoint, you update auth_oauth2.discovery_endpoint_path with the value some-other-endpoint.

About OpenId Discovery Endpoint​

RabbitMQ uses the standard OpenId discovery endpoint path .well-known/openid-configuration. Okta supports this path in addition to .well-known/oauth-authorization-server. The only difference observed at the time of writing this guide is that the latter returns more values in the json attribute claims_supported.

The RabbitMQ's template configuration provided in this example has this line commented out meaning that RabbitMQ will use the standard path. If you find any problems, try uncommenting this line.

#auth_oauth2.discovery_endpoint_path = .well-known/oauth-authorization-server

Start RabbitMQ​

Run the following commands to run RabbitMQ docker image:

export MODE=okta
make start-rabbitmq

Verify RabbitMQ Management UI Access​

Go to RabbitMQ Management UI https://localhost:15671. Depending on your browser, ignore the security warnings (raised by the fact that a self-signed certificate is used) to proceed.

Once on the RabbitMQ Management UI page, click on the Click here to log in button, authenticate with your okta user.

When login succeeds, you will be redirected back to the RabbitMQ Management UI.