authz-bridge

Gateway-agnostic auth configuration for ext_authz callouts. Lets each application protect its backends (API servers, web servers, dashboards) behind any Gateway API implementation that supports the GEP-1494 ExternalAuth filter.

Description

authz-bridge answers ext_authz Check callouts from the gateway and enforces per-App authentication, so each protected service decides how its traffic is authenticated without gateway-specific config.

• Bridge: a process that runs in the controller-manager pod as one binary alongside the controller, sharing in-memory state. It exposes three fixed endpoints: plain HTTP :8082 (callback/logout), gRPC ext_authz :8083 (OIDC Flow), gRPC ext_authz :8084 (Exchange Flow, RFC 8693).
• CRDs: providers.v1alpha1.OauthClient (the per-App client configuration: clientID + basic secret, the IdP-registered callbackURLs, the App's hostnames), oauth.v1alpha1.OidcPolicy (session, injection, and logout behavior), oauth.v1alpha1.TokenExchangePolicy (clientRef + scopes).
• App resolution: the backend resolves request→App from the request's Host against each Client's declared hostnames (one App per hostname).
• Auth selection: lives in user-owned HTTPRoutes — match clauses direct traffic at the right bridge endpoint. authz-bridge never creates or mutates Routes.

See CONTEXT.md for the glossary and docs/adr/ for the decisions behind the design.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• go version v1.24.6+
• docker version 17.03+.
• kubectl version v1.11.3+.
• Access to a Kubernetes v1.11.3+ cluster.

To Deploy on the cluster

Build and push your image to the location specified by IMG:

make docker-build docker-push IMG=<some-registry>/authz-bridge:tag

NOTE: This image ought to be published in the personal registry you specified. And it is required to have access to pull the image from the working environment. Make sure you have the proper permission to the registry if the above commands don’t work.

Install the CRDs into the cluster:

make install

Deploy the Manager to the cluster with the image specified by IMG:

make deploy IMG=<some-registry>/authz-bridge:tag

NOTE: If you encounter RBAC errors, you may need to grant yourself cluster-admin privileges or be logged in as admin.

Create instances of your solution You can apply the samples (examples) from the config/sample:

kubectl apply -k config/samples/

NOTE: Ensure that the samples has default values to test it out.

To Uninstall

Delete the instances (CRs) from the cluster:

kubectl delete -k config/samples/

Delete the APIs(CRDs) from the cluster:

make uninstall

UnDeploy the controller from the cluster:

make undeploy

Project Distribution

Following the options to release and provide this solution to the users.

By providing a bundle with all YAML files

1. Build the installer for the image built and published in the registry:

make build-installer IMG=<some-registry>/authz-bridge:tag

NOTE: The makefile target mentioned above generates an 'install.yaml' file in the dist directory. This file contains all the resources built with Kustomize, which are necessary to install this project without its dependencies.

2. Using the installer

Users can just run 'kubectl apply -f ' to install the project, i.e.:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<org>/authz-bridge/<tag or branch>/dist/install.yaml

By providing a Helm Chart

1. Build the chart using the optional helm plugin

kubebuilder edit --plugins=helm/v2-alpha

2. See that a chart was generated under 'dist/chart', and users can obtain this solution from there.

NOTE: If you change the project, you need to update the Helm Chart using the same command above to sync the latest changes. Furthermore, if you create webhooks, you need to use the above command with the '--force' flag and manually ensure that any custom configuration previously added to 'dist/chart/values.yaml' or 'dist/chart/manager/manager.yaml' is manually re-applied afterwards.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome via the repository's issue tracker.

NOTE: Run make help for more information on all potential make targets

More information can be found via the Kubebuilder Documentation

License

Copyright 2026.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.