---
title: Istio
lang: en-US
meta:
- name: keywords
content: >-
pomerium, identity access proxy, istio, traffic management, policy,
mutual authentication, authorization, kubernetes
description: >-
Integrate the Pomerium Ingress controller with an Istio service mesh for full mutual authentication in your cluster.
---
# Istio with Pomerium
Istio provides application-aware networking via a service mesh and control plane. When configured with the [Pomerium Ingress Controller] for kubernetes, this enables authorization (**[authZ]**) and authentication (**[authN]**) of [east-west traffic] in your internal network bringing you closer to complete [zero trust].
In this guide, we'll demonstrate how to configure Pomerium and Istio in a Kubernetes environment to provide mutual authentication at both the transport and application layer. We'll demonstrate first with a simple test service (Ngix), and then use [Grafana][grafana-guide] to illustrate how the final service can use the same authentication data for user association.
## Before You Begin
- You will need a Kubernetes environment with Istio installed. Refer to their [Getting Started](https://istio.io/latest/docs/setup/getting-started/) guide for more information.
- This configuration uses the Pomerium Ingress Controller for [north-south traffic]. This guide uses our [Helm chart](https://github.com/pomerium/pomerium-helm/tree/main/charts/pomerium) as detailed in [Install Pomerium using Helm]. We'll cover the values needed to configure the controller with an Istio service mesh, but you can refer to the [documentation][Pomerium Ingress Controller] for a complete overview of the controller spec.
## How it Works
In our [Mutual Authentication section on Sidecars](/docs/topics/mutual-auth.md#mutual-authentication-with-a-sidecar), we detail how a single service can offload authN and authz to a sidecar service. In a service mesh, each service in an internal network is deployed with a sidecar, and the controller configures them to provide mutual authentication with each other:
```mermaid
flowchart LR
subgraph pc[Client PC]
style pc stroke-dasharray: 5 5
E[Browser]
end
subgraph cluster[Kubernetes Cluster]
style cluster stroke-dasharray: 5 5
subgraph spacing[ ]
style spacing stroke-width:0px,fill:#ffffde;
end
subgraph proxy pod
A[Pomerium Proxy]
B[Sidecar]
E--oA
A-.-B
end
subgraph grafana pod
C[Sidecar]
D[Grafana]
C-.-D
B<==>C
end
F[Istio Controller]
F-.-B
F-.-C
end
```
::: tip
This is a simplified model that doesn't describe the additional traffic for authorization and authentication.
See the [Legend](/docs/topics/mutual-auth.md#legend) on our Mutual Authentication page for details on our graphing style.
:::
## Configure Pomerium for Istio
Follow [Install Pomerium using Helm] to set up the Pomerium Ingress Controller and Services, with the following adjustments.
1. Apply the appropriate label for Istio injection into your Pomerium namespace:
```bash
kubectl label namespace pomerium istio-injection=enabled
```
1. Update your `pomerium-values.yaml` file, making note of the changes for integration with Istio:
```yaml
authenticate:
idp:
provider: "google"
clientID: YOUR_CLIENT_ID
clientSecret: YOUR_SECRET
serviceAccount: YOUR_SERVICE_ACCOUNT
proxy:
deployment:
podAnnotations:
traffic.sidecar.istio.io/excludeInboundPorts: "80,443" # allow external connections to terminate directly on the Pomerium proxy rather than the sidecar
config:
rootDomain: localhost.pomerium.io
generateTLS: false # disable certificate generation since we offload TLS to the mesh
insecure: true # disable TLS on internal Pomerium services
ingress:
enabled: false # disable the default ingress resource since we are using our ingress controller
ingressController:
enabled: true # enable the Pomerium Ingress Controller
redis:
tls:
enabled: false # TLS is handled by istio
enabled: true
service:
authorize:
headless: false # send traffic to the Pomerium Authorize through the Istio service rather than to individual pods
databroker:
headless: false # send traffic to the Pomerium Databroker through the Istio service rather than to individual pods
```
1. When [defining a test service](/docs/k8s/helm.md#define-a-test-service), you should now see two containers for the service pod:
```bash
kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
...
nginx-6955473668-cxprp 2/2 Running 0 19s
```
This indicates that Istio has configured a sidecar container to handle traffic to and from the service.
## Istio CRDs
Now that Pomerium is installed in the cluster, we can define authentication and authorization rules for Istio, which will validate traffic to our example service as coming from the Pomerium Proxy service, through an authorized route, and with an authenticated user token.
1. Adjust the following example `nginx-istio-policy.yaml` file to match your Kubernetes environment and domain names:
```yaml
apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: RequestAuthentication
metadata:
name: nginx-require-pomerium-jwt
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: nginx # This matches the label applied to our test service
jwtRules:
- issuer: "authenticate.localhost.pomerium.io" # Adjust to match your Authenticate service URL
audiences:
- hello.localhost.pomerium.io # This should match the value of spec.host in the services Ingress
fromHeaders:
- name: "X-Pomerium-Jwt-Assertion"
jwksUri: https://authenticate.localhost.pomerium.io/.well-known/pomerium/jwks.json # Adjust to match your Authenticate service URL.
# The jwksUri key above is the preferred method of retrieving the signing key, and should be used in production. See
# See https://istio.io/latest/docs/reference/config/security/jwt/#JWTRule
#
#If the Authenticate service is using a localhost or other domain that's not a FQDN. You can instead provide the content from that path using the jwks key:
#jwks: |
# {"keys":[{"use":"sig","kty":"EC","kid":"e1c5d20b9cf771de0bd6038ee5b5fe831f771d3715b72c2db921611ffca7242f","crv":"P-256","alg":"ES256","x":"j8I1I7eb0Imr2pvxRk13cK9ZjAA3VPrdUIHkAslX2e0","y":"jfWNKJkq3b5hrTz2JsrXCcvgJCPP7QSFgX1ZT9wapIQ"}]}
---
apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: AuthorizationPolicy
metadata:
name: nginx-require-pomerium-jwt
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: nginx # This matches the label applied to our test service
action: ALLOW
rules:
- when:
- key: request.auth.claims[aud]
values: ["hello.localhost.pomerium.io"] # This should match the value of spec.host in the service's Ingress
```
This file defines two Custom Resources. The first is a `RequestAuthentication`, and it specifies:
- For objects with the `app.kubernetes.io/name` label matching `nginx`, Istio will check that:
- the request includes the header `X-Pomerium-Jwt-Assertion`, which provides a JWT,
- **and** that JWT is issued by the Pomerium Authenticate service,
- **and** the JWT is signed by the signing key provided by the Authenticate service.
If the JWT is found and validated, then the content within can be checked against the `AuthorizationPolicy` below. If the JWT is provided but not validated, it will not pass `RequestAuthentication`. If the JWT is not provided, the request will automatically fail any `AuthorizationPolicy`.
The second resource is an `AuthorizationPolicy`, and it species:
- For objects with the `app.kubernetes.io/name` label matching `nginx`, only allow requests:
- **if** the request includes a JWT (already validated by `RequestAuthentication`) with the audience key `aud`,
- **and** the value of the `aud` key matches our known route, `hello.localhost.pomerium.io`.
In other words, `RequestAuthentication` confirms that the incoming traffic to the sidecar has a signed and valid JWT, which confirms that the user has been authenticated and is authorized to access this service. The `AuthorizationPolicy` confirms that the traffic originated from a valid Pomerium route. The latter is especially important in Pomerium Enterprise, where a manager of a separate [Namespace](/enterprise/concepts.md#namespaces) could create a second route to a service normally routed and managed in your namespace.
1. Apply the new resources with `kubectl`:
```bash
kubectl apply -f authorization-policy.yaml
```
1. Now when you go to `hello.localhost.pomerium.io` in the browser, you should see `RBAC: access denied`. This confirms that the policy is in place and denying our request. To allow the traffic, add the `pass_identity_headers` annotation to `example-ingress.yaml`:
```yaml{7}
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: hello
annotations:
kubernetes.io/ingress.class: pomerium
cert-manager.io/issuer: pomerium-issuer
ingress.pomerium.io/pass_identity_headers: "true"
ingress.pomerium.io/policy: '[{"allow":{"and":[{"domain":{"is":"example.com"}}]}}]'
...
```
1. After applying the update with `kubectl apply -f example-ingress.yaml`, you should now be able to access the test service in the browser.
## Grafana
To demonstrate complete authorization validation through to the upstream service we'll use Grafana, as it's easy to configure to accept user authN from JWTs.
1. Add the Grafana repository to Helm:
```bash
helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts
```
1. Create a `grafana-values.yaml` file and add the annotations for the Pomerium Ingress Controller:
```yaml
ingress:
enabled: true
annotations:
# Specify the certificate issuer for your namespace or cluster. For example:
# cert-manager.io/issuer: pomerium-issuer
kubernetes.io/ingress.class: pomerium
ingress.pomerium.io/pass_identity_headers: "true"
ingress.pomerium.io/policy: |
- allow:
or:
- domain:
is: example.com
hosts:
- "grafana.localhost.pomerium.io"
tls:
- hosts:
- grafana.localhost.pomerium.io
secretName: grafana.localhost.pomerium.io-tls
persistence:
type: pvc
enabled: false
# storageClassName: default
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
size: 10Gi
# annotations: {}
finalizers:
- kubernetes.io/pvc-protection
```
::: tip
Persistence is required to retain user data. Review the [Grafana Helm chart configuration](https://github.com/grafana/helm-charts/tree/main/charts/grafana#configuration) options to set the values for your environment.
:::
1. Install Grafana to the cluster:
```bash
helm upgrade --install grafana grafana/grafana --values grafana-values.yaml
```
1. Follow the instructions in the terminal output to log in as the admin user. Follow the [Add Users to Grafana](/guides/grafana.md#add-users-to-grafana) section of our Grafana guide to add a user that can be identified by the Pomerium JWT.
1. To the same file, add the following values to the `grafana.ini` section.
<<< @/examples/kubernetes/istio/grafana.ini.yml
This tells Grafana to use the email address provided in the `X-Pomerium-Jwt-Assertion` JWT and associate it with the matching Grafana user. It also disabled Grafana's login form. See Grafana's [JWT authentication](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/auth/jwt/) documentation for more configuration options.
1. Upgrade Grafana with the new configuration options:
```bash
helm upgrade --install grafana grafana/grafana --values grafana-values.yaml
```
1. Now when you visit the Grafana route, you should be signed in as the user matching your Pomerium claim. To finalize the installation, create a new `grafana-istio-policy.yaml` file. Adjust the matchers and host values for Grafana, and enable `forwardOriginalToken`:
```yaml{15}
apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: RequestAuthentication
metadata:
name: grafana-require-pomerium-jwt
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: grafana # This matches the label applied to our test service
jwtRules:
- issuer: "authenticate.localhost.pomerium.io" # Adjust to match your Authenticate service URL
audiences:
- grafana.localhost.pomerium.io # This should match the value of spec.host in the services Ingress
fromHeaders:
- name: "X-Pomerium-Jwt-Assertion"
forwardOriginalToken: true
jwksUri: https://authenticate.localhost.pomerium.io/.well-known/pomerium/jwks.json # Adjust to match your Authenticate service URL.
# The jwksUri key above is the preferred method of retrieving the signing key, and should be used in production.
# See https://istio.io/latest/docs/reference/config/security/jwt/#JWTRule
#
#If the Authenticate service is using a localhost or other domain that's not a FQDN. You can instead provide the content from that path using the jwks key:
#jwks: |
# {"keys":[{"use":"sig","kty":"EC","kid":"e1c5d20b9cf771de0bd6038ee5b5fe831f771d3715b72c2db921611ffca7242f","crv":"P-256","alg":"ES256","x":"j8I1I7eb0Imr2pvxRk13cK9ZjAA3VPrdUIHkAslX2e0","y":"jfWNKJkq3b5hrTz2JsrXCcvgJCPP7QSFgX1ZT9wapIQ"}]}
---
apiVersion: security.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: AuthorizationPolicy
metadata:
name: grafana-require-pomerium-jwt
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: grafana # This matches the label applied to our test service
action: ALLOW
rules:
- when:
- key: request.auth.claims[aud]
values: ["grafana.localhost.pomerium.io"] # This should match the value of spec.host in the service's Ingress
```
Apply the policies with `kubectl apply -f` to complete the configuration.
[authN]: /docs/glossary.md#authentication
[authZ]:/docs/glossary.md#authorization
[Istio]: https://istio.io/latest/
[istio]: https://github.com/istio/istio
[certmanager]: https://github.com/jetstack/cert-manager
[grafana]: https://github.com/grafana/grafana
[grafana-guide]: /guides/grafana.md
[east-west traffic]: /docs/glossary.md#east-west-traffic
[north-south traffic]: /docs/glossary.md#north-south-traffic
[Pomerium Ingress Controller]: /docs/k8s/ingress.md
[zero trust]: /docs/background.md#zero-trust
[Install Pomerium using Helm]: /docs/k8s/helm.md