elasticsearch/docs/java-rest/high-level/security/delegate-pki-authentication.asciidoc

--
:api: delegate-pki
:request: DelegatePkiAuthenticationRequest
:response: DelegatePkiAuthenticationResponse
--
[role="xpack"]
[id="{upid}-{api}"]
=== Delegate PKI Authentication API

This API is called by *smart* proxies to Elasticsearch, such as Kibana, that
terminate the user's TLS session but that still wish to authenticate the user
on the Elasticsearch side using a PKI realm, which normally requires users to
authenticate over TLS directly to Elasticsearch. It implements the exchange of
the client's {@code X509Certificate} chain from the TLS authentication into an
Elasticsearch access token.

IMPORTANT: The association between the subject public key in the target
certificate and the corresponding private key is *not* validated. This is part
of the TLS authentication process and it is delegated to the proxy calling this
API. The proxy is *trusted* to have performed the TLS authentication, and this
API translates that authentication into an Elasticsearch access token.

[id="{upid}-{api}-request"]
==== Delegate PKI Authentication Request

The request contains the client's {@code X509Certificate} chain. The
certificate chain is represented as a list where the first element is the
target certificate containing the subject distinguished name that is requesting
access. This may be followed by additional certificates, with each subsequent
certificate being the one used to certify the previous one. The certificate
chain is validated according to RFC 5280, by sequentially considering the trust
configuration of every installed {@code PkiRealm} that has {@code
PkiRealmSettings#DELEGATION_ENABLED_SETTING} set to {@code true} (default is
{@code false}). A successfully trusted target certificate is also subject to
the validation of the subject distinguished name according to that respective's
realm {@code PkiRealmSettings#USERNAME_PATTERN_SETTING}.

["source","java",subs="attributes,callouts,macros"]
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include-tagged::{doc-tests}/SecurityDocumentationIT.java[delegate-pki-request]
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include::../execution.asciidoc[]

[id="{upid}-{api}-response"]
==== Delegate PKI Authentication Response

The returned +{response}+ contains the following properties:

`accessToken`:: This is the newly created access token.
   It can be used to authenticate to the Elasticsearch cluster.
`type`:: The type of the token, this is always `"Bearer"`.
`expiresIn`:: The length of time (in seconds) until the token will expire.
   The token will be considered invalid after that time.

["source","java",subs="attributes,callouts,macros"]
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include-tagged::{doc-tests}/SecurityDocumentationIT.java[delegate-pki-response]
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<1> The `accessToken` can be used to authentication to Elasticsearch.