oauth2-proxy/docs/versioned_docs/version-6.1.x/configuration/overview.md

id	title
overview	Overview

oauth2-proxy can be configured via config file, command line options or environment variables.

Generating a Cookie Secret

To generate a strong cookie secret use one of the below commands:

import Tabs from '@theme/Tabs'; import TabItem from '@theme/TabItem';

<Tabs defaultValue="python" values={[ {label: 'Python', value: 'python'}, {label: 'Bash', value: 'bash'}, {label: 'OpenSSL', value: 'openssl'}, {label: 'PowerShell', value: 'powershell'}, {label: 'Terraform', value: 'terraform'}, ]}>

python -c 'import os,base64; print(base64.urlsafe_b64encode(os.urandom(32)).decode())'

cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | fold -w 32 | head -n 1 | base64

openssl rand -base64 32 | tr -- '+/' '-_'

# Add System.Web assembly to session, just in case
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Web
[Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes([System.Web.Security.Membership]::GeneratePassword(32,4))).Replace("+","-").Replace("/","_")

# Valid 32 Byte Base64 URL encoding set that will decode to 24 []byte AES-192 secret
resource "random_password" "cookie_secret" {
  length           = 32
  override_special = "-_"
}

Config File

Every command line argument can be specified in a config file by replacing hyphens (-) with underscores (_). If the argument can be specified multiple times, the config option should be plural (trailing s).

An example oauth2-proxy.cfg config file is in the contrib directory. It can be used by specifying --config=/etc/oauth2-proxy.cfg

Command Line Options

Option	Type	Description	Default
--acr-values	string	optional, see docs	""
--approval-prompt	string	OAuth approval_prompt	"force"
--auth-logging	bool	Log authentication attempts	true
--auth-logging-format	string	Template for authentication log lines	see Logging Configuration
--authenticated-emails-file	string	authenticate against emails via file (one per line)
--azure-tenant	string	go to a tenant-specific or common (tenant-independent) endpoint.	"common"
--basic-auth-password	string	the password to set when passing the HTTP Basic Auth header
--client-id	string	the OAuth Client ID, e.g. "123456.apps.googleusercontent.com"
--client-secret	string	the OAuth Client Secret
--client-secret-file	string	the file with OAuth Client Secret
--config	string	path to config file
--cookie-domain	string | list	Optional cookie domains to force cookies to (e.g. .yourcompany.com). The longest domain matching the request's host will be used (or the shortest cookie domain if there is no match).
--cookie-expire	duration	expire timeframe for cookie	168h0m0s
--cookie-httponly	bool	set HttpOnly cookie flag	true
--cookie-name	string	the name of the cookie that the oauth_proxy creates	"_oauth2_proxy"
--cookie-path	string	an optional cookie path to force cookies to (e.g. /poc/)	"/"
--cookie-refresh	duration	refresh the cookie after this duration; 0 to disable; not supported by all providers [1]
--cookie-secret	string	the seed string for secure cookies (optionally base64 encoded)
--cookie-secure	bool	set secure (HTTPS only) cookie flag	true
--cookie-samesite	string	set SameSite cookie attribute ("lax", "strict", "none", or "").	""
--custom-templates-dir	string	path to custom html templates
--display-htpasswd-form	bool	display username / password login form if an htpasswd file is provided	true
--email-domain	string | list	authenticate emails with the specified domain (may be given multiple times). Use * to authenticate any email
--errors-to-info-log	bool	redirects error-level logging to default log channel instead of stderr
--extra-jwt-issuers	string	if --skip-jwt-bearer-tokens is set, a list of extra JWT issuer=audience (see a token's iss, aud fields) pairs (where the issuer URL has a .well-known/openid-configuration or a .well-known/jwks.json)
--exclude-logging-paths	string	comma separated list of paths to exclude from logging, e.g. "/ping,/path2"	"" (no paths excluded)
--flush-interval	duration	period between flushing response buffers when streaming responses	"1s"
--force-https	bool	enforce https redirect	false
--banner	string	custom (html) banner string. Use "-" to disable default banner.
--footer	string	custom (html) footer string. Use "-" to disable default footer.
--gcp-healthchecks	bool	will enable /liveness_check, /readiness_check, and / (with the proper user-agent) endpoints that will make it work well with GCP App Engine and GKE Ingresses	false
--github-org	string	restrict logins to members of this organisation
--github-team	string	restrict logins to members of any of these teams (slug), separated by a comma
--github-repo	string	restrict logins to collaborators of this repository formatted as orgname/repo
--github-token	string	the token to use when verifying repository collaborators (must have push access to the repository)
--github-user	string | list	To allow users to login by username even if they do not belong to the specified org and team or collaborators
--gitlab-group	string | list	restrict logins to members of any of these groups (slug), separated by a comma
--google-admin-email	string	the google admin to impersonate for api calls
--google-group	string	restrict logins to members of this google group (may be given multiple times).
--google-service-account-json	string	the path to the service account json credentials
--htpasswd-file	string	additionally authenticate against a htpasswd file. Entries must be created with htpasswd -s for SHA encryption
--http-address	string	[http://]<addr>:<port> or unix://<path> to listen on for HTTP clients	"127.0.0.1:4180"
--https-address	string	<addr>:<port> to listen on for HTTPS clients	":443"
--logging-compress	bool	Should rotated log files be compressed using gzip	false
--logging-filename	string	File to log requests to, empty for stdout	"" (stdout)
--logging-local-time	bool	Use local time in log files and backup filenames instead of UTC	true (local time)
--logging-max-age	int	Maximum number of days to retain old log files	7
--logging-max-backups	int	Maximum number of old log files to retain; 0 to disable	0
--logging-max-size	int	Maximum size in megabytes of the log file before rotation	100
--jwt-key	string	private key in PEM format used to sign JWT, so that you can say something like --jwt-key="${OAUTH2_PROXY_JWT_KEY}": required by login.gov
--jwt-key-file	string	path to the private key file in PEM format used to sign the JWT so that you can say something like --jwt-key-file=/etc/ssl/private/jwt_signing_key.pem: required by login.gov
--login-url	string	Authentication endpoint
--insecure-oidc-allow-unverified-email	bool	don't fail if an email address in an id_token is not verified	false
--insecure-oidc-skip-issuer-verification	bool	allow the OIDC issuer URL to differ from the expected (currently required for Azure multi-tenant compatibility)	false
--oidc-issuer-url	string	the OpenID Connect issuer URL, e.g. "https://accounts.google.com"
--oidc-jwks-url	string	OIDC JWKS URI for token verification; required if OIDC discovery is disabled
--pass-access-token	bool	pass OAuth access_token to upstream via X-Forwarded-Access-Token header. When used with --set-xauthrequest this adds the X-Auth-Request-Access-Token header to the response	false
--pass-authorization-header	bool	pass OIDC IDToken to upstream via Authorization Bearer header	false
--pass-basic-auth	bool	pass HTTP Basic Auth, X-Forwarded-User, X-Forwarded-Email and X-Forwarded-Preferred-Username information to upstream	true
--prefer-email-to-user	bool	Prefer to use the Email address as the Username when passing information to upstream. Will only use Username if Email is unavailable, e.g. htaccess authentication. Used in conjunction with --pass-basic-auth and --pass-user-headers	false
--pass-host-header	bool	pass the request Host Header to upstream	true
--pass-user-headers	bool	pass X-Forwarded-User, X-Forwarded-Email and X-Forwarded-Preferred-Username information to upstream	true
--profile-url	string	Profile access endpoint
--prompt	string	OIDC prompt; if present, approval-prompt is ignored	""
--provider	string	OAuth provider	google
--provider-ca-file	string | list	Paths to CA certificates that should be used when connecting to the provider. If not specified, the default Go trust sources are used instead.
--provider-display-name	string	Override the provider's name with the given string; used for the sign-in page	(depends on provider)
--ping-path	string	the ping endpoint that can be used for basic health checks	"/ping"
--ping-user-agent	string	a User-Agent that can be used for basic health checks	"" (don't check user agent)
--proxy-prefix	string	the url root path that this proxy should be nested under (e.g. /<oauth2>/sign_in)	"/oauth2"
--proxy-websockets	bool	enables WebSocket proxying	true
--pubjwk-url	string	JWK pubkey access endpoint: required by login.gov
--real-client-ip-header	string	Header used to determine the real IP of the client, requires --reverse-proxy to be set (one of: X-Forwarded-For, X-Real-IP, or X-ProxyUser-IP)	X-Real-IP
--redeem-url	string	Token redemption endpoint
--redirect-url	string	the OAuth Redirect URL, e.g. "https://internalapp.yourcompany.com/oauth2/callback"
--redis-cluster-connection-urls	string | list	List of Redis cluster connection URLs (e.g. redis://HOST[:PORT]). Used in conjunction with --redis-use-cluster
--redis-connection-url	string	URL of redis server for redis session storage (e.g. redis://HOST[:PORT])
--redis-password	string	Redis password. Applicable for all Redis configurations. Will override any password set in --redis-connection-url
--redis-sentinel-password	string	Redis sentinel password. Used only for sentinel connection; any redis node passwords need to use --redis-password
--redis-sentinel-master-name	string	Redis sentinel master name. Used in conjunction with --redis-use-sentinel
--redis-sentinel-connection-urls	string | list	List of Redis sentinel connection URLs (e.g. redis://HOST[:PORT]). Used in conjunction with --redis-use-sentinel
--redis-use-cluster	bool	Connect to redis cluster. Must set --redis-cluster-connection-urls to use this feature	false
--redis-use-sentinel	bool	Connect to redis via sentinels. Must set --redis-sentinel-master-name and --redis-sentinel-connection-urls to use this feature	false
--request-logging	bool	Log requests	true
--request-logging-format	string	Template for request log lines	see Logging Configuration
--resource	string	The resource that is protected (Azure AD only)
--reverse-proxy	bool	are we running behind a reverse proxy, controls whether headers like X-Real-IP are accepted	false
--scope	string	OAuth scope specification
--session-cookie-minimal	bool	strip OAuth tokens from cookie session stores if they aren't needed (cookie session store only)	false
--session-store-type	string	Session data storage backend; redis or cookie	cookie
--set-xauthrequest	bool	set X-Auth-Request-User, X-Auth-Request-Email and X-Auth-Request-Preferred-Username response headers (useful in Nginx auth_request mode). When used with --pass-access-token, X-Auth-Request-Access-Token is added to response headers.	false
--set-authorization-header	bool	set Authorization Bearer response header (useful in Nginx auth_request mode)	false
--set-basic-auth	bool	set HTTP Basic Auth information in response (useful in Nginx auth_request mode)	false
--signature-key	string	GAP-Signature request signature key (algorithm:secretkey)
--silence-ping-logging	bool	disable logging of requests to ping endpoint	false
--skip-auth-preflight	bool	will skip authentication for OPTIONS requests	false
--skip-auth-regex	string	bypass authentication for requests paths that match (may be given multiple times)
--skip-auth-strip-headers	bool	strips X-Forwarded-* style authentication headers & Authorization header if they would be set by oauth2-proxy for request paths in --skip-auth-regex	false
--skip-jwt-bearer-tokens	bool	will skip requests that have verified JWT bearer tokens (the token must have aud that matches this client id or one of the extras from extra-jwt-issuers)	false
--skip-oidc-discovery	bool	bypass OIDC endpoint discovery. --login-url, --redeem-url and --oidc-jwks-url must be configured in this case	false
--skip-provider-button	bool	will skip sign-in-page to directly reach the next step: oauth/start	false
--ssl-insecure-skip-verify	bool	skip validation of certificates presented when using HTTPS providers	false
--ssl-upstream-insecure-skip-verify	bool	skip validation of certificates presented when using HTTPS upstreams	false
--standard-logging	bool	Log standard runtime information	true
--standard-logging-format	string	Template for standard log lines	see Logging Configuration
--tls-cert-file	string	path to certificate file
--tls-key-file	string	path to private key file
--upstream	string | list	the http url(s) of the upstream endpoint, file:// paths for static files or static://<status_code> for static response. Routing is based on the path
--user-id-claim	string	which claim contains the user ID	["email"]
--validate-url	string	Access token validation endpoint
--version	n/a	print version string
--whitelist-domain	string | list	allowed domains for redirection after authentication. Prefix domain with a . to allow subdomains (e.g. .example.com) [2]
--trusted-ip	string | list	list of IPs or CIDR ranges to allow to bypass authentication (may be given multiple times). When combined with --reverse-proxy and optionally --real-client-ip-header this will evaluate the trust of the IP stored in an HTTP header by a reverse proxy rather than the layer-3/4 remote address. WARNING: trusting IPs has inherent security flaws, especially when obtaining the IP address from an HTTP header (reverse-proxy mode). Use this option only if you understand the risks and how to manage them.

[1]: Only these providers support --cookie-refresh: GitLab, Google and OIDC

[2]: When using the whitelist-domain option, any domain prefixed with a . will allow any subdomain of the specified domain as a valid redirect URL. By default, only empty ports are allowed. This translates to allowing the default port of the URL's protocol (80 for HTTP, 443 for HTTPS, etc.) since browsers omit them. To allow only a specific port, add it to the whitelisted domain: example.com:8080. To allow any port, use *: example.com:*.

See below for provider specific options

Upstreams Configuration

oauth2-proxy supports having multiple upstreams, and has the option to pass requests on to HTTP(S) servers or serve static files from the file system. HTTP and HTTPS upstreams are configured by providing a URL such as http://127.0.0.1:8080/ for the upstream parameter. This will forward all authenticated requests to the upstream server. If you instead provide http://127.0.0.1:8080/some/path/ then it will only be requests that start with /some/path/ which are forwarded to the upstream.

Static file paths are configured as a file:// URL. file:///var/www/static/ will serve the files from that directory at http://[oauth2-proxy url]/var/www/static/, which may not be what you want. You can provide the path to where the files should be available by adding a fragment to the configured URL. The value of the fragment will then be used to specify which path the files are available at, e.g. file:///var/www/static/#/static/ will make /var/www/static/ available at http://[oauth2-proxy url]/static/.

Multiple upstreams can either be configured by supplying a comma separated list to the --upstream parameter, supplying the parameter multiple times or providing a list in the config file. When multiple upstreams are used routing to them will be based on the path they are set up with.

Environment variables

Every command line argument can be specified as an environment variable by prefixing it with OAUTH2_PROXY_, capitalising it, and replacing hyphens (-) with underscores (_). If the argument can be specified multiple times, the environment variable should be plural (trailing S).

This is particularly useful for storing secrets outside of a configuration file or the command line.

For example, the --cookie-secret flag becomes OAUTH2_PROXY_COOKIE_SECRET, and the --email-domain flag becomes OAUTH2_PROXY_EMAIL_DOMAINS.

Logging Configuration

By default, OAuth2 Proxy logs all output to stdout. Logging can be configured to output to a rotating log file using the --logging-filename command.

If logging to a file you can also configure the maximum file size (--logging-max-size), age (--logging-max-age), max backup logs (--logging-max-backups), and if backup logs should be compressed (--logging-compress).

There are three different types of logging: standard, authentication, and HTTP requests. These can each be enabled or disabled with --standard-logging, --auth-logging, and --request-logging.

Each type of logging has its own configurable format and variables. By default these formats are similar to the Apache Combined Log.

Logging of requests to the /ping endpoint (or using --ping-user-agent) can be disabled with --silence-ping-logging reducing log volume. This flag appends the --ping-path to --exclude-logging-paths.

Auth Log Format

Authentication logs are logs which are guaranteed to contain a username or email address of a user attempting to authenticate. These logs are output by default in the below format:

<REMOTE_ADDRESS> - <user@domain.com> [19/Mar/2015:17:20:19 -0400] [<STATUS>] <MESSAGE>

The status block will contain one of the below strings:

• AuthSuccess If a user has authenticated successfully by any method
• AuthFailure If the user failed to authenticate explicitly
• AuthError If there was an unexpected error during authentication

If you require a different format than that, you can configure it with the --auth-logging-format flag. The default format is configured as follows:

{{.Client}} - {{.Username}} [{{.Timestamp}}] [{{.Status}}] {{.Message}}

Available variables for auth logging:

Variable	Example	Description
Client	74.125.224.72	The client/remote IP address. Will use the X-Real-IP header it if exists & reverse-proxy is set to true.
Host	domain.com	The value of the Host header.
Protocol	HTTP/1.0	The request protocol.
RequestMethod	GET	The request method.
Timestamp	19/Mar/2015:17:20:19 -0400	The date and time of the logging event.
UserAgent	-	The full user agent as reported by the requesting client.
Username	username@email.com	The email or username of the auth request.
Status	AuthSuccess	The status of the auth request. See above for details.
Message	Authenticated via OAuth2	The details of the auth attempt.

Request Log Format

HTTP request logs will output by default in the below format:

<REMOTE_ADDRESS> - <user@domain.com> [19/Mar/2015:17:20:19 -0400] <HOST_HEADER> GET <UPSTREAM_HOST> "/path/" HTTP/1.1 "<USER_AGENT>" <RESPONSE_CODE> <RESPONSE_BYTES> <REQUEST_DURATION>

If you require a different format than that, you can configure it with the --request-logging-format flag. The default format is configured as follows:

{{.Client}} - {{.Username}} [{{.Timestamp}}] {{.Host}} {{.RequestMethod}} {{.Upstream}} {{.RequestURI}} {{.Protocol}} {{.UserAgent}} {{.StatusCode}} {{.ResponseSize}} {{.RequestDuration}}

Available variables for request logging:

Variable	Example	Description
Client	74.125.224.72	The client/remote IP address. Will use the X-Real-IP header it if exists & reverse-proxy is set to true.
Host	domain.com	The value of the Host header.
Protocol	HTTP/1.0	The request protocol.
RequestDuration	0.001	The time in seconds that a request took to process.
RequestMethod	GET	The request method.
RequestURI	"/oauth2/auth"	The URI path of the request.
ResponseSize	12	The size in bytes of the response.
StatusCode	200	The HTTP status code of the response.
Timestamp	19/Mar/2015:17:20:19 -0400	The date and time of the logging event.
Upstream	-	The upstream data of the HTTP request.
UserAgent	-	The full user agent as reported by the requesting client.
Username	username@email.com	The email or username of the auth request.

Standard Log Format

All other logging that is not covered by the above two types of logging will be output in this standard logging format. This includes configuration information at startup and errors that occur outside of a session. The default format is below:

[19/Mar/2015:17:20:19 -0400] [main.go:40] <MESSAGE>

If you require a different format than that, you can configure it with the --standard-logging-format flag. The default format is configured as follows:

[{{.Timestamp}}] [{{.File}}] {{.Message}}

Available variables for standard logging:

Variable	Example	Description
Timestamp	19/Mar/2015:17:20:19 -0400	The date and time of the logging event.
File	main.go:40	The file and line number of the logging statement.
Message	HTTP: listening on 127.0.0.1:4180	The details of the log statement.

Configuring for use with the Nginx auth_request directive

The Nginx auth_request directive allows Nginx to authenticate requests via the oauth2-proxy's /auth endpoint, which only returns a 202 Accepted response or a 401 Unauthorized response without proxying the request through. For example:

server {
  listen 443 ssl;
  server_name ...;
  include ssl/ssl.conf;

  location /oauth2/ {
    proxy_pass       http://127.0.0.1:4180;
    proxy_set_header Host                    $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP               $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Scheme                $scheme;
    proxy_set_header X-Auth-Request-Redirect $request_uri;
    # or, if you are handling multiple domains:
    # proxy_set_header X-Auth-Request-Redirect $scheme://$host$request_uri;
  }
  location = /oauth2/auth {
    proxy_pass       http://127.0.0.1:4180;
    proxy_set_header Host             $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP        $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Scheme         $scheme;
    # nginx auth_request includes headers but not body
    proxy_set_header Content-Length   "";
    proxy_pass_request_body           off;
  }

  location / {
    auth_request /oauth2/auth;
    error_page 401 = /oauth2/sign_in;

    # pass information via X-User and X-Email headers to backend,
    # requires running with --set-xauthrequest flag
    auth_request_set $user   $upstream_http_x_auth_request_user;
    auth_request_set $email  $upstream_http_x_auth_request_email;
    proxy_set_header X-User  $user;
    proxy_set_header X-Email $email;

    # if you enabled --pass-access-token, this will pass the token to the backend
    auth_request_set $token  $upstream_http_x_auth_request_access_token;
    proxy_set_header X-Access-Token $token;

    # if you enabled --cookie-refresh, this is needed for it to work with auth_request
    auth_request_set $auth_cookie $upstream_http_set_cookie;
    add_header Set-Cookie $auth_cookie;

    # When using the --set-authorization-header flag, some provider's cookies can exceed the 4kb
    # limit and so the OAuth2 Proxy splits these into multiple parts.
    # Nginx normally only copies the first `Set-Cookie` header from the auth_request to the response,
    # so if your cookies are larger than 4kb, you will need to extract additional cookies manually.
    auth_request_set $auth_cookie_name_upstream_1 $upstream_cookie_auth_cookie_name_1;

    # Extract the Cookie attributes from the first Set-Cookie header and append them
    # to the second part ($upstream_cookie_* variables only contain the raw cookie content)
    if ($auth_cookie ~* "(; .*)") {
        set $auth_cookie_name_0 $auth_cookie;
        set $auth_cookie_name_1 "auth_cookie_name_1=$auth_cookie_name_upstream_1$1";
    }

    # Send both Set-Cookie headers now if there was a second part
    if ($auth_cookie_name_upstream_1) {
        add_header Set-Cookie $auth_cookie_name_0;
        add_header Set-Cookie $auth_cookie_name_1;
    }

    proxy_pass http://backend/;
    # or "root /path/to/site;" or "fastcgi_pass ..." etc
  }
}

When you use ingress-nginx in Kubernetes, you MUST use kubernetes/ingress-nginx (which includes the Lua module) and the following configuration snippet for your Ingress. Variables set with auth_request_set are not set-able in plain nginx config when the location is processed via proxy_pass and then may only be processed by Lua. Note that nginxinc/kubernetes-ingress does not include the Lua module.

nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-response-headers: Authorization
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-signin: https://$host/oauth2/start?rd=$escaped_request_uri
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-url: https://$host/oauth2/auth
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/configuration-snippet: |
  auth_request_set $name_upstream_1 $upstream_cookie_name_1;

  access_by_lua_block {
    if ngx.var.name_upstream_1 ~= "" then
      ngx.header["Set-Cookie"] = "name_1=" .. ngx.var.name_upstream_1 .. ngx.var.auth_cookie:match("(; .*)")
    end
  }

It is recommended to use --session-store-type=redis when expecting large sessions/OIDC tokens (e.g. with MS Azure).

You have to substitute name with the actual cookie name you configured via --cookie-name parameter. If you don't set a custom cookie name the variable should be "$upstream_cookie__oauth2_proxy_1" instead of "$upstream_cookie_name_1" and the new cookie-name should be "_oauth2_proxy_1=" instead of "name_1=".

:::note If you set up your OAuth2 provider to rotate your client secret, you can use the client-secret-file option to reload the secret when it is updated. :::