Enable JWT Tokens

When we enable SSO security on OpenMetadata, it will restrict access to all the APIs. Users who want to access the UI will be redirected to configured SSO to log in, and SSO will provide the token to continue to make OpenMetadata REST API calls.

However, metadata ingestion or any other services which use OpenMetadata APIs to create entities or update them requires a token as well to authenticate. Typically, SSO offers service accounts for this very reason. OpenMetadata supports service accounts that the SSO provider supports. Please read the docs to enable them.

In some cases, either creating a service account is not feasible, or the SSO provider itself doesn't support the service account. To address this gap, we shipped JWT token generation and authentication within OpenMetadata.

Create Private / Public key

For local/testing deployment

You can work with the existing configuration or generate private/public keys. By default, the jwtTokenConfiguration is shipped with OM.

For production deployment

It is a MUST to update the JWT configuration. To create private/public key use the following commands can be used:

Copy the private_key.der and public_key.der in OpenMetadata server conf directory. Make sure the permissions can only be readable by the user who is starting OpenMetadata server.

Configure OpenMetadata Server

To enable JWT token generation. Please add the following to the OpenMetadata server

If you are using helm charts or docker use the env variables to override the configs above.

Please use absolute path for public and private key files that we generated in previous steps.

Update the JWT_ISSUER to be the domain where you are running the OpenMetadata server. Generate UUID64 id to configure JWT_KEY_ID. This should be generated once and keep it static even when you are updating the versions. Any change in this id will result in all the tokens issued so far to be invalid.

Add public key URIS

add {your domain}/api/v1/system/config/jwks to publicKeyUrls. You should append to the existing configuration such that your SSO and JWTToken auth verification will work.

Once you configure the above settings, restart OpenMetadata server .

Generate Token

Once the above configuration is updated, the server is restarted. Admin can go to Settings -> Bots page.

Settings Page

Bot settings page

Click on the ingestion-bot. The current token can be revoked, or you can create a new one.

Edit JWT Token for ingestion-bot

Configure Ingestion

The generated token from the above page should pass onto the ingestion framework so that the ingestion can make calls securely to OpenMetadata. Make sure this token is not shared and stored securely.

Running Ingestion from CLI

If you are running the ingestion from CLI. Add the below configuration to the workflow configuration you pass:

In the above section, under the workflowConfig, configure authProvider to be "openmetadata" and under securityConfig section, add jwtToken and its value from the ingestion bot page.

Configure JWT Key Pairs for Docker

Following the above documentation, you will have private key and public key pair available as mentioned here. Next, will proceed with the below section which will configure JWT token with docker environment.

Create docker compose host volume mappings

Create a host directory which will be mapped as docker volumes to docker compose. This step will require you to update existing docker compose files that comes up with OpenMetadata Releases.

Update the docker compose environment variables with jwtkeys

Update the docker environment variables either directly in the docker-compose files or in a separate docker env files. Below is a code snippet for how the docker env file will look like.

Run the docker compose command to start the services

Run the docker compose CLI command to start the docker services with the configured jwt keys.

Configure JWT Key Pairs for Kubernetes

Following the above documentation, you will have private key and public key pair available as mentioned here. Next, will proceed with the below section which will configure JWT token with kubernetes environment.

Create Kubernetes Secrets for the Key Pairs

Create Kubernetes Secrets from file using the kubernetes imperative commands below.

Update Helm Values to mount Kubernetes secrets and configure JWT Token Configuration

Update your helm values to mount Kubernetes Secrets as Volumes and update the Jwt Token Configuration to point the Key File Paths to mounted path (absolute file path).

Install / Upgrade Helm Chart Release

Run the below command to make sure the update helm values are available to OpenMetadata.