Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

About basic authentication

Configure basic authentication to validate user credentials against a remote service over HTTP. Use this integration when you need a flexible back-end for username and password login in Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.

Basic authentication is a generic back-end integration mechanism that allows users to log in to Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform with credentials validated against a remote identity provider.

Because basic authentication is generic, you can use this identity provider for advanced authentication configurations.

Basic authentication must use an HTTPS connection to the remote server to prevent potential snooping of the user ID and password and man-in-the-middle attacks.

With basic authentication configured, users send their username and password to Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform during login. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform validates those credentials against a remote server. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform makes a server-to-server request, passing the credentials as a basic authentication header.

This only works for username and password login mechanisms, and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform must be able to make network requests to the remote authentication server.

Usernames and passwords are validated against a remote URL that is protected by basic authentication and returns JSON.

A 401 response indicates failed authentication.

A non-200 status, or the presence of a non-empty "error" key, indicates an error:

{"error":"Error message"}

A 200 status with a sub (subject) key indicates success:

{"sub":"userid"}

where:

userid: Specifies a value that is unique to the authenticated user and must not be modified.

A successful response can optionally provide additional data, such as:

A display name using the name key. For example:
```
{"sub":"userid", "name": "User Name", ...}
```

An email address using the email key. For example:

{"sub":"userid", "email":"user@example.com", ...}

A preferred username using the preferred_username key. This is useful when the unique, unchangeable subject is a database key or UID, and a more human-readable name exists. This is used as a hint when provisioning the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform user for the authenticated identity. For example:
```
{"sub":"014fbff9a07c", "preferred_username":"bob", ...}
```