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Version: 0.4.x

OAuth & Identity

W'xOps uses a three-layer identity stack: Dex as the OIDC identity broker, Pinniped Supervisor as the Kubernetes-native SSO layer, and OAuth2/PKCE as the portal's own session mechanism. A single login gives the user access to the portal UI, the wxops CLI, and every registered spoke cluster — without sharing long-lived credentials.

W'xOps OAuth2/OIDC flow — Dex, Pinniped Supervisor, and the portal session across spoke clusters

Components​

Dex IDP​

Dex is an OpenID Connect identity provider that federates upstream identity sources — Gitea OAuth2, LDAP, GitHub, SAML — into a single OIDC endpoint consumed by Pinniped.

Pinniped Supervisor​

Pinniped Supervisor is a Kubernetes-native OIDC server. It issues short-lived, cluster-scoped tokens that Concierge validates on each spoke cluster. Key CRs:

CRPurpose
FederationDomainOIDC issuer endpoint; maps upstream IDPs to display names
OIDCIdentityProviderConnects Supervisor to Dex (or any OIDC upstream)
JWTAuthenticatorInstalled on each spoke; validates Supervisor-issued tokens

OAuth2 / PKCE in the Portal​

The portal's Go backend implements an OAuth2 Authorization Code flow with PKCE against Pinniped Supervisor. No client secret is stored — the PKCE code_verifier is sufficient for public clients.

Login Flow​

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Full sequence diagram and login flow details to be added.

Gitea as the Upstream Identity Provider​

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Gitea OAuth2 app setup, group claims, and Dex connector config to be added.

Group Claims and RBAC​

Gitea sends group membership claims in the format orgName:teamName (e.g. wxops:rocket-team). Pinniped passes these through as Kubernetes groups in the impersonation request.

The portal uses group membership to:

  • Derive the user's tenant namespace (tenant-{orgName})
  • Gate lifecycle promotion (only platform-team or {team}:Managers can promote to staging/production)
  • Scope cluster tab queries — never calling GET /api/v1/namespaces for tenant users

Configuration Reference​

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Environment variables for OIDC client ID, issuer URL, and redirect URI to be added.

CLI Authentication​

The wxops login command triggers the same PKCE flow as the browser. After completion the token is stored in ~/.config/wxops/token and used for all subsequent CLI commands.