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Transport Layer Security Policy - Inbound

Policy Name

Transport Layer Security (TLS) - Inbound

Summary

Enables authentication between a client and the API proxy

Category

Security

First Flex Gateway version available

v1.0.0 (inbound mTLS: v1.3.0)

Returned Status Codes

No return codes exist for this policy.

The following document applies only to Flex Gateway running in Local Mode. To configure TLS in Connected Mode, see Configuring TLS Context for Flex Gateway in Connected Mode.

Summary

Flex Gateway supports inbound Transport Layer Security (TLS) and inbound mutual authentication TLS (mTLS) in Local Mode.

To apply inbound TLS in Local Mode, use the Configuring TLS Context for Flex Gateway in Local Mode tutorial and refer to the following configuration files in this documentation.

You can configure an inbound TLS context to enable authentication between a client and the API instance (HTTPS) by binding the TLS policy to your API instance or to all instances in your Flex Gateway.

Flex Gateway implements port-level inbound TLS, meaning if you apply an inbound TLS to an API instance that shares a port with other instances, the same inbound TLS context is applied to all instances sharing the port. Flex Gateway supports multiple TLS certificates on a single gateway, but you must apply the certificates to unique ports. If you apply inbound TLS to one API instance, you do not need to apply the same inbound TLS context to instances that share that port. Consequently, you cannot apply different inbound TLS contexts to API instances that share the same port.

Port sharing is not a concern for outbound TLS. You can apply an outbound TLS context for each individual upstream service.

TLS policies do not support policy ordering.

Configuring Policy Parameters

To use HTTPS as your schema when creating an API instance using Flex Gateway as your runtime, you must manually configure the TLS context in a YAML configuration file.

Refer to the following policy definition and table of parameters:

- policyRef:
    name: tls
  config:
    requireClientCertificate: <boolean> // OPTIONAL
    trustedCA: <string> // OPTIONAL
    certificate: // REQUIRED
        key: <string> // REQUIRED
        crt: <string> // REQUIRED
    alpn: <array> // OPTIONAL
    minversion: <string> // OPTIONAL
    maxversion: <string> // OPTIONAL
    ciphers: <array> // OPTIONAL

Not including optional parameters in your configuration file applies the parameters default values to your TLS context.

When configuring the ciphers parameter, see TLS Cipher Support on Flex Gateway for the supported ciphers.

Parameter Required or Optional Default Value Description

requireClientCertificate

Optional

false

Enables/disables inbound mTLS

trustedCA

Optional, unless requireClientCertificate is true

N/A

The client certificate used in mTLS

certificate

Required

N/A

A TLS certificate key pair. To comply with security standards, all certificates must be 2048 bits or longer.

certificate.key

Required

N/A

The private key part of the certificate

certificate.crt

Required

N/A

The public key part of the certificate

alpn

Optional

h2 and http/1.1

A prioritized list of supported application level protocols; for example, h2, http/1.1, and so forth.

minversion

Optional

1.2

The minimum TLS version allowed

maxversion

Optional

1.3

The maximum TLS version allowed

ciphers

Optional

For the default and other supported ciphers, see TLS Cipher Support on Flex Gateway.

A list of supported TLS ciphers (IANA format). For the supported ciphers, see TLS Cipher Support on Flex Gateway.

Resource Configuration Examples

You can format the YAML file to configure TLS or mTLS either for a specific API instance or for all API instances running on your Flex Gateway.

Apply TLS Configuration to All API Instances

Sample configuration for adding inbound TLS context for all API instances running on this Flex Gateway:

apiVersion: gateway.mulesoft.com/v1alpha1
kind: PolicyBinding
metadata:
  name: ingress-https-tls
spec:
  targetRef:
    kind: Selector
    selector:
      kind: ApiInstance
  policyRef:
    name: tls
  config:
    certificate:
      key: |
        # -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
        # insert certificate key
        # -----END PRIVATE KEY-----
      crt: |
        # -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
        # insert certificate
        # -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    alpn:
      - http/1.1
      - h2
    minversion: "1.1"
    maxversion: "1.3"
    ciphers:
      - TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
      - TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
      - TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
      - TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
      - TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
      - TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA

Apply TLS Configuration to a Specific API Instance

Sample configuration for adding inbound TLS context for a specific API instance:

apiVersion: gateway.mulesoft.com/v1alpha1
kind: PolicyBinding
metadata:
  name: ingress-https-tls
spec:
  targetRef:
    kind: ApiInstance
    name: ingress-https
  policyRef:
    name: tls
  config:
    certificate:
      key: |
        # -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
        # insert certificate key
        # -----END PRIVATE KEY-----
      crt: |
        # -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
        # insert certificate
        # -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    alpn:
      - http/1.1
      - h2
    minversion: "1.1"
    maxversion: "1.3"
    ciphers:
      - TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
      - TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
      - TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
      - TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
      - TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
      - TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
      - TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA

Apply mTLS Inbound Configuration to a Specific API Instance

Sample configuration for adding an inbound mTLS context for a specific API instance:

apiVersion: gateway.mulesoft.com/v1alpha1
kind: PolicyBinding
metadata:
  name: mtls
spec:
  targetRef:
    name: ingress-https
  policyRef:
    name: tls
  config:
    requireClientCertificate: true
    trustedCA: |
      # -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      # insert certificate
      # -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    certificate:
      key: |
        # -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
        # insert private key
        # -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
      crt: |
        # -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
        # insert certificate
        # -----END CERTIFICATE-----

This example uses the default values for alpn, minversion, maxversion, and ciphers.

TLS Cipher Support on Flex Gateway

Flex can support a range of TLS Versions from TLS 1.1 to TLS 1.3, and you can also customize some of the ciphers to support.

You cannot customize the list of TLS 1.3 Ciphers. If you support TLS 1.3, the TLS 1.3 default ciphers are all supported regardless of the ciphers listed in the configuration file. If you don’t support TLS 1.3, these ciphers are not included.

For TLS 1.2, listing any ciphers overides the TLS 1.2 default ciphers. If you want to list ciphers besides the default TLS 1.2 Ciphers, you must list every cipher to support including the default ciphers you want to support. Excluding default ciphers from your list of supported ciphers means you do not support those ciphers. If you wish to only support the default ciphers, you can leave the cipher list blank. Listing ciphers does not affect the default TLS 1.3 cipher.

There are no default ciphers for TLS 1.1. To support TLS 1.1, you must list the ciphers to support. If you support TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2, listing TLS 1.1 ciphers overides the TLS 1.2 defaults. To support both these versions, list all ciphers you want to support.

Flex Gateway Supported Ciphers

Flex Gateway supports the following TLS Ciphers in Connected Mode and Local Mode:

Cipher TLS Version Default Advice

TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

1.3

Yes

Secure

TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

1.3

Yes

Secure

TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

1.3

Yes

Secure

TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

1.2

Yes

Recommended

TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

1.2

Yes

Recommended

TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

1.2

Yes

Recommended

TLS_ECDHE_PSK_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

1.2

No

Recommended

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

1.2

Yes

Secure

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

1.2

Yes

Secure

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

1.2

Yes

Secure

TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

1.2

No

Weak

TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

1.2

No

Weak

TLS_RSA_WITH_NULL_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Insecure

TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_PSK_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_PSK_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_ECDHE_PSK_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_ECDHE_PSK_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA

1.1, 1.2

No

Weak

TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA

1.1

No

Weak

See Also