# Configuration Settings

Pomerium can be configured using a configuration file (YAML/JSON/TOML) or environmental variables. In general, environmental variable keys are identical to config file keys but are in uppercase. If you are coming from a kubernetes or docker background this should feel familiar. If not, check out the following primers.

Using both environmental variables and config file keys is allowed and encouraged (for instance, secret keys are probably best set as environmental variables). However, if duplicate configuration keys are found, environment variables take precedence.

TIP

Pomerium can hot-reload route configuration details, authorization policy, certificates, and other proxy settings.

# Shared Settings

These configuration variables are shared by all services, in all service modes.

# Address

Environmental Variable: ADDRESS
Config File Key: address
Type: string
Example: :443, :8443
Default: :443
Required

Address specifies the host and port to serve HTTP requests from. If empty, :443 is used. Note, in all-in-one deployments, gRPC traffic will be served on loopback on port :5443.

# Administrators

Environmental Variable: ADMINISTRATORS
Config File Key: administrators
Type: slice of string
Example: "admin@example.com,admin2@example.com"

Administrative users are super users that can sign-in as another user or group. User impersonation allows administrators to temporarily impersonate a different user.

# Autocert

Environmental Variable: AUTOCERT
Config File Key: autocert
Type: bool
Optional

Turning on autocert allows Pomerium to automatically retrieve, manage, and renew public facing TLS certificates from Let's Encrypt for each of your managed routes as well as for the authenticate service. This setting must be used in conjunction with Autocert Directory as Autocert must have a place to persist, and share certificate data between services. Note that autocert also provides OCSP stapling.

This setting can be useful in situations where you may not have Pomerium behind a TLS terminating ingress or proxy that is already handling your public certificates on your behalf.

WARNING

By using autocert, you agree to the Let's Encrypt Subscriber Agreement. There are strict usage limits per domain you should be aware of. Consider testing with autocert_use_staging first.

WARNING

Autocert requires that ports 80/443 be accessible from the internet in order to complete a TLS-ALPN-01 challenge.

# Autocert Must-Staple

Environmental Variable: AUTOCERT_MUST_STAPLE
Config File Key: autocert_must_staple
Type: bool
Optional

If true, force autocert to request a certificate with the status_request extension (commonly called Must-Staple). This allows the TLS client (id est the browser) to fail immediately if the TLS handshake doesn't include OCSP stapling information. This setting is only used when Autocert is true.

TIP

This setting will only take effect when you request or renew your certificates.

For more details, please see RFC7633 .

# Autocert Directory

Environmental Variable: either AUTOCERT_DIR
Config File Key: autocert_dir
Type: string pointing to the path of the directory
Required if using Autocert setting
Default:
- /data/autocert in published Pomerium docker images
- $XDG_DATA_HOME
- $HOME/.local/share/pomerium

Autocert directory is the path which autocert will store x509 certificate data.

# Autocert Use Staging

Environmental Variable: AUTOCERT_USE_STAGING
Config File Key: autocert_use_staging
Type: bool
Optional

Let's Encrypt has strict usage limits. Enabling this setting allows you to use Let's Encrypt's staging environment which has much more lax usage limits.

# Certificates

Config File Key: certificates (not yet settable using environmental variables)
Config File Key: certificate / certificate_key
Config File Key: certificate_file / certificate_key_file
Environmental Variable: CERTIFICATE / CERTIFICATE_KEY
Environmental Variable: CERTIFICATE_FILE / CERTIFICATE_KEY_FILE
Type: array of relative file locations string
Type: base64 encoded string
Type: certificate relative file location string
Required (if insecure not set)

Certificates are the x509 public-key and private-key used to establish secure HTTP and gRPC connections. Any combination of the above can be used together, and are additive. You can also use any of these settings in conjunction with Autocert to get OCSP stapling.

For example, if specifying multiple certificates at once:

certificates:
  - cert: "$HOME/.acme.sh/authenticate.example.com_ecc/fullchain.cer"
    key: "$HOME/.acme.sh/authenticate.example.com_ecc/authenticate.example.com.key"
  - cert: "$HOME/.acme.sh/httpbin.example.com_ecc/fullchain.cer"
    key: "$HOME/.acme.sh/httpbin.example.com_ecc/httpbin.example.com.key"
  - cert: "$HOME/.acme.sh/prometheus.example.com_ecc/fullchain.cer"
    key: "$HOME/.acme.sh/prometheus.example.com_ecc/prometheus.example.com.key"

# Client Certificate Authority

Environment Variable: CLIENT_CA / CLIENT_CA_FILE
Config File Key: client_ca / client_ca_file
Type: base64 encoded string or relative file location
Optional

The Client Certificate Authority is the x509 public-key used to validate mTLS client certificates. If not set, no client certificate will be required.

Environmental Variable: COOKIE_NAME
Config File Key: cookie_name
Type: string
Default: _pomerium

The name of the session cookie sent to clients.

Environmental Variable: COOKIE_SECRET
Config File Key: cookie_secret
Type: base64 encoded string
Required for proxy service

Secret used to encrypt and sign session cookies. You can generate a random key with head -c32 /dev/urandom | base64.

Environmental Variable: COOKIE_DOMAIN
Config File Key: cookie_domain
Type: string
Example: corp.beyondperimeter.com
Optional

The scope of session cookies issued by Pomerium.

# HTTPS only

Environmental Variable: COOKIE_SECURE
Config File Key: cookie_secure
Type: bool
Default: true

If true, instructs browsers to only send user session cookies over HTTPS.

WARNING

Setting this to false may result in session cookies being sent in cleartext.

# Javascript security

Environmental Variable: COOKIE_HTTP_ONLY
Config File Key: cookie_http_only
Type: bool
Default: true

If true, prevents javascript in browsers from reading user session cookies.

WARNING

Setting this to false enables hostile javascript to steal session cookies and impersonate users.

# Expiration

Environmental Variable: COOKIE_EXPIRE
Config File Key: cookie_expire
Type: Go Duration string
Default: 14h

Sets the lifetime of session cookies. After this interval, users must reauthenticate.

# Debug

Environmental Variable: POMERIUM_DEBUG
Config File Key: pomerium_debug
Type: bool
Default: false

WARNING

Enabling the debug flag could result in sensitive information being logged!!!

By default, JSON encoded logs are produced. Debug enables colored, human-readable logs to be streamed to standard out. In production, it is recommended to be set to false.

For example, if true

10:37AM INF cmd/pomerium version=v0.0.1-dirty+ede4124
10:37AM INF proxy: new route from=httpbin.corp.beyondperimeter.com to=https://httpbin.org
10:37AM INF proxy: new route from=ssl.corp.beyondperimeter.com to=http://neverssl.com
10:37AM INF proxy/authenticator: grpc connection OverrideCertificateName= addr=auth.corp.beyondperimeter.com:443

If false

{"level":"info","version":"v0.0.1-dirty+ede4124","time":"2019-02-18T10:41:03-08:00","message":"cmd/pomerium"}
{"level":"info","from":"httpbin.corp.beyondperimeter.com","to":"https://httpbin.org","time":"2019-02-18T10:41:03-08:00","message":"proxy: new route"}
{"level":"info","from":"ssl.corp.beyondperimeter.com","to":"http://neverssl.com","time":"2019-02-18T10:41:03-08:00","message":"proxy: new route"}
{"level":"info","OverrideCertificateName":"","addr":"auth.corp.beyondperimeter.com:443","time":"2019-02-18T10:41:03-08:00","message":"proxy/authenticator: grpc connection"}

# Forward Auth

Environmental Variable: FORWARD_AUTH_URL
Config File Key: forward_auth_url
Type: URL (must contain a scheme and hostname)
Example: https://forwardauth.corp.example.com
Resulting Verification URL: https://forwardauth.corp.example.com/?uri={URL-TO-VERIFY}
Optional

Forward authentication creates an endpoint that can be used with third-party proxies that do not have rich access control capabilities (nginx, nginx-ingress, ambassador, traefik). Forward authentication allows you to delegate authentication and authorization for each request to Pomerium.

# Request flow

pomerium forward auth request flow

# Examples

# NGINX Ingress

Some reverse-proxies, such as nginx split access control flow into two parts: verification and sign-in redirection. Notice the additional path /verify used for auth-url indicating to Pomerium that it should return a 401 instead of redirecting and starting the sign-in process.

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: httpbin
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: "nginx"
    certmanager.k8s.io/issuer: "letsencrypt-prod"
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-url: https://forwardauth.corp.example.com/verify?uri=$scheme://$host$request_uri
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-signin: "https://forwardauth.corp.example.com/?uri=$scheme://$host$request_uri"
spec:
  tls:
    - hosts:
        - httpbin.corp.example.com
      secretName: quickstart-example-tls
  rules:
    - host: httpbin.corp.example.com
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            backend:
              serviceName: httpbin
              servicePort: 80

# Traefik docker-compose

If the forward_auth_url is also handled by Traefik, you will need to configure Traefik to trust the X-Forwarded-* headers as described in the documentation.

version: "3"

services:
  traefik:
    # The official v2.2 Traefik docker image
    image: traefik:v2.2
    # Enables the web UI and tells Traefik to listen to docker
    command:
      - "--api.insecure=true"
      - "--providers.docker=true"
      - "--entrypoints.web.address=:80"
      - "--entrypoints.web.forwardedheaders.insecure=true"
    ports:
      # The HTTP port
      - "80:80"
      # The Web UI (enabled by --api.insecure=true)
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      # So that Traefik can listen to the Docker events
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
  httpbin:
    # A container that exposes an API to show its IP address
    image: kennethreitz/httpbin:latest
    labels:
      - "traefik.http.routers.httpbin.rule=Host(`httpbin.corp.example.com`)"
      # Create a middleware named `foo-add-prefix`
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.test-auth.forwardauth.authResponseHeaders=X-Pomerium-Authenticated-User-Email,x-pomerium-authenticated-user-id,x-pomerium-authenticated-user-groups,x-pomerium-jwt-assertion"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.test-auth.forwardauth.address=http://forwardauth.corp.example.com/?uri=https://httpbin.corp.example.com"
      - "traefik.http.routers.httpbin.middlewares=test-auth@docker"

# Global Timeouts

Environmental Variables: TIMEOUT_READ TIMEOUT_WRITE TIMEOUT_IDLE
Config File Key: timeout_read timeout_write timeout_idle
Type: Go Duration string
Example: TIMEOUT_READ=30s
Defaults: TIMEOUT_READ=30s TIMEOUT_WRITE=0 TIMEOUT_IDLE=5m

Timeouts set the global server timeouts. For route-specific timeouts, see policy.

cloudflare blog on timeouts

For a deep dive on timeout values see these two excellent blog posts.

# GRPC Options

# GRPC Address

Environmental Variable: GRPC_ADDRESS
Config File Key: grpc_address
Type: string
Example: :443, :8443
Default: :443 or :5443 if in all-in-one mode

gRPC Address specifies the host and port to serve gRPC requests from.

# GRPC Insecure

Environmental Variable: GRPC_INSECURE
Config File Key: grpc_insecure
Type: bool

This setting disables transport security for gRPC communication. If running in all-in-one mode, defaults to true as communication will run over localhost's own socket.

# GRPC Client Timeout

Environmental Variable: GRPC_CLIENT_TIMEOUT
Config File Key: grpc_client_timeout
Type: Go Duration string
Default: 10s

Maximum time before canceling an upstream gRPC request. During transient failures, the proxy will retry upstreams for this duration. You should leave this high enough to handle backend service restart and rediscovery so that client requests do not fail.

# GRPC Client DNS RoundRobin

Environmental Variable: GRPC_CLIENT_DNS_ROUNDROBIN
Config File Key: grpc_client_dns_roundrobin
Type: bool
Default: true

Enable gRPC DNS based round robin load balancing. This method uses DNS to resolve endpoints and does client side load balancing of all addresses returned by the DNS record. Do not disable unless you have a specific use case.

# GRPC Server Max Connection Age

Set max connection age for GRPC servers. After this interval, servers ask clients to reconnect and perform any rediscovery for new/updated endpoints from DNS.

See https://godoc.org/google.golang.org/grpc/keepalive#ServerParameters for details

Environmental Variable: GRPC_SERVER_MAX_CONNECTION_AGE
Config File Key: grpc_server_max_connection_age
Type: Go Duration string
Default: 5m

# GRPC Server Max Connection Age Grace

Environmental Variable: GRPC_SERVER_MAX_CONNECTION_AGE_GRACE
Config File Key: grpc_server_max_connection_age_grace
Type: Go Duration string
Default: 5m

Additive period with grpc_server_max_connection_age, after which servers will force connections to close.

See https://godoc.org/google.golang.org/grpc/keepalive#ServerParameters for details

# HTTP Redirect Address

Environmental Variable: HTTP_REDIRECT_ADDR
Config File Key: http_redirect_addr
Type: string
Example: :80, :8080
Optional

If set, the HTTP Redirect Address specifies the host and port to redirect http to https traffic on. If unset, no redirect server is started.

# Insecure Server

Environmental Variable: INSECURE_SERVER
Config File Key: insecure_server
Type: bool
Required if certificates unset

Turning on insecure server mode will result in pomerium starting, and operating without any protocol encryption in transit.

This setting can be useful in a situation where you have Pomerium behind a TLS terminating ingress or proxy. However, even in that case, it is highly recommended to use TLS to protect the confidentiality and integrity of service communication even behind the ingress using self-signed certificates or an internal CA. Please see our helm-chart for an example of just that.

WARNING

Pomerium should never be exposed to the internet without TLS encryption.

# Log Level

Environmental Variable: LOG_LEVEL
Config File Key: log_level
Type: string
Options: debug info warn error
Default: debug

Log level sets the global logging level for pomerium. Only logs of the desired level and above will be logged.

# Metrics Address

Environmental Variable: METRICS_ADDRESS
Config File Key: metrics_address
Type: string
Example: :9090, 127.0.0.1:9090
Default: disabled
Optional

Expose a prometheus endpoint on the specified port.

WARNING

Use with caution: the endpoint can expose frontend and backend server names or addresses. Do not externally expose the metrics if this is sensitive information.

# Pomerium Metrics Tracked

Name	Type	Description
grpc_client_request_duration_ms	Histogram	GRPC client request duration by service
grpc_client_request_size_bytes	Histogram	GRPC client request size by service
grpc_client_requests_total	Counter	Total GRPC client requests made by service
grpc_client_response_size_bytes	Histogram	GRPC client response size by service
grpc_server_request_duration_ms	Histogram	GRPC server request duration by service
grpc_server_request_size_bytes	Histogram	GRPC server request size by service
grpc_server_requests_total	Counter	Total GRPC server requests made by service
grpc_server_response_size_bytes	Histogram	GRPC server response size by service
http_client_request_duration_ms	Histogram	HTTP client request duration by service
http_client_request_size_bytes	Histogram	HTTP client request size by service
http_client_requests_total	Counter	Total HTTP client requests made by service
http_client_response_size_bytes	Histogram	HTTP client response size by service
http_server_request_duration_ms	Histogram	HTTP server request duration by service
http_server_request_size_bytes	Histogram	HTTP server request size by service
http_server_requests_total	Counter	Total HTTP server requests handled by service
http_server_response_size_bytes	Histogram	HTTP server response size by service
pomerium_build_info	Gauge	Pomerium build metadata by git revision, service, version and goversion
pomerium_config_checksum_int64	Gauge	Currently loaded configuration checksum by service
pomerium_config_last_reload_success	Gauge	Whether the last configuration reload succeeded by service
pomerium_config_last_reload_success_timestamp	Gauge	The timestamp of the last successful configuration reload by service
redis_conns	Gauge	Number of total connections in the pool
redis_idle_conns	Gauge	Total number of times free connection was found in the pool
redis_wait_count_total	Counter	Total number of connections waited for
redis_wait_duration_ms_total	Counter	Total time spent waiting for connections
storage_operation_duration_ms	Histogram	Storage operation duration by operation, result, backend and service

# Envoy Proxy Metrics

As of v0.9, Pomerium uses envoy for the data plane. As such, proxy related metrics are sourced from envoy, and use envoy's internal stats data model. Please see Envoy's documentation for information about specific metrics.

All metrics coming from envoy will be labeled with service="pomerium" or service="pomerium-proxy", depending if you're running all-in-one or distributed service mode.

# Proxy Log Level

Environmental Variable: PROXY_LOG_LEVEL
Config File Key: proxy_log_level
Type: string
Options: debug info warn error
Default: value of log_level or debug if both are unset

Log level sets the logging level for the pomerium proxy service. Only logs of the desired level and above will be logged.

# Service Mode

Environmental Variable: SERVICES
Config File Key: services
Type: string
Default: all
Options: all authenticate authorize cache or proxy

Service mode sets which service(s) to run. If testing, you may want to set to all and run pomerium in "all-in-one mode." In production, you'll likely want to spin up several instances of each service mode for high availability.

# Shared Secret

Environmental Variable: SHARED_SECRET
Config File Key: shared_secret
Type: base64 encoded string
Required

Shared Secret is the base64 encoded 256-bit key used to mutually authenticate requests between services. It's critical that secret keys are random, and stored safely. Use a key management system or /dev/urandom to generate a key. For example:

head -c32 /dev/urandom | base64

# Tracing

Tracing tracks the progression of a single user request as it is handled by Pomerium.

Each unit work is called a Span in a trace. Spans include metadata about the work, including the time spent in the step (latency), status, time events, attributes, links. You can use tracing to debug errors and latency issues in your applications, including in downstream connections.

# Shared Tracing Settings

Config Key	Description	Required
tracing_provider	The name of the tracing provider. (e.g. jaeger, zipkin)	✅
tracing_sample_rate	Percentage of requests to sample in decimal notation. Default is `0.0001`, or `.01%`	❌

# Jaeger (partial)

Warning At this time, Jaeger protocol does not capture spans inside the proxy service. Please use Zipkin protocol with Jaeger for full support.

Jaeger is a distributed tracing system released as open source by Uber Technologies. It is used for monitoring and troubleshooting microservices-based distributed systems, including:

Distributed context propagation
Distributed transaction monitoring
Root cause analysis
Service dependency analysis
Performance / latency optimization

Config Key	Description	Required
tracing_jaeger_collector_endpoint	Url to the Jaeger HTTP Thrift collector.	✅
tracing_jaeger_agent_endpoint	Send spans to jaeger-agent at this address.	✅

# Zipkin

Zipkin is an open source distributed tracing system and protocol.

Many tracing backends support zipkin either directly or through intermediary agents, including Jaeger. For full tracing support, we recommend using the Zipkin tracing protocol.

Config Key	Description	Required
tracing_zipkin_endpoint	Url to the Zipkin HTTP endpoint.	✅

# Example

jaeger example trace

# Authenticate Service

# Authenticate Callback Path

Environmental Variable: AUTHENTICATE_CALLBACK_PATH
Config File Key: authenticate_callback_path
Type: string
Default: /oauth2/callback
Optional

Authenticate callback path sets the path at which the authenticate service receives callback responses from your identity provider. The value must exactly match one of the authorized redirect URIs for the OAuth 2.0 client.

This value is referred to as the redirect_url in the OpenIDConnect and OAuth2 specs.

# Authenticate Service URL

Environmental Variable: AUTHENTICATE_SERVICE_URL
Config File Key: authenticate_service_url
Type: URL
Required
Example: https://authenticate.corp.example.com

Authenticate Service URL is the externally accessible URL for the authenticate service.

# Identity Provider Client ID

Environmental Variable: IDP_CLIENT_ID
Config File Key: idp_client_id
Type: string
Required

Client ID is the OAuth 2.0 Client Identifier retrieved from your identity provider. See your identity provider's documentation, and our identity provider docs for details.

# Identity Provider Client Secret

Environmental Variable: IDP_CLIENT_SECRET
Config File Key: idp_client_secret
Type: string
Required

Client Secret is the OAuth 2.0 Secret Identifier retrieved from your identity provider. See your identity provider's documentation, and our identity provider docs for details.

# Identity Provider Name

Environmental Variable: IDP_PROVIDER
Config File Key: idp_provider
Type: string
Required
Options: azure google okta onelogin or oidc

Provider is the short-hand name of a built-in OpenID Connect (oidc) identity provider to be used for authentication. To use a generic provider,set to oidc.

See identity provider for details.

# Identity Provider Scopes

Environmental Variable: IDP_SCOPES
Config File Key: idp_scopes
Type: []string comma separated list of oauth scopes.
Default: oidc,profile, email, offline_access (typically)
Optional for built-in identity providers.

Identity provider scopes correspond to access privilege scopes as defined in Section 3.3 of OAuth 2.0 RFC6749. The scopes associated with Access Tokens determine what resources will be available when they are used to access OAuth 2.0 protected endpoints.

WARNING

If you are using a built-in provider, you probably don't want to set customized scopes.

# Identity Provider Service Account

Environmental Variable: IDP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT
Config File Key: idp_service_account
Type: string
Required for group based policies (most configurations)

The identity provider service account setting is used to query associated identity information from your identity provider.

WARNING

If you plan to write authorization policies using groups, or any other data that exists in your identity provider's directory service, this setting is mandatory.

# Identity Provider URL

Environmental Variable: IDP_PROVIDER_URL
Config File Key: idp_provider_url
Type: string
Required, depending on provider

Provider URL is the base path to an identity provider's OpenID connect discovery document. For example, google's URL would be https://accounts.google.com for their discover document.

# Identity Provider Request Params

Environmental Variable: IDP_REQUEST_PARAMS
Config File Key: idp_request_params
Type: map of strings key value pairs
Optional

Request parameters to be added as part of a signin request using OAuth2 code flow.

For more information see:

# Identity Provider Refresh Directory Settings

Environmental Variables: IDP_REFRESH_DIRECTORY_INTERVAL IDP_REFRESH_DIRECTORY_TIMEOUT
Config File Key: idp_refresh_directory_interval idp_refresh_directory_timeout
Type: Go Duration string
Example: IDP_REFRESH_DIRECTORY_INTERVAL=30m
Defaults: IDP_REFRESH_DIRECTORY_INTERVAL=10m IDP_REFRESH_DIRECTORY_TIMEOUT=1m

Refresh directory interval is the time that pomerium will sync your IDP diretory, while refresh directory timeout is the maximum time allowed each run.

WARNING

Use it at your ownn risk, if you set a too low value, you may reach IDP API rate limit.

# Proxy Service

# Authenticate Service URL

Environmental Variable: AUTHENTICATE_SERVICE_URL
Config File Key: authenticate_service_url
Type: URL
Required
Example: https://authenticate.corp.example.com

Authenticate Service URL is the externally accessible URL for the authenticate service.

# Authorize Service URL

Environmental Variable: AUTHORIZE_SERVICE_URL
Config File Key: authorize_service_url
Type: URL
Required; inferred in all-in-one mode to be localhost.
Example: https://pomerium-authorize-service.default.svc.cluster.local or https://localhost:5443

Authorize Service URL is the location of the internally accessible authorize service. NOTE: Unlike authenticate, authorize has no publicly accessible http handlers so this setting is purely for gRPC communication.

If your load balancer does not support gRPC pass-through you'll need to set this value to an internally routable location (https://pomerium-authorize-service.default.svc.cluster.local) instead of an externally routable one (https://authorize.corp.example.com).

# Certificate Authority

Environmental Variable: CERTIFICATE_AUTHORITY or CERTIFICATE_AUTHORITY_FILE
Config File Key: certificate_authority or certificate_authority_file
Type: base64 encoded string or relative file location
Optional

Certificate Authority is set when behind-the-ingress service communication uses custom or self-signed certificates.

WARNING

Be sure to include the intermediary certificate.

# Default Upstream Timeout

Environmental Variable: DEFAULT_UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT
Config File Key: default_upstream_timeout
Type: Duration string
Example: 10m, 1h45m
Default: 30s

Default Upstream Timeout is the default timeout applied to a proxied route when no timeout key is specified by the policy.

# Headers

Environmental Variable: HEADERS
Config File Key: headers
Type: map of strings key value pairs
Examples:
- Comma Separated: X-Content-Type-Options:nosniff,X-Frame-Options:SAMEORIGIN
- JSON: '{"X-Test": "X-Value"}'
- YAML:
```
headers:
  X-Test: X-Value
```
To disable: disable:true

Default :

X-Content-Type-Options : nosniff,
X-Frame-Options:SAMEORIGIN,
X-XSS-Protection:1; mode=block,
Strict-Transport-Security:max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload,

Headers specifies a mapping of HTTP Header to be added to proxied requests. Nota bene Downstream application headers will be overwritten by Pomerium's headers on conflict.

By default, conservative secure HTTP headers are set.

pomerium security headers

# JWT Claim Headers

Environmental Variable: JWT_CLAIMS_HEADERS
Config File Key: jwt_claims_headers
Type: slice of string
Example: email,groups, user
Optional

The JWT Claim Headers setting allows you to pass specific user session data down to upstream applications as HTTP request headers. Note, unlike the header x-pomerium-jwt-assertion these values are not signed by the authorization service.

Any claim in the pomerium session JWT can be placed into a corresponding header for upstream consumption. This claim information is sourced from your Identity Provider (IdP) and Pomerium's own session metadata. The header will have the following format:

X-Pomerium-Claim-{Name} where {Name} is the name of the claim requested.

Use this option if you previously relied on x-pomerium-authenticated-user-{email|user-id|groups}.

# Override Certificate Name

Environmental Variable: OVERRIDE_CERTIFICATE_NAME
Config File Key: override_certificate_name
Type: int
Optional
Example: *.corp.example.com if wild card or authenticate.corp.example.com/authorize.corp.example.com

Secure service communication can fail if the external certificate does not match the internally routed service hostname/SNI. This setting allows you to override that value.

# Refresh Cooldown

Environmental Variable: REFRESH_COOLDOWN
Config File Key: refresh_cooldown
Type: Duration string
Example: 10m, 1h45m
Default: 5m

Refresh cooldown is the minimum amount of time between allowed manually refreshed sessions.

# Cache Service

The cache service is used for storing user session data.

# Data Broker Service URL

Environmental Variable: DATABROKER_SERVICE_URL
Config File Key: databroker_service_url
Type: URL
Example: https://cache.corp.example.com
Default: in all-in-one mode, http://localhost:5443

The data broker service URL points to a data broker which is responsible for storing associated authorization context (e.g. sessions, users and user groups).

By default, the cache service uses an in-memory databroker, so the legacy option cache_service_url will be used if this option is not configured.

To create your own data broker, implement the following gRPC interface:

pkg/grpc/databroker/databroker.proto

For an example implementation, the in-memory database used by the cache service can be found here:

pkg/databroker/memory

# Data Broker Storage Type

Environmental Variable: DATABROKER_STORAGE_TYPE
Config File Key: databroker_storage_type
Type: string
Optional
Example: redis,memory
Default: memory

The backend storage that databroker server will use.

# Data Broker Storage Connection String

Environmental Variable: DATABROKER_STORAGE_CONNECTION_STRING
Config File Key: databroker_storage_connection_string
Type: string
Required when storage type is redis
Example: "redis://localhost:6379/0", "rediss://localhost:6379/0"

The connection string that the databroker service will use to connect to storage backend.

# Data Broker Storage Certificate File

Environment Variable: DATABROKER_STORAGE_CERT_FILE
Config File Key: databroker_storage_cert_file
Type: relative file location
Optional

The certificate used to connect to a storage backend.

# Data Broker Storage Certificate Key File

Environment Variable: DATABROKER_STORAGE_KEY_FILE
Config File Key: databroker_storage_key_file
Type: relative file location
Optional

The certificate key used to connect to a storage backend.

# Data Broker Storage Certificate Authority

Environment Variable: DATABROKER_STORAGE_CA_FILE
Config File Key: databroker_storage_ca_file
Type: relative file location
Optional

This setting defines the set of root certificates used when verifying storage server connections.

# Data Broker Storage TLS Skip Verify

Environment Variable: DATABROKER_STORAGE_TLS_SKIP_VERIFY
Config File Key: databroker_storage_tls_skip_verify
Type: relative file location
Optional

If set, the TLS connection to the storage backend will not be verified.

# Policy

Environmental Variable: POLICY
Config File Key: policy
Type: base64 encoded string or inline policy structure in config file
Required However, pomerium will safely start without a policy configured, but will be unable to authorize or proxy traffic until the configuration is updated to contain a policy.

Policy contains route specific settings, and access control details. If you are configuring via POLICY environment variable, just the contents of the policy needs to be passed. If you are configuring via file, the policy should be present under the policy key. For example,

# This file contains only policy and route configuration details. Other
# configuration settings required by pomerium are excluded for clarity.
# See: https://www.pomerium.io/docs/reference/reference/
#
# For a complete self contained configuration see : config.example.yaml.
# Or, mix and match a policy file (this) with env vars : config.example.env

# Proxied routes and per-route policies are defined in a policy block
# NOTA BENE: You must uncomment the bellow 'policy' key if you are loading policy as a file.
# policy:
- from: https://httpbin.corp.beyondperimeter.com
  to: http://localhost:8000
  allowed_domains:
    - pomerium.io
  cors_allow_preflight: true
  timeout: 30s
- from: https://external-httpbin.corp.beyondperimeter.com
  to: https://httpbin.org
  allowed_domains:
    - gmail.com
- from: https://weirdlyssl.corp.beyondperimeter.com
  to: http://neverssl.com
  allowed_users:
    - bdd@pomerium.io
  allowed_groups:
    - admins
    - developers
- from: https://hello.corp.beyondperimeter.com
  to: http://localhost:8080
  allowed_groups:
    - admins@pomerium.io

Policy routes are checked in the order they appear in the policy, so more specific routes should appear before less specific routes. For example:

policies:
  - from: http://from.example.com
    to: http://to.example.com
    prefix: /admin
    allowed_groups: ["superuser"]
  - from: http://from.example.com
    to: http://to.example.com
    allow_public_unauthenticated_access: true

In this example, an incoming request with a path prefix of /admin would be handled by the first route (which is restricted to superusers). All other requests for from.example.com would be handled by the second route (which is open to the public).

A list of policy configuration variables follows.

# Allowed Domains

yaml/json setting: allowed_domains
Type: collection of strings
Required
Example: pomerium.io , gmail.com

Allowed domains is a collection of whitelisted domains to authorize for a given route.

# Allowed Groups

yaml/json setting: allowed_groups
Type: collection of strings
Required
Example: admins , support@company.com

Allowed groups is a collection of whitelisted groups to authorize for a given route.

# Allowed Users

yaml/json setting: allowed_users
Type: collection of strings
Required
Example: alice@pomerium.io , bob@contractor.co

Allowed users is a collection of whitelisted users to authorize for a given route.

# CORS Preflight

yaml/json setting: cors_allow_preflight
Type: bool
Optional
Default: false

Allow unauthenticated HTTP OPTIONS requests as per the CORS spec.

# Enable Google Cloud Serverless Authentication

Environmental Variable: ENABLE_GOOGLE_CLOUD_SERVERLESS_AUTHENTICATION
Config File Key: enable_google_cloud_serverless_authentication
Type: bool
Default: false

Enable sending a signed Authorization Header to upstream GCP services.

Requires setting Google Cloud Serverless Authentication Service Account or running Pomerium in an environment with a GCP service account present in default locations.

# From

yaml/json setting: from
Type: URL (must contain a scheme and hostname, must not contain a path)
Required
Example: https://httpbin.corp.example.com

From is the externally accessible source of the proxied request.

# Kubernetes Service Account Token

yaml/json setting: kubernetes_service_account_token / kubernetes_service_account_token_file
Type: string or relative file location containing a Kubernetes bearer token
Optional
Example: eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJ... or /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token

Use this token to authenticate requests to a Kubernetes API server.

Pomerium will impersonate the Pomerium user's identity, and Kubernetes RBAC can be applied to IdP user and groups.

# Path

yaml/json setting: path
Type: string
Optional
Example: /admin/some/exact/path

If set, the route will only match incoming requests with a path that is an exact match for the specified path.

# Prefix

yaml/json setting: prefix
Type: string
Optional
Example: /admin

If set, the route will only match incoming requests with a path that begins with the specified prefix.

# Public Access

yaml/json setting: allow_public_unauthenticated_access
Type: bool
Optional
Default: false

Use with caution: Allow all requests for a given route, bypassing authentication and authorization. Suitable for publicly exposed web services.

If this setting is enabled, no whitelists (e.g. Allowed Users) should be provided in this route.

# Regex

yaml/json setting: regex
Type: string (containing a regular expression)
Optional
Example: ^/(admin|superuser)/.*$

If set, the route will only match incoming requests with a path that matches the specified regular expression. The supported syntax is the same as the Go regexp package which is based on re2.

# Route Timeout

yaml/json setting: timeout
Type: Go Duration string
Optional
Default: 30s

Policy timeout establishes the per-route timeout value. Cannot exceed global timeout values.

# Preserve Host Header

yaml/json setting: preserve_host_header
Type: bool
Optional
Default: false

When enabled, this option will pass the host header from the incoming request to the proxied host, instead of the destination hostname.

See ProxyPreserveHost.

# Set Request Headers

Config File Key: set_request_headers
Type: map of strings key value pairs
Optional

Set Request Headers allows you to set static values for given request headers. This can be useful if you want to pass along additional information to downstream applications as headers, or set authentication header to the request. For example:

- from: https://httpbin.corp.example.com
  to: https://httpbin.org
  allowed_users:
    - bdd@pomerium.io
  set_request_headers:
    # works auto-magically!
    # https://httpbin.corp.example.com/basic-auth/root/hunter42
    Authorization: Basic cm9vdDpodW50ZXI0Mg==
    X-Your-favorite-authenticating-Proxy: "Pomerium"

# Remove Request Headers

Config File Key: removet_request_headers
Type: array of strings
Optional

Remove Request Headers allows you to remove given request headers. This can be useful if you want to prevent privacy information from being passed to downstream applications. For example:

- from: https://httpbin.corp.example.com
  to: https://httpbin.org
  allowed_users:
    - bdd@pomerium.io
  remove_request_headers:
    - X-Email
    - X-Username

# To

yaml/json setting: to
Type: URL (must contain a scheme and hostname)
Required
Example: http://httpbin , https://192.1.20.12:8080, http://neverssl.com, https://httpbin.org/anything/

To is the destination of a proxied request. It can be an internal resource, or an external resource.

WARNING

Be careful with trailing slash.

With rule:

- from: https://httpbin.corp.example.com
  to: https://httpbin.org/anything

Requests to https://httpbin.corp.example.com will be forwarded to https://httpbin.org/anything, while requests to https://httpbin.corp.example.com/foo will be forwarded to https://httpbin.org/anythingfoo.To make the request forwarded to https://httbin.org/anything/foo, you can use double slashes in your request https://httbin.corp.example.com//foo.

While the rule:

- from: https://httpbin.corp.example.com
  to: https://httpbin.org/anything/

All requests to https://httpbin.corp.example.com/* will be forwarded to https://httpbin.org/anything/*. That means accessing to https://httpbin.corp.example.com will be forwarded to https://httpbin.org/anything/. That said, if your application does not handle trailing slash, the request will end up with 404 not found.

# TLS Skip Verification

Config File Key: tls_skip_verify
Type: bool
Default: false

TLS Skip Verification controls whether a client verifies the server's certificate chain and host name. If enabled, TLS accepts any certificate presented by the server and any host name in that certificate. In this mode, TLS is susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks. This should be used only for testing.

# TLS Server Name

Config File Key: tls_server_name
Type: string
Optional

TLS Server Name overrides the hostname specified in the to field. If set, this server name will be used to verify the certificate name. This is useful when the backend of your service is an TLS server with a valid certificate, but mismatched name.

# TLS Custom Certificate Authority

Config File Key: tls_custom_ca or tls_custom_ca_file
Type: base64 encoded string or relative file location
Optional

TLS Custom Certificate Authority defines a set of root certificate authorities that clients use when verifying server certificates.

Note: This setting will replace (not append) the system's trust store for a given route.

# TLS Client Certificate

Config File Key: tls_client_cert and tls_client_key or tls_client_cert_file and tls_client_key_file
Type: base64 encoded string or relative file location
Optional

Pomerium supports client certificates which can be used to enforce mutually authenticated and encrypted TLS connections (mTLS). For more details, see our mTLS example repository and the certificate docs.

# Pass Identity Headers

yaml/json setting: pass_identity_headers
Type: bool
Optional
Default: false

When enabled, this option will pass identity headers to upstream applications. These headers include:

X-Pomerium-Jwt-Assertion
X-Pomerium-Claim-*

# SPDY

Config File Key: allow_spdy
Type: bool
Default: false

If set, enables proxying of SPDY protocol upgrades.

# Websocket Connections

Config File Key: allow_websockets
Type: bool
Default: false

If set, enables proxying of websocket connections.

WARNING

Use with caution: websockets are long-lived connections, so global timeouts are not enforced. Allowing websocket connections to the proxy could result in abuse via DOS attacks.

# Authorize Service

# Authenticate Service URL

Environmental Variable: AUTHENTICATE_SERVICE_URL
Config File Key: authenticate_service_url
Type: URL
Required
Example: https://authenticate.corp.example.com

Authenticate Service URL is the externally accessible URL for the authenticate service.

# Google Cloud Serverless Authentication Service Account

Environmental Variable: GOOGLE_CLOUD_SERVERLESS_AUTHENTICATION_SERVICE_ACCOUNT
Config File Key: google_cloud_serverless_authentication_service_account
Type: base64 encoded string
Optional

Manually specify the service account credentials to support GCP's Authorization Header format.

If unspecified:

If Identity Provider Name is set to google, will default to Identity Provider Service Account
Otherwise, will default to ambient credentials in the default locations searched by the Google SDK. This includes GCE metadata server tokens.

# Signing Key

Environmental Variable: SIGNING_KEY
Config File Key: signing_key
Type: base64 encoded string
Optional

Signing Key is the Elliptic Curve private key used to sign a user's attestation JWT which can be consumed by upstream applications to pass along identifying user information like username, id, and groups.

If set, the signing key's public key will can retrieved by hitting Pomerium's /.well-known/pomerium/jwks.json endpoint which lives on the authenticate service. (If running the authentication service separately, this option must also be set there.)

For example:

$ curl https://authenticate.int.example.com/.well-known/pomerium/jwks.json | jq

{
  "keys": [
    {
      "use": "sig",
      "kty": "EC",
      "kid": "ccc5bc9d835ff3c8f7075ed4a7510159cf440fd7bf7b517b5caeb1fa419ee6a1",
      "crv": "P-256",
      "alg": "ES256",
      "x": "QCN7adG2AmIK3UdHJvVJkldsUc6XeBRz83Z4rXX8Va4",
      "y": "PI95b-ary66nrvA55TpaiWADq8b3O1CYIbvjqIHpXCY"
    }
  ]
}

If no certificate is specified, one will be generated and the base64'd public key will be added to the logs. Note, however, that this key be unique to each service, ephemeral, and will not be accessible via the authenticate service's jwks_uri endpoint.

# Configuration Settings

# Shared Settings

# Address

# Administrators

# Autocert

# Autocert Must-Staple

# Autocert Directory

# Autocert Use Staging

# Certificates

# Client Certificate Authority

# Cookie options

# Cookie name

# Cookie secret

# Cookie domain

# HTTPS only

# Javascript security

# Expiration

# Debug

# Forward Auth

# Request flow

# Examples

# NGINX Ingress

# Traefik docker-compose

# Global Timeouts

# GRPC Options

# GRPC Address

# GRPC Insecure

# GRPC Client Timeout

# GRPC Client DNS RoundRobin

# GRPC Server Max Connection Age

# GRPC Server Max Connection Age Grace

# HTTP Redirect Address

# Insecure Server

# Log Level

# Metrics Address

# Pomerium Metrics Tracked

# Envoy Proxy Metrics

# Proxy Log Level

# Service Mode

# Shared Secret

# Tracing

# Shared Tracing Settings

# Jaeger (partial)

# Zipkin

# Example

# Authenticate Service

# Authenticate Callback Path

# Authenticate Service URL

# Identity Provider Client ID

# Identity Provider Client Secret

# Identity Provider Name

# Identity Provider Scopes

# Identity Provider Service Account

# Identity Provider URL

# Identity Provider Request Params

# Identity Provider Refresh Directory Settings

# Proxy Service

# Authenticate Service URL

# Authorize Service URL

# Certificate Authority

# Default Upstream Timeout

# Headers

# JWT Claim Headers

# Override Certificate Name

# Refresh Cooldown

# Cache Service

# Data Broker Service URL

# Data Broker Storage Type

# Data Broker Storage Connection String

# Data Broker Storage Certificate File

# Data Broker Storage Certificate Key File

# Data Broker Storage Certificate Authority

# Data Broker Storage TLS Skip Verify

# Policy

# Allowed Domains

# Allowed Groups

# Allowed Users

# CORS Preflight

# Enable Google Cloud Serverless Authentication

# From