I have been looking at various tutorials demoing how identity management works as well as API management in azure but I am not seeing an answer to my questions. I understand that managed identities can be used to authorize azure resource to resource communication but I am not seeing how this is done for a web application. Say for example I have an angular website being hosted on an nginx server in an AKS cluster. I understand that I could use Identity management to create Identity resources that make it so that the AKS and APIM are authorized to connect with one another but how would I do this for the angular running application? This application is running in the client's browser, so it seems like this identity management mechanism would not work. How does one secure an APIM so only a given web application can interact with it?
You could secure your API in APIM with the client certificate, then when the app access the API, validate the incoming certificate and check certificate properties against desired values using policy expressions.
For more details, see How to secure APIs using client certificate authentication in API Management.
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I am using Azure App Service to access a webservice hosted elsewhere. The webservice requires mutual TLS Authentication.
I have been given the public certificate from the provider of the webservice but where do I install this public certificate in Azure? In a traditional server environment, I would install in the certificate store. But in Azure, do I install it on the application gateway? or the Vault? How does Azure app service know where the certificate is installed and present it?
Private and Public certificates can be uploaded to Azure Web App: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/configure-ssl-certificate?tabs=apex%2Cportal
Code running in Azure Web App can access those certificates in different ways, it depends on what language and runtime your application is using: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/configure-ssl-certificate-in-code
In regards to your other questions:
"do I install it on the application gateway"?
From what I understand, your application is going to make outgoing calls to a webservice hosted elsewhere. Azure Web App outgoing traffic does not go through Application Gateway - so no, in your case storing certificate in Azure Web App and accessing it from the code is a good solution.
"or the Vault"? Azure Web App can also store certificates in Azure Key Vault. Your code could also connect to Azure Key Vault directly, bypassing Azure Web App key store altogether.
Finally, "How does Azure app service know where the certificate is installed and present it?" Please see the first two links I provided.
In the future, Azure has an excellent documentation on all of their products, a simple search engine search typically helps to narrow down many primitive answers.
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I have a website on the namecheap server and an application on microsft azure deploy on Azure App Service I would like to send post requests from my namecheap server to azure which contains the application my questionis this possible and also isn't there a security risk?
thank you for your help
Web programs are accessed through HTTP Requests. The security risk you mentioned does not exist.
In webapp, the security of web application data is what we need to care about.
After passing the authentication, the data can be curd according to the authority to ensure the security of the program.
It is recommended that you deploy the azure webapp program to increase the authentication function, such as jwt token.
I have Azure API Management, configured internally and exposed to the public through Azure application Gateway. My API is secured for client certificates, it working perfectly when I test it internally. When I test it externally, I am getting an invalid certificate error. Does Azure Application Gateway block client certificates? How to allow them?
An answer from Microsoft:
We do have option for mutual authentication on Application Gateway
which can allow the mutual authentication between client and
Application Gateway:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-gateway/mutual-authentication-overview
However this is still in preview version, which is not included in
SLA. As the mutual authentication between AppGW and the APIM we
double confirmed with the backend engineers, unfortunately the answer
is no we do not support such a function.
I suspect this is not yet possible with Application Gateway: https://feedback.azure.com/forums/217313-networking/suggestions/9379902-allow-mutual-ssl-auth-on-application-gateway
I have a design issue that I've been struggling with in Azure. I have created a .NET Core API and deployed it as an App Service in Azure. On top of that, I have an instance of Azure API Management with oAuth 2 securing it. I was able to achieve this by following this tutorial:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/api-management/api-management-howto-protect-backend-with-aad
So, the API Management instance is secured with policies and rate limiting, but the back-end URL is wide open and requires no authentication. What is the best process to secure the back-end URL?
you can set APIM public IP in accessing whitelist of your App service to make sure only APIM requests will be able to access your App Service. For how to set IP restriction , you may refer to this doc : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/app-service-ip-restrictions#adding-and-editing-ip-restriction-rules-in-the-portal
I have multiple Web APIs deployed in Azure without applying authentication, so anyone has access to internet has the access to the Web APIs.
Now I would like to apply authentications to the Web APIs, instead of implementing the same authentication logic in different Web APIs, I found Azure API gateway (API management) is a potential solution.
With Azure API management documentation, I learned I can apply policies like validate-jwt to authenticate requests to back end Web APIs. However, endpoints of the back end Web APIs are still available to users.
So, how should I hide them? Must I define a sub network or does Azure API management have a feature for this?
Recently I also had this same problem. Finally I found the solution by using 'IP Restrictions' function. See the following steps:
1) Go to your API management Overview page in Azure portal, copy the VIP.
2) In your Web APP > Networking
3) Paste in your VIP
Microsoft's Solution: How to secure back-end services using client certificate authentication in Azure API Management
Using this approach, any attempt to access a back-end service without the required certificate will result in a 403 - Forbidden response.
You can use a self-signed certificate as opposed to using a trusted CA signed certificate ($$). I chose to implement an Azure Key Vault where I generated a new certificate, downloaded it as a *.PFX file, and uploaded it into my API Management instance as described in the article.
Here is an answer from #PramodValavala-MSFT
https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/azure-docs/issues/26312#issuecomment-470105156
Here are options:
IP restrictions (as described by #redman)
Function keys
Authentication/Authorization for Functions
Managed Identity for APIM
p.s. in my case I want with IP restrictions since it allows to keep all of the auth on the API Management Gateway.
Or you could use:
Basic auth
Mutual certificate auth
VPN
to secure Azure API Management service communication with your backend service.
Look into setting up TLS on Azure API Management so that all connections to your backend API must come through the API proxy.
Azure API management cannot modify your backend service. It's role is limited to being a proxy.
You will have to apply authentications to each Web API or configure your firewall to accept requests only from Azure APIM.
Is your backend app an Azure Function app or an App Service app?
If so, Managed Identity may be the simplest way to restrict access. No need to store client secrets/certificates in the API Management + not as flaky as IP whitelisting method.
Create an Azure Active Directory Application for the Function App.
Enable Authentication/Authorization module on the Function App and reference the AAD app from step 1.
Enable a Managed Identity on the APIM instance.
Add a <authentication-managed-identity> policy to the APIM and reference the AAD app from step 1.
I've blogged about this approach in more detail in Restrict Azure Functions to API Management with Terraform
Reference:
Use managed identities in Azure API Management
Configure your App Service or Azure Functions app to use Azure AD login