Technology · Ebook

Dex: Federated OpenID Connect for Cloud-Native Identity

by Shriira Press

Dex is a CNCF identity service that puts a single OpenID Connect endpoint in front of LDAP, SAML, GitHub, Google, and a dozen other upstream providers, so your applications only ever learn one authentication protocol. This book starts with the fragmentation problem and what an identity provider really is, then walks the OpenID Connect protocol Dex speaks to its clients, the connector system that translates upstream logins into standard claims, and the pluggable storage that holds tokens and signing keys. It covers the gRPC management API, the canonical Kubernetes single-sign-on use case that made Dex popular, and how to run Dex well in production. The goal throughout is a working mental model backed by real configuration, not hand-waving.

Contents

1. 1Preface
2. 2Chapter 1 — The Identity Problem and What Dex Is
3. 3Chapter 2 — Speaking OpenID Connect
4. 4Chapter 3 — Connectors: Federating Upstream Providers
5. 5Chapter 4 — Storage, Tokens, and Signing Keys
6. 6Chapter 5 — Clients, Scopes, and the gRPC API
7. 7Chapter 6 — Dex and Kubernetes Single Sign-On
8. 8Chapter 7 — Running Dex in Practice