89 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
89 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Forwarded Headers"
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description: "An introduction into the importance of forwarded headers coming from trusted sources"
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lead: "An introduction into the importance of forwarded headers coming from trusted sources."
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date: 2022-06-15T17:51:47+10:00
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draft: false
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images: []
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menu:
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integration:
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parent: "proxies"
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weight: 312
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toc: true
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---
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The`X-Forwarded-*` headers presented to __Authelia__ must be from trusted sources. As such you must ensure that the
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reverse proxies and load balances utilized with __Authelia__ are configured to remove and replace specific headers when
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they come directly from clients and not from proxies in your trusted environment.
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Some proxies require users explicitly configure the proxy to trust another proxy, however some implicitly trust all
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headers regardless of the source and you have to manually
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## Network Rules
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In particular this is important for [Access Control Rules](../../../configuration/security/access-control.md#rules) as
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the [network criteria](../../../configuration/security/access-control.md#networks) relies on the [X-Forwarded-For]
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header. This header is expected to have a true representation of the clients actual IP address.
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If this is not removed from non-trusted proxies a user could theoretically hijack any rule that contains this criteria
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to potentially skip an authentication criteria depending on how it is configured.
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## Cloud Proxies
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In addition to configuring your own proxies to remove this header from untrusted sources, when using a cloud proxy like
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[Cloudflare](#cloudflare) you must ensure they do this or you configure a rule to do it. We aim to have documentation
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in this section for cloud proxies that do this, but you should test this yourself and check the documentation for the
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cloud proxy.
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In addition to this it's important if you wish to preserve the clients actual IP address that you trust the IP addresses
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of the cloud proxy in your on-premise proxies. If you don't do this most if not all proxies configured as per our guides
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will remove the header and everyone external will appear to come from a proxies source IP address rather than their real
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IP address in both logging and access control.
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These same rules apply to any off-site hosted proxy or load balancing solution that alters the source IP address.
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### Cloudflare
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[Cloudflare] adds the [X-Forwarded-For] header if it does not exist, and if it does exist it will just append another IP
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to it. This means a client can forge their remote IP address with the most widely accepted remote IP header out of the
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box.
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It is therefore important you configure [Cloudflare] to remove this IP address. *__Please Note:__ This is by no means an
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exhaustive guide on using [Cloudflare] transform rules, however it's enough to configure a couple rules which should
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achieve a secure result. Please see the [Cloudflare] documentation on
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[transform rules](https://developers.cloudflare.com/rules/transform/) for more information._
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Steps:
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1. Click `Rules`.
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2. Click `Transform Rules`.
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3. Click `Create transform rules`.
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4. Click `Modify Request Header`.
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5. Set the `Rule name` to something appropriate like `Remove X-Forwarded-For Header`.
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6. Set the `Field` option in the `When incoming requests match` section to an appropriate value (see criteria table
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below).
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7. Set the `Operator` option in the `When incoming requests match` section to an appropriate value (see criteria table
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below).
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8. Set the `Value` option in the `When incoming requests match` section to an appropriate value (see criteria table
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below).
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9. Set the `Then` section dropdown to `Remove`.
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10. Set the `Then` section `Header name` to `X-Forwarded-For`.
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11. Click `Save`.
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{{< figure src="cloudflare_1.png" alt="Steps 1 to 4" width="736" >}}
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{{< figure src="cloudflare_2.png" alt="Steps 5 to 11" width="736" >}}
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Criteria:
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| Desired Result | Field | Operator | Value |
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|:-----------------------------------:|:-----------------:|:--------------:|:----------------------------------:|
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| Always Remove | X-Forwarded-For | does not equal | *blank* |
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| Remove When Not From Trusted Source | IP Source Address | is not in | *list of trusted source addresses* |
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Cloudflare publishes its IP address ranges publicly at the easy to remember address
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[https://www.cloudflare.com/ips/](https://www.cloudflare.com/ips/). You should use this with the trusted proxies section
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of your relevant proxy to ensure it's trusted if you intend to use Cloudflare.
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[X-Forwarded-For]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-Forwarded-For
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[Cloudflare]: https://www.cloudflare.com
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