Configure MQTT broker authorization
Important
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Authorization policies determine what actions the clients can perform on the broker, such as connecting, publishing, or subscribing to topics. Configure MQTT broker to use one or multiple authorization policies with the BrokerAuthorization resource. Each BrokerAuthorization resource contains a list of rules that specify the principals and resources for the authorization policies.
Link BrokerAuthorization to BrokerListener
To link a BrokerListener to a BrokerAuthorization resource, specify the authenticationRef
field in the ports
setting of the BrokerListener resource. Similar to BrokerAuthentication, the BrokerAuthorization resource can be linked to multiple BrokerListener ports. The authorization policies apply to all linked listener ports. However, there's one key difference compared with BrokerAuthentication:
Important
To have the BrokerAuthorization configuration apply to a listener port, at least one BrokerAuthentication must also be linked to that listener port.
To learn more about BrokerListener, see BrokerListener resource.
Authorization rules
To configure authorization, create a BrokerAuthorization resource in your Kubernetes cluster. The following sections provide examples of how to configure authorization for clients that use usernames, attributes, X.509 certificates, and Kubernetes Service Account Tokens (SATs). For a list of the available settings, see the Broker Authorization API reference.
The following example shows how to create a BrokerAuthorization resource using both usernames and attributes:
In the Azure portal, navigate to your IoT Operations instance.
Under Azure IoT Operations resources, select MQTT Broker.
Select the Authorization tab.
Choose an existing authentication policy or create a new one by selecting Create authorization policy.
This broker authorization allows clients with usernames temperature-sensor
or humidity-sensor
, or clients with attributes organization
with value contoso
and city
with value seattle
, to:
- Connect to the broker.
- Publish messages to telemetry topics scoped with their usernames and organization. For example:
temperature-sensor
can publish to/telemetry/temperature-sensor
and/telemetry/contoso
.humidity-sensor
can publish to/telemetry/humidity-sensor
and/telemetry/contoso
.some-other-username
can publish to/telemetry/contoso
.
- Subscribe to commands topics scoped with their organization. For example:
temperature-sensor
can subscribe to/commands/contoso
.some-other-username
can subscribe to/commands/contoso
.
Further limit access based on client ID
Because the principals
field is a logical OR, you can further restrict access based on client ID by adding the clientIds
field to the brokerResources
field. For example, to allow clients with client IDs that start with its building number to connect and publish telemetry to topics scoped with their building, use the following configuration:
In the Broker authorization details for your authorization policy, use the following configuration:
[
{
"brokerResources": [
{
"clientIds": [
"{principal.attributes.building}*"
],
"method": "Connect",
"topics": []
},
{
"clientIds": [],
"method": "Publish",
"topics": [
"sensors/{principal.attributes.building}/{principal.clientId}/telemetry"
]
}
],
"principals": {
"attributes": [
{
"building": "building22"
},
{
"building": "building23"
}
]
}
}
]
Here, if the clientIds
weren't set under the Connect
method, a client with any client ID could connect as long as it had the building
attribute set to building22
or building23
. By adding the clientIds
field, only clients with client IDs that start with building22
or building23
can connect. This ensures not only that the client has the correct attribute but also that the client ID matches the expected pattern.
Authorize clients that use X.509 authentication
Clients that use X.509 certificates for authentication can be authorized to access resources based on X.509 properties present on their certificate or their issuing certificates up the chain.
Using attributes
To create rules based on properties from a client's certificate, its root CA, or intermediate CA, define the X.509 attributes in the BrokerAuthorization resource. For more information, see Certificate attributes.
With client certificate subject common name as username
To create authorization policies based on the client certificate subject common name (CN) only, create rules based on the CN.
For example, if a client has a certificate with subject CN = smart-lock
, its username is smart-lock
. From there, create authorization policies as normal.
Authorize clients that use Kubernetes Service Account Tokens
Authorization attributes for SATs are set as part of the Service Account annotations. For example, to add an authorization attribute named group
with value authz-sat
, run the command:
kubectl annotate serviceaccount mqtt-client aio-broker-auth/group=authz-sat
Attribute annotations must begin with aio-broker-auth/
to distinguish them from other annotations.
As the application has an authorization attribute called authz-sat
, there's no need to provide a clientId
or username
. The corresponding BrokerAuthorization resource uses this attribute as a principal, for example:
In the Broker authorization details for your authorization policy, use the following configuration:
[
{
"brokerResources": [
{
"clientIds": [],
"method": "Connect",
"topics": []
},
{
"clientIds": [],
"method": "Publish",
"topics": [
"odd-numbered-orders"
]
},
{
"clientIds": [],
"method": "Subscribe",
"topics": [
"orders"
]
}
],
"principals": {
"attributes": [
{
"group": "authz-sat"
}
]
}
}
]
To learn more with an example, see Set up Authorization Policy with Dapr Client.
Distributed state store
MQTT broker provides a distributed state store (DSS) that clients can use to store state. The DSS can also be configured to be highly available.
To set up authorization for clients that use the DSS, provide the following permissions:
- Permission to publish to the system key value store
$services/statestore/_any_/command/invoke/request
topic - Permission to subscribe to the response-topic (set during initial publish as a parameter)
<response_topic>/#
For more information about DSS authorization, see state store keys.
Update authorization
Broker authorization resources can be updated at runtime without restart. All clients connected at the time of the update of policy are disconnected. Changing the policy type is also supported.
kubectl edit brokerauthorization my-authz-policies
Disable authorization
- In the Azure portal, navigate to your IoT Operations instance.
- Under Azure IoT Operations resources, select MQTT Broker.
- Select the broker listener you want to edit from the list.
- On the port you want to disable authorization, select None in the authorization dropdown.
Unauthorized publish in MQTT 3.1.1
With MQTT 3.1.1, when a publish is denied, the client receives the PUBACK with no error because the protocol version doesn't support returning error code. MQTTv5 return PUBACK with reason code 135 (Not authorized) when publish is denied.