It seems that it is impossible to call a REST API that has AWS_IAM protection enabled through a CloudFront Distribution.
Here is how to reproduce this:
- create a REST API with API Gateway
- protect a REST API method with AWS_IAM authentication
- create a CloudFront Distribution that targets the REST API
- create an A Record in Route 53 that targets the CloudFront Distribution
Now use an authenticated user (I use Cognito UserPool user and aws-amplify) to call
- the protected REST API method with its API Gateway URL = SUCCESS
- the protected REST API method via the CloudFront distribution URL = FAILURE
- the protected REST API method via the Route 53 domain URL = FAILURE
The error I am getting is:
{"message":"The request signature we calculated does not match the signature you provided. Check your AWS Secret Access Key and signing method. Consult the service documentation for details."}
I just can't believe AWS does not support AWS_IAM protected endpoints behind a custom domain since this must be a very very common use-case.
Therefore could you please provide me with a detailed list of how to achieve this?
Thank you
I suspect it isn't possible, for two reasons.
IAM authentication -- specifically, Signature V4 -- has an implicit assumption that the hostname the client is accessing is also the hostname via which the service is being accessed.
The API Gateway endpoint expects the request to be signed with its own hostname as the host header used in the signing process. This could be worked around, by signing the request for the API Gateway endpoint, and then changing the URL to point to the CloudFront endpoint.
However, if you do that, I would expect that the x-amz-cf-id
header that CloudFront adds to the request would also make passing through a valid signature impossible, because x-amz-*
headers need to be signed -- which would be impossible, since you don't know that header's value.
I'm not sure there is a workaround, here... but if you are using IAM authentication, the only advantage of using CloudFront would be to keep the service under the same domain name as the rest of the site -- CloudFront wouldn't be able to cache any responses for authenticated requests, because each request's cache key would differ.
API Gateway now generates Signature using the custom domain as host if a custom domain is setup for the API.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/latest/developerguide/how-to-custom-domains.html
Manually creating a CloudFront distribution with API Gateway as origin does not work.
CloudFront does not support IAM auth for calls hitting the distribution. As others have highlighted, SigV4 relies on the host header and there is no way to calculate a signature while hitting your domain (without doing something hacky like hardcoding the API Gateway domain on the client side and then SigV4 with that header). You can, however, add IAM from your distribution to your API using a Lambda@Edge function.
Assuming that you have already setup API Gateway as an origin for your CloudFront distribution, you need to setup a Lambda@Edge function that intercepts origin requests and then signs it using SigV4 so that you can restrict your API Gateway to access only via CloudFront.
There is a fair amount of conversion between normal HTTP requests and the CloudFront event format but it is all manageable.
First, create a Lambda@Edge function (guide) and then ensure its execution role has access to the API Gateway that you would like to access. For simplicity, you can use the AmazonAPIGatewayInvokeFullAccess
managed IAM policy in your Lambda's execution role which gives it access to invoke any API Gateway within your account.
Then, if you go with using aws4 as your signing client, this is what your lambda code would look like:
const aws4 = require("aws4");
const signCloudFrontOriginRequest = (request) => {
const searchString = request.querystring === "" ? "" : `?${request.querystring}`;
// Utilize a dummy request because the structure of the CloudFront origin request
// is different than the signing client expects
const dummyRequest = {
host: request.origin.custom.domainName,
method: request.method,
path: `${request.origin.custom.path}${request.uri}${searchString}`,
};
if (Object.hasOwnProperty.call(request, 'body')) {
const { data, encoding } = request.body;
const buffer = Buffer.from(data, encoding);
const decodedBody = buffer.toString('utf8');
if (decodedBody !== '') {
dummyRequest.body = decodedBody;
dummyRequest.headers = { 'content-type': request.headers['content-type'][0].value };
}
}
// Use the Lambda's execution role credentials
const credentials = {
accessKeyId: process.env.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID,
secretAccessKey: process.env.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY,
sessionToken: process.env.AWS_SESSION_TOKEN
};
aws4.sign(dummyRequest, credentials); // Signs the dummyRequest object
// Sign a clone of the CloudFront origin request with appropriate headers from the signed dummyRequest
const signedRequest = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(request));
signedRequest.headers.authorization = [ { key: "Authorization", value: dummyRequest.headers.Authorization } ];
signedRequest.headers["x-amz-date"] = [ { key: "X-Amz-Date", value: dummyRequest.headers["X-Amz-Date"] } ];
signedRequest.headers["x-amz-security-token"] = [ { key: "X-Amz-Security-Token", value: dummyRequest.headers["X-Amz-Security-Token"] } ];
return signedRequest;
};
const handler = (event, context, callback) => {
const request = event.Records[0].cf.request;
const signedRequest = signCloudFrontOriginRequest(request);
callback(null, signedRequest);
};
module.exports.handler = handler;
Try go to your api gateway console and do the following:
- Select your api
- Go to Authorizers
- Then click on Create New Authorizer Select Cognito and then select
your userpool Set token source to Authorization
- Click Create
- Now go to resources and select which HTTP method you want to
configure (e.g. ANY)
- Click on Method request
- On Authorization drop down select the one you create before and press the check.
- Finally select the Actions and click Deploy API (select the stage that you want to deploy)
Then you need to get the jwtToken
from the current user. The code below shows how it is done w/ ReactJS and amplify which configs CloudFront for you.
Amplify.configure({
Auth: {
identityPoolId: 'XX-XXXX-X:XXXXXXXX-XXXX-1234-abcd-1234567890ab',
region: 'XX-XXXX-X',
userPoolId: 'XX-XXXX-X_abcd1234',
userPoolWebClientId: 'a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8i9j0k1l2m3',
},
API: {
endpoints: [
{
name: 'myapi',
endpoint: 'https://XXX',
region: 'XX-XXXX-X',
custom_header: async () => ({ Authorization: (await Auth.currentSession()).idToken.jwtToken})
}
]
});
But I think the steps to add Auth to the API is the same.
Hope that helps,