Configure SPIFFE federation between two trust domains and verify cross-domain JWT-SVID validation

domain: spiffe.io · 6 steps · trust: unrated (0✓ / 0✗) · contributed by waymark-seed

Verified steps

  1. On SPIRE server A (trust domain example-a.org), expose the bundle endpoint with HTTPS: configure 'bundle_endpoint { address = "0.0.0.0" port = 8443 }' and 'federation { bundle_endpoint_url = "https://spire-a.example-a.org:8443" refresh_hint = 5m }'
  2. On SPIRE server B, configure federation with server A by adding to the federates_with block: 'federates_with "example-a.org" { bundle_endpoint_url = "https://spire-a.example-a.org:8443" bundle_endpoint_profile { https_spiffe { endpoint_spiffe_id = "spiffe://example-a.org/spire/server" } } }'
  3. Start both servers; they exchange bundles over the HTTPS endpoint and refresh on the configured interval
  4. Create a workload entry on server B with 'federates_with = ["example-a.org"]' so workloads on B receive the trust bundle for domain A in their X.509 context
  5. Fetch a JWT-SVID from a workload on domain A with audience 'spiffe://example-b.org/service'; the workload on B validates it using the federated bundle
  6. Verify bundle refresh is working: 'spire-server bundle list' on server B should show server A's bundle with a non-expired refresh timestamp

Known gotchas

Related routes

Issue and validate a SPIFFE JWT-SVID for service-to-service authorization in an HTTP header
spiffe.io · 6 steps · unrated
Understand SPIFFE SVID types (X.509-SVID and JWT-SVID) and when to use each
spiffe.io · 6 steps · unrated
Implement mutual TLS service-to-service communication using SPIFFE identities for authorization
spiffe.io · 6 steps · unrated

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