Securing REST API

[ron.whitt]

Aside from the password, what other methods are used to secure NSO's REST API? 

[rogaglia]

Hi Ron,

It is now a best practice to start using RESTCONF API instead of the legacy pre-standard-REST as a lot of new features are only available in RESTCONF.

Particularly, for RESTCONF you can support token-based authentication (see attached output from "man ncs.conf"). However, this is not well documented yet.

Just in case you were thinking about it, NSO does not support client-certificate based authentication.

Regards,

Roque

/ncs-config/restconf/token-response
           When authenticating via AAA external-authentication or external-validation and a token is returned,
           it is possible to include a header with the token in the response.

       /ncs-config/restconf/token-response/x-auth-token (boolean) [false]
           Either 'true' or 'false'. If 'true', a x-auth-token header is included in the response with any
           token returned from AAA.

       /ncs-config/restconf/token-response/token-cookie
           Configuration of RESTCONF token cookies.

       /ncs-config/restconf/token-response/token-cookie/name (string) []
           The cookie name, exactly as it is to be sent. If configured, a HTTP cookie with that name is
           included in the response with any token returned from AAA as value.

       /ncs-config/restconf/token-response/token-cookie/directives (string) []
           An optional string with directives appended to the cookie, exactly as it is to be sent.

[rogaglia]

Hi,

I found token authentication documentation in the Administrator Guide, chapter 9: "The AAA infrastructure".

Roque

[ron.whitt]

So does this token method provide any encryption?  

[vleijon · Accepted solution]

No, but you can run the REST api over HTTPS for encryption. You enable this under ssl in the webui part of ncs.conf. 

[ron.whitt]

Thanks so much for the reply, yes this is the answer we were looking for. I'm getting good traction for NSO in the global financial space so I'm bound to run into many more security related questions.

[rogaglia]

Your answer is on RFC8040, section 2.2:

2.2. HTTPS with X.509v3 Certificates

   Given the nearly ubiquitous support for HTTP over TLS [RFC7230],
   RESTCONF implementations MUST support the "https" URI scheme, which
   has the IANA-assigned default port 443.

   RESTCONF servers MUST present an X.509v3-based certificate when
   establishing a TLS connection with a RESTCONF client.  The use of
   X.509v3-based certificates is consistent with NETCONF over TLS
   [RFC7589].

HTTS is mandatory for RESTCONF.

Roque