Bouncr

An authentication gateway and OIDC Identity Provider for backend applications, powered by Envoy ext_proc.

Why Bouncr

• Stateless backend applications by design — authentication state is handled at the proxy/gateway layer, and backend apps receive request-scoped identity via x-bouncr-credential
• Easier testing and operations — apps can be tested without session stores/sticky sessions, and auth behavior can be reproduced by header-based credentials in integration tests
• Pragmatic self-hosted auth core — combines OIDC/OAuth2 identity endpoints with a clear Group → Role → Permission → Realm model for service-to-service and backend authorization

Features

Authentication Gateway

• Transparent auth proxy — Envoy ext_proc injects x-bouncr-credential JWT into every request; backend apps need zero auth code
• Multiple credential types — Password, OpenID Connect (RP), TOTP two-factor authentication
• BFF session management — Short-lived access cache (15 min) + long-lived refresh marker (7 days) with transparent refresh via bouncr-proxy
• Fine-grained authorization — Group → Role → Permission model with per-Realm scope
• Cross-application session reuse (current Phase 3 behavior) — one Bouncr session token is reused across applications; proxy filters permissionsByRealm into realm-specific permissions before forwarding

OIDC Identity Provider

Bouncr acts as a full OIDC Identity Provider (comparable to Kanidm):

Supported grant types: authorization_code (with PKCE S256), refresh_token (rotation), client_credentials

Security:

• Client secrets hashed with PBKDF2 (shown once on creation)
• Private keys encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM
• RS256 JWT signing with per-client RSA key pairs
• Constant-time comparisons for secrets and PKCE verification

Logout propagation (Issue #80):

• Back-channel logout on sign-out: Bouncr sends OIDC Logout Token (iss, aud, iat, jti, events, sub) to each registered RP backchannel_logout_uri (best-effort)
• Front-channel logout on sign-out: API returns frontchannel_logout_urls for UI-side hidden iframe dispatch (bounded parallel fan-out with overall timeout in UI)

Administration

• User, Group, Role, Permission management via REST API
• Application and Realm configuration for dynamic routing
• OidcApplication registration (client_id, client_secret, RSA keys)
• Audit trail of user actions

Architecture

Browser / RP
  └─ Envoy (port 3000)
       └─ ext_proc filter → bouncr-proxy (Go, gRPC)
            ├─ Redis: token lookup + session refresh
            ├─ RealmCache: path → application routing
            └─ JWT injection (x-bouncr-credential)
                 └─ Backend cluster (via cluster_header routing)
                      └─ bouncr-api-server (Java, enkan/kotowari-restful)

Backend contract: Requests that match a realm but carry no valid session token are still routed to the backend — without the x-bouncr-credential header. Backends must verify the presence and validity of this header before granting access to protected resources.

Modules

Quick Start

Local Development

# 1. Start infrastructure (Redis + PostgreSQL)
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up redis db

# 2. Start the API server (H2 in-memory, auto-reset on startup)
cd bouncr-api-server
mvn compile exec:java -Pdev

# 3. Start the proxy
cd bouncr-proxy
export DB_DSN="postgres://bouncr:bouncr@localhost:5432/bouncr?sslmode=disable"
export JWT_SECRET="your-secret-key"
export INTERNAL_SIGNING_KEY="your-signing-key"
go run ./cmd/bouncr-proxy/

# 4. Start Envoy
envoy -c envoy/envoy.yaml

# 5. Start the UI (Vite dev server with auth plugin — no proxy/Envoy needed for UI dev)
cd bouncr-ui
npm run dev

Full-stack with Docker Compose

docker-compose.dev.yml starts the entire stack (api-server, proxy, Envoy, UI) with development defaults for E2E testing:

docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build

The UI is at http://localhost:8080, Envoy at port 3000. This configuration uses hardcoded credentials and is not intended for production.

Build

# API server (Java 25)
mvn package -pl bouncr-api-server -am

# Proxy (Go 1.25)
cd bouncr-proxy && go build -o bouncr-proxy ./cmd/bouncr-proxy/

# UI
cd bouncr-ui && npm run build

Testing

# Java unit tests (api-server + components)
mvn test -pl bouncr-api-server -am

# Go unit tests
cd bouncr-proxy && go test ./...

# UI unit tests
cd bouncr-ui && npm test

# API E2E tests (starts API server in-process with H2, no external deps)
mvn test -pl bouncr-api-e2e-test -am            # smoke tests
mvn test -pl bouncr-api-e2e-test -am -De2e.full=true  # full suite

# UI E2E tests (requires running services — see bouncr-ui-e2e-test/README.md)
cd bouncr-ui-e2e-test && npm test

Configuration & Production Deployment

Prerequisites

• PostgreSQL 16+
• Redis 7+
• Envoy 1.31+ (or compatible version with ext_proc support)

Important Configuration

Critical Notes

1. CLEAR_SCHEMA must be false (default) in production. The dev profile sets CLEAR_SCHEMA=true, which drops and recreates the entire database on every startup. Never use -Pdev in production.

2. JWT_SECRET and INTERNAL_SIGNING_KEY must match between api-server and proxy. Use strong random values (32+ characters).

3. TLS termination: Configure TLS at the Envoy layer or a load balancer in front of Envoy. Bouncr services communicate over plaintext internally.

4. Backend must verify x-bouncr-credential: Requests that match a realm but have no valid token are still routed to the backend — without the credential header. Backends must check for the presence and validity of this header before granting access. Do not assume that a routed request is authenticated.

5. Envoy configuration: Use bouncr-proxy gen-envoy-config to generate Envoy cluster configuration from the database:

   export DB_DSN="postgres://..."
   bouncr-proxy gen-envoy-config > envoy.yaml
   

6. Docker Compose (production):

   cp .env.example .env   # edit .env with real credentials
   docker compose up -d --build
   

   The default docker-compose.yml requires all secrets via environment variables (no defaults for credentials). See .env.example for the full list. For local dev / E2E testing, use docker-compose.dev.yml instead.

Migration Upgrade Note

From v0.3.0 onward, historical Java migrations V1 through V28 are consolidated into a single baseline migration B28__BouncrV0_3_0.

For an existing database, run a one-time Flyway repair:

flyway -url=jdbc:postgresql://<host>:5432/<db> -user=<user> -password=<password> repair

Fresh databases are created from B28__BouncrV0_3_0.

License

Copyright © 2017-2026 kawasima

Distributed under the Eclipse Public License 2.0.