Cluster Single Sign-on (SSO) using JSON Web Tokens (JWTs)

CockroachDB clusters allow users to authenticate with Single Sign-on (SSO), both to the , and for SQL client access.

Cluster single sign-on (SSO) enables users to access the SQL interface of a CockroachDB cluster (whether provisioned on CockroachDB Cloud or self-hosted) with the full security of single sign-on (SSO), using JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) from external identity providers (IdPs) such as Okta, Google, Azure AD, or Keycloak.

Users can obtain JWTs directly from their IdP and use them to authenticate to SQL clients. Optionally, CockroachDB Cloud Advanced clusters and self-hosted clusters can also generate JWTs via the DB Console as a convenience feature. When DB Console JWT generation is enabled, users can sign in to their IdP through a link embedded in the DB Console, then copy the generated JWT and use it in a SQL connection string to authenticate to the cluster.

JWT authentication supports automatic role synchronization and user provisioning. When is enabled, users’ role memberships are automatically synchronized based on group claims from the IdP on each login. Additionally, automatic user provisioning can automatically create SQL users on first authentication, eliminating the need to pre-create users.

This page describes how to configure a cluster for cluster single sign-on using JWTs and then how users can authenticate using the JWTs:

• Configure a cluster for cluster single sign-on using JWTs
• Configure user provisioning (optional)
• Authenticate to your cluster

Prerequisites

• Identity Provider (IdP): You must have access to an identity provider that supports JWT tokens, such as Okta, Google, Azure AD, or Keycloak.
• Cluster Settings Access: You must have the ability to update your cluster settings. Refer to .
• SQL User Provisioning:
  • If you are using automatic user provisioning, SQL users will be created automatically on first authentication.
  • If automatic user provisioning is disabled, a SQL user that corresponds with your external identity must be pre-created on the cluster. To create users, you must have access to the .
• (Optional) DB Console JWT Generation: To use the DB Console to generate JWTs (instead of obtaining them directly from your IdP), you must have your cluster pre-configured for OIDC/SSO authentication for DB Console. Use the guide to set this up.
• (Optional) JWT Authorization: To enable automatic role synchronization based on IdP group claims, see .

Configure your cluster for SSO

Cluster Settings

You must configure the in the following table to enable JWT authentication to your cluster. Refer to the Update your cluster settings section to configure your cluster settings.

Cluster Setting	Description
server.jwt\_authentication.enabled	Defaults to false, must be set to true to enable embedded JWT generation.
server.jwt\_authentication.jwks	A list of public signing keys for allowed IdPs; must include your IdP’s key. If server.jwt\_authentication.jwks\_auto\_fetch.enabled is true, there is no need to set server.jwt\_authentication.jwks.
server.jwt\_authentication.jwks\_auto\_fetch.enabled	If true, public signing keys are automatically fetched from the issuer and there is no need to set server.jwt\_authentication.jwks. Defaults to false.
server.jwt_authentication.issuers.configuration	A list of accepted token issuers; must include your IdP. Can be any of the following: A string representing a valid issuer URL A string that contains a JSON array of issuer URLs A string that contains a JSON map of issuer URLs to JWKS URIs The format is detected automatically. Refer to the configuration examples. The previous cluster setting name server.jwt_authentication.issuers is aliased to this setting.
server.jwt\_authentication.issuer\_custom\_ca	A string that contains the name of the custom root CA to use for verifying certificates when fetching a JWKS from the issuer.
server.jwt\_authentication.client.timeout	An optional HTTP client timeout for external calls made during JWT authentication, in seconds. Defaults to 15 seconds.
server.jwt\_authentication.audience	This must match server.oidc\_authentication.client\_id; refer to .
server.jwt\_authentication.claim	The JWT field that will be used to determine the user identity in CockroachDB; normally set either to email, or sub (subject).
server.jwt\_authentication.authorization.enabled	Enables automatic role synchronization based on JWT groups claim. See . Defaults to false.
server.jwt\_authentication.group\_claim	JWT field containing groups for authorization. Defaults to groups. See .
server.jwt\_authentication.userinfo\_group\_key	Userinfo endpoint JSON key for groups fallback. Defaults to groups. See .
security.provisioning.jwt.enabled	Enables automatic user creation on first JWT login. Defaults to false. See Configure user provisioning.
server.oidc\_authentication.generate\_cluster\_sso\_token.enabled	Enables token generation; must be set to true.
server.oidc\_authentication.generate\_cluster\_sso\_token.use\_token	Selects which part of the received OIDC credentials to display.
server.identity\_map.configuration	Takes an Identity Map configuration.
server.sql\_host	This display value informs users the host for their SQL connections. Default: localhost.
server.sql\_port	This display value informs users the port for their SQL connections. Default: 26257.

Update your cluster settings

and cluster SSO cannot be configured with different IdPs.

Follow these steps to configure Cluster SSO.

1. In your IdP, find:

   • The issuer name, which can be found in the iss field of a JWT.

   • The issuer’s OpenID configuration endpoint, which is typically published at https://{ issuer URL }/.well-known/openid-configuration. The issuer URL is the domain portion of the configuration endpoint. From the full endpoint, you can find the issuer URL, and vice versa. For example, the issuer URL for CockroachDB Cloud is https://cockroachlabs.cloud and the configuration endpoint is https://cockroachlabs.cloud/.well-known/openid-configuration. The configuration endpoint for Google Cloud is https://accounts.google.com and the configuration endpoint is https://accounts.google.com/.well-known/openid-configuration. If you omit the .well-known/openid-configuration portion, it is appended automatically.

   • The public signing key your issuer uses to sign JWTs. Your cluster will reject JWTs that are not signed by this key. Fetch the public signing key from the configuration endpoint. For example:

     curl --silent https://accounts.google.com/.well-known/openid-configuration | jq .jwks_uri | xargs curl
     
     {
       "keys": [
         {
           "alg": "RS256",
           "use": "sig",
           "e": "AQAB",
           "kty": "RSA",
           "kid": "7c0b6913fe13820a333399ace426e70535a9a0bf",
           "n": "lWXY0XOj_ikSIDIvGOhfuRhQJAAj6BWsbbZ6P-PXRclzV32-QLB4GZHPPcH37Lou5pQsTQPvTETAfCLnglIRSbP8x1zA5tUakRlm5RiGF4kcWh5k60x8u0Uslx-d6EueKuY-KLHUVDuMULlHkYAScIdYnXz-Cnr6PFZj8RQezzdPVPH53Q8a_Z9b-vpGzsMS5gszITb-72OQNokojXdPVctl5WzSx-JnWbJxPiwHx_dSWgmTnyiYrZLqrqfampGdroaamtIXy0W8CAe0uCqcD1LunpfX-Q-RD1IycxnEaXSuUKhNhCcxtHWrozEyeD23Zja2WlcvHdYuTzyrvrvS9Q"
         },
         {
           "kid": "6f7254101f56e41cf35c9926de84a2d552b4c6f1",
           "e": "AQAB",
           "alg": "RS256",
           "use": "sig",
           "n": "oUriU8GqbRw-avcMn95DGW1cpZR1IoM6L7krfrWvLSSCcSX6Ig117o25Yk7QWBiJpaPV0FbP7Y5-DmThZ3SaF0AXW-3BsKPEXfFfeKVc6vBqk3t5mKlNEowjdvNTSzoOXO5UIHwsXaxiJlbMRalaFEUm-2CKgmXl1ss_yGh1OHkfnBiGsfQUndKoHiZuDzBMGw8Sf67am_Ok-4FShK0NuR3-q33aB_3Z7obC71dejSLWFOEcKUVCaw6DGVuLog3x506h1QQ1r0FXKOQxnmqrRgpoHqGSouuG35oZve1vgCU4vLZ6EAgBAbC0KL35I7_0wUDSMpiAvf7iZxzJVbspkQ",
           "kty": "RSA"
         }
       ]
     }
     

2. Enable JWT SQL authentication for your cluster:

   SET CLUSTER SETTING server.jwt_authentication.enabled = true;
   

3. Add your IdP’s issuer URL to your cluster’s list of accepted token issuers. If you have already configured , the issuer URL must match the value of server.oidc_authentication.provider_url.

   SET CLUSTER SETTING server.jwt_authentication.issuers.configuration = 'https://cockroachlabs.cloud';
   

4. Configure your cluster’s audience, which is your cluster’s ID (or JSON array of IDs) in your IdP. The audience is a mechanism for limiting the clients that can obtain JWTs from your IdP. If you have already configured , the issuer URL must match the value of server.oidc_authentication.client_id.

   Many third-party token issuers, including GCP and Azure, default to creating tokens with a generic default audience. We recommend limiting the scope of access tokens if possible.

   By extension, if your provider allows you to specify scopes or permissions on the token, we recommend configuring the scopes or permissions to be as restrictive as possible.

   SET CLUSTER SETTING server.jwt_authentication.audience = '984901724939-njig7lkv7k724rbv2hllvr4of8ul7th7.apps.googleusercontent.com';
   

5. Configure the field in the JWT that contains the email address that corresponds to a SQL user.

   SET CLUSTER SETTING server.jwt_authentication.claim = 'email';
   

6. Add your IdP’s public signing key, which you found previously, to your cluster’s list of acceptable signing JSON web keys (JWKS). Your cluster will reject JWTs that are not signed by a signing key that is listed in server.jwt_authentication.jwks. If you want to enable automatic fetching of signing keys instead of configuring static signing keys, skip this step.

   IdPs such as Google rotate their signing keys periodically. You must update your cluster with a new signing key before the previous one expires, or your SQL clients will be unable to connect with cluster SSO. We recommend updating this cluster setting with the current key daily to avoid this scenario. Alternatively, you can enable server.jwt_authentication.jwks_auto_fetch.enabled to automatically fetch signing keys from the issuer instead of maintaining a static list of signing keys. If server.jwt_authentication.jwks_auto_fetch.enabled is enabled, then server.jwt_authentication.jwks is ignored.

   By default, CockroachDB Advanced clusters are configured with CockroachDB Cloud’s public key, so that CockroachDB Cloud can serve as an IdP. This is required for . When modifying this cluster setting, do not omit the CockroachDB Cloud public key from the key set, or SSO with ccloud will no longer work.

   The public key for can be found at https://cockroachlabs.cloud/.well-known/openid-configuration.

   Replace the full contents of keys with the list of keys you found previously.

   SET CLUSTER SETTING server.jwt_authentication.jwks = '{
     "keys": [
       {
         ...
       }
     ]
   }';
   

7. Instead of setting server.jwt_authentication.jwks to a list of static signing keys, you can set server.server.jwt_authentication.jwks_auto_fetch.enabled to true to enable automatic fetching of signing keys for the issuers specified in server.jwt_authentication.issuers.configuration. Signing keys are fetched from the issuer’shttps://{ domain }/.well-known/openid-configuration endpoint.

Type	Example
Single issuer URL	'https://accounts.google.com/'
Array of issuer URLs	'["example.com/adfs","https://accounts.google.com"]'
Map of issuer URLs	'{ "issuer\_jwks\_map": { "https://accounts.google.com/": "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v3/certs", "example.com/adfs": "https://example.com/adfs/discovery/keys" } }'

8. Set your Identity Map. Refer to Identity Map configuration.

   SET CLUSTER SETTING
     server.identity_map.configuration = 'https://accounts.google.com /^(.*)@cockroachlabs\.com$ \1';
   

9. Enable token generation.

   This will also enable the Token Generation button to appear in the DB Console.

   SET CLUSTER SETTING
     server.oidc_authentication.generate_cluster_sso_token.enabled = true;
   

10. Configure how the user’s identity will be displayed by setting server.oidc_authentication.generate_cluster_sso_toke.use_token to either id_token or access_token, depending on the structure of the JWTs issued by your IdP.

    SET CLUSTER SETTING
      server.oidc_authentication.generate_cluster_sso_token.use_token = id_token;
    

How CockroachDB determines the SQL username from a JWT

1. server.jwt_authentication.claim determines which field to use to identify the external user. This must match a SQL user via the identity map.
2. server.identity_map.configuration maps that claim (along with the token’s issuer) to a SQL username.

Identity Map configuration

Th cluster setting server.identity_map.configuration holds your cluster’s identity map configuration, which tells your cluster how to map external identities to SQL users. This is functionally similar to PostgreSQL’s User Name Map.

Each line potentially maps many external identities to one SQL user, and a configuration can contain multiple lines, so the mapping can be many-to-many. The cluster checks to see if the SQL username given in the connection request matches the identity in the token by any of the lines in the Identity Map.

The format of an identity map configuration is a space-separated triple consisting of:

<external issuer <external user ID> <SQL username>

Examples:

• https://accounts.google.com /^(.*)@cockroachlabs\.com$ \1

  Maps every cockroachlabs email to a SQL user with the same username. That is, the part of the email address to the left of the @). For example, [e-mail] becomes docs.

• https://accounts.google.com 1232316645658094244789 roach

  Maps a single external identity with the hard-coded ID to the roach.

• https://accounts.google.com /^([9-0]*)$ gcp_\1

  Maps each GCP-provisioned service account to a SQL user named gcp_{ GCP user ID }. For example, gcp_1234567 for a service account with ID 1234567.

Configure user provisioning

CockroachDB can automatically create users on their first JWT authentication, eliminating the need to pre-create user accounts.

Enable user provisioning

SET CLUSTER SETTING security.provisioning.jwt.enabled = true;

How it works

1. A user presents a valid JWT token during authentication.
2. If the user doesn’t exist in CockroachDB, the user is created automatically.
3. The user is tagged with the PROVISIONSRC role option: jwt_token:<issuer, where <issuer is the JWT issuer URL.
4. If is also enabled, roles are synchronized immediately after user creation.

Auditing provisioned users

You can identify automatically provisioned users by viewing their role options:

SHOW ROLES;

Example output:

  username  |                       options                        | member_of
------------+------------------------------------------------------+-----------
  alice     | {PROVISIONSRC=jwt_token:https://auth.example.com}    | {developers}
  bob       | {PROVISIONSRC=jwt_token:https://auth.example.com}    | {admins}

Users provisioned via JWT will have PROVISIONSRC=jwt_token:<issuer in their options column.

Security considerations

• Validate JWT issuers carefully: Ensure server.jwt_authentication.issuers.configuration only includes trusted issuers, as any valid JWT from these issuers can create new users.
• Monitor provisioned users: Regularly review automatically created users to ensure only authorized users are being provisioned.
• Combine with JWT authorization: Consider enabling to automatically grant appropriate roles to provisioned users based on their IdP group memberships.
• Password management: Provisioned users cannot change their own passwords, as authentication is managed through the IdP.

If you are going to use JWT user provisioning in conjunction with , be sure to create the necessary roles in CockroachDB before enabling user provisioning. Auto-provisioned users will only receive roles for groups that already exist as CockroachDB roles.

Authenticate to your cluster

JWT authentication supports two methods for obtaining tokens:

1. Obtain JWTs directly from your IdP: Use your identity provider’s API or SDK to generate JWT tokens (e.g., via Okta APIs, Google OAuth, Azure AD). This is the primary method and requires only the JWT authentication cluster settings configured above.
2. Generate JWTs via DB Console: If you have configured, users can obtain JWT tokens through the DB Console UI.

This section describes the DB Console method. For obtaining JWTs directly from your IdP, refer to your identity provider’s documentation.

Authenticate using DB Console-generated JWTs

Once DB Console SSO and Cluster SSO with JWTs are enabled and your cluster is properly configured (including mapping authorized external users to SQL roles), users can self-provision auth tokens through a sign-in flow embedded in the DB Console. These tokens (JWTs) are intended as short-lived credentials. The expiry is set based on the OIDC token from your identity provider, which is typically 1 hour.

This example uses , but you can use any SQL client that supports sufficiently long passwords.

1. Obtain a token.

   Go to your cluster’s DB Console and click the Generate JWT auth token for cluster SSO button

2. Use the token in place of a password in your database connection string.

   cockroach sql --url "postgresql://{SQL_USERNAME}:{JWT_TOKEN}@{CLUSTER_HOST}:26257?options=--crdb:jwt_auth_enabled=true" --certs-dir={CLUSTER_CERT_DIR}
   
   Welcome to the cockroach SQL interface...
   

What’s Next?

• Learn more about in CockroachDB.
• This Cockroach Labs blog post covers and provides further resources for a variety of auth token-issuing use cases, including using Okta and Google Cloud Platform to issue tokens.

See also