APIClarity

• 1: Features
• 2: Getting started
• 2.1: Install APIClarity
• 2.2: Install demo application
• 3: Enable external trace sources support
• 4: API reference
• 4.1: Core API reference
• 4.2: Common API reference

1 - Features

APIClarity is a modular tool that addresses several aspects of API Security, focusing specifically on OpenAPI based APIs.

APIClarity approaches API Security in 2 different ways:

• Captures all API traffic in a given environment and performs a set of security analysis to discover all potential security problems with detected APIs
• Actively tests API endpoints to detect security issues in the implementation of such APIs.

OpenAPI automatic reconstruction

Both approaches described above are way more effective when APIClarity is primed with the OpenAPI specifications of the APIs analyzed or tested. However, not all applications have an OpenAPI specification available. For this reason one of the main functionality of APIClarity is the automatic reconstruction of OpenAPI specifications based on observed API traffic. In this case, users have the ability to review and approve the reconstructed specifications.

Security Modules

APIClarity is structured in a modular architecture, which allows to easily add new functionalities. The following modules are currently implemented:

• Spec Diffs This module compares the API traces with the OAPI specifications provided by the user or previously reconstructed. The result of this comparison provides:

  • List of API endpoints that are observed but not documented in the specs, i.e. Shadow APIs;
  • List of API endpoints that are observed but marked as deprecated in the specs, i.e. Zombie APIs;
  • List of difference between of the APIs observed and their documented specification.

• Trace Analyzer This module analyzes path, headers and body of API requests and responses to discover potential security issues, such as weak authentications, exposure of sensitive information, potential Broken Object Level Authorizations (BOLA) etc.

• BFLA Detector This module detects potential Broken Function Level Authorization. In particular it observes the API interactions and build an authorization model that captures what clients are supposed to be authorized to make the various API calls. Based on such authorization model it then signals violations which may represent potential issues in the API authorization procedures.

• Fuzzer This module actively tests API endpoints based on their specification attempting in discovering security issues in the API server implementation.

Supported traffic source integrations

APIClarity supports integrating with the following traffic sources. Install APIClarity and follow the instructions per required integration.

• Istio Service Mesh

  • Make sure that Istio 1.10+ is installed and running in your cluster. See the Official installation instructions for more information.

• Tap via a DaemonSet

  • Integration instructions

• Kong API Gateway

  • Integration instructions

• Tyk API Gateway

  • Integration instructions

• OpenTelemetry Collector (traces only)

  • Integration instructions

The integrations (plugins) for the supported traffic sources above are located in the plugins directory within the codebase and implement in the plugins API to export the API events to APIClarity.

To enable and configure the supported traffic sources, see the trafficSource: section in Helm values.

Contributions that integrate additional traffic sources are more than welcome!

2 - Getting started

This chapter shows you how to install APIClarity, and guides you through the most common tasks that you can perform with APIClarity.

2.1 - Install APIClarity

Install APIClarity in a K8s cluster using Helm

1. Add the Helm repository.

   helm repo add apiclarity https://openclarity.github.io/apiclarity
   

2. Save the default chart values into the values.yaml file.

   helm show values apiclarity/apiclarity > values.yaml
   

   Note: The file values.yaml is used to deploy and configure APIClarity on your cluster via Helm. This ConfigMap is used to define the list of headers to ignore when reconstructing the spec.

3. Update values.yaml with the required traffic source values.

4. Deploy APIClarity with Helm.

   helm install --values values.yaml --create-namespace apiclarity apiclarity/apiclarity --namespace apiclarity
   

5. Port forward to the APIClarity UI:

   kubectl port-forward --namespace apiclarity svc/apiclarity-apiclarity 9999:8080
   

6. Open the APIClarity UI in your browser at http://localhost:9999/

7. Generate some traffic in the traced applications, for example, using a demo application.

8. Check the APIClarity UI.

Uninstall APIClarity from Kubernetes using Helm

1. Uninstall the Helm deployment.

   helm uninstall apiclarity --namespace apiclarity
   

2. Clean the resources. By default, Helm will not remove the PVCs and PVs for the StatefulSets. Run the following command to delete them all:

   kubectl delete pvc -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=apiclarity --namespace apiclarity
   

Build from source

1. Build and push the image to your repo:

   DOCKER_IMAGE=<your docker registry>/apiclarity DOCKER_TAG=<your tag> make push-docker
   

2. Update values.yaml accordingly.

Run locally with demo data

1. Build the UI and the backend locally.

   make ui && make backend
   

2. Copy the built site:

   cp -r ./ui/build ./site
   

3. Run the backend and frontend locally using demo data:

   Note: You might need to delete the old local state file and local db:

   rm state.gob; rm db.db
   

   DATABASE_DRIVER=LOCAL K8S_LOCAL=true FAKE_TRACES=true FAKE_TRACES_PATH=./backend/pkg/test/trace_files \
   ENABLE_DB_INFO_LOGS=true ./backend/bin/backend run
   

   Note: this command requires a proper KUBECONFIG in your environment when K8S_LOCAL=true is used. If you want to run without Kubernetes, use ENABLE_K8S=false instead.

4. Open the APIClarity UI in your browser at: http://localhost:8080/

2.2 - Install demo application

If you want to use a demo application to try APIClarity, you can use the Sock Shop Demo. To deploy the Sock Shop Demo, complete the following steps.

1. Create the sock-shop namespace and enable Istio injection.

   kubectl create namespace sock-shop
   kubectl label namespaces sock-shop istio-injection=enabled
   

2. Deploy the Sock Shop Demo to your cluster.

   kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microservices-demo/microservices-demo/master/deploy/kubernetes/complete-demo.yaml
   

3. Deploy APIClarity in the sock-shop namespace (with the Istio service-mesh traffic source):

   helm repo add apiclarity https://openclarity.github.io/apiclarity
   

   helm install --set 'trafficSource.envoyWasm.enabled=true' --set 'trafficSource.envoyWasm.namespaces={sock-shop}' --create-namespace apiclarity apiclarity/apiclarity --namespace apiclarity
   

4. Port forward to Sock Shop’s front-end service to access the Sock Shop Demo App:

   kubectl port-forward -n sock-shop svc/front-end 7777:80
   

5. Open the Sock Shop Demo App UI in your browser at http://localhost:7777/ and run some transactions to generate data to review on the APIClarity dashboard.

3 - Enable external trace sources support

If you enable external trace sources support, APIClarity can receive the trace sources from the entities that are external to the Kubernetes cluster. External trace sources such as Gateways and Load balancers can communicate with APIClarity to report APIs and send the traces.

Supported Trace Sources

APIClarity can support with the following trace sources and follow the instructions per required integration.

• Apigee X Gateway
  • Integration instructions
• BIG-IP LTM Load balancer
  • Integration instructions
• Kong
  • Integration instructions
• Tyk
  • Integration instructions

Deploy APIClarity with support for external trace sources

1. Add Helm Repo

   helm repo add apiclarity https://openclarity.github.io/apiclarity
   

2. Update values.yaml with:

   Apiclarity -> tls -> enabled as true
   supportExternalTraceSource -> enabled as true
   

3. Deploy APIClarity with the updated values.yaml to enable external traffic sources.

   helm install --values values.yaml --create-namespace apiclarity apiclarity/apiclarity -n apiclarity
   

4. Port forward to the APIClarity UI:

   kubectl port-forward -n apiclarity svc/apiclarity-apiclarity 9999:8080
   

5. Open the APIClarity UI in your browser at http://localhost:9999

Register a new external trace source

This section shows you how to access the service, register a new trace source, and how to receive the token and certificate. The examples use the Apigee X Gateway as the external trace source.

1. Port forward for service at 8443.

   kubectl port-forward -n apiclarity svc/apiclarity-apiclarity 8443:8443
   

2. Register a new external trace source and receive the token.

   TRACE_SOURCE_TOKEN=$(curl --http1.1 --insecure -s -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"name":"apigee_gateway","type":"APIGEE_X"}' https://localhost:8443/api/control/traceSources|jq -r '.token')
   

3. Get the External-IP for the apiclarity-external service.

   kubectl get services --namespace apiclarity
   

4. Use the External-IP address with the following command, then extract the certificate between -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END CERTIFICATE----- and save it to the server.crt file.

   openssl s_client -showcerts -connect <External-IP>:10443
   

5. If you want to configure other trace sources, use the extracted token in Step 2 and the certificate in Step 3.

4 - API reference

4.1 - Core API reference

4.2 - Common API reference