Anya and I went to the grocery store. Scott called while I was driving home and told me not to panic if I saw a bunch of police cars when I turned near the house. Umm, good to know! I certainly would have panicked. We got fiber internet installed at the farmhouse and set up our security cameras a few weeks ago. And, evidently, a couple of people decided tonight that it was a good place to break into. Scott got a motion alert & pulled up the video to see three people at the back door. And in the kitchen, front room, side room, back into the kitchen. He called the police and headed down to the farmhouse. They’d arrested three people by the time he got down there.
Author: Lisa
SPIFFE: Prove the Configuration Rejects Abuse: Negative Security Testing
A security architecture should be judged by rejection behavior, not only by a successful demonstration. Each test below states a precondition, an enforcement point, and evidence to collect. The exact HTTP status or OAuth error depends on the failing stage and implementation; do not require a universal error code where the standards or product do not prescribe one.
Test environment and positive controls
Use isolated non-production identities and resources. Establish a successful standalone call and a successful Lisa/XYZ delegated call first. Capture the issued token’s approved claims without copying credentials into ordinary logs. Confirm the actual policy version and key material in use. Change one condition per test where possible, and retain request correlation so failures can be attributed to the intended control.
Where a deployment does not implement a proposed control, mark the corresponding test as an identified gap or accepted risk, not a false pass. Sender-constraint tests require a genuinely supported profile. Task-authorization tests require the resource server to implement that policy.
| ID | Input or precondition | Enforcement point | Expected outcome/evidence |
| 01 | Actor token from untrusted issuer | STS actor validation | Reject; log issuer-policy failure |
| 02 | Actor JWT-SVID with wrong STS audience | STS actor validation | Reject; intended-recipient failure |
| 03 | Human JWT substituted as actor evidence | STS profile validation | Reject; cross-profile failure |
| 04 | Workload JWT substituted as human subject | STS subject validation | Reject; subject-profile failure |
| 05 | Unsigned or disallowed-algorithm JWT | STS/API signature policy | Reject; algorithm/signature failure |
| 06 | Token with attacker-controlled key URL | Configured key-resolution boundary | No outbound trust in supplied URL; reject invalid signature |
| 07 | Expired input token | STS time validation | Reject; expiration failure |
| 08 | Input not yet valid outside allowed skew | STS time validation | Reject; temporal-policy failure |
| 09 | Output token presented to wrong API | Resource audience validation | Reject; audience mismatch |
| 10 | Forged act claim on signed token | Resource signature validation | Reject; modified token |
| 11 | Caller actor override differs from verified identity | STS mapping/policy | Reject or ignore override under explicit policy; no forged attribution |
| 12 | Client/actor pairing forbidden by policy | STS relationship policy | Reject; pairing decision recorded |
| 13 | XYZ paired with ineligible Lisa delegation | STS approval/pairing policy | Reject; subject/actor eligibility failure |
| 14 | Unauthorized output audience requested | STS target policy | Reject; disallowed exchange edge |
| 15 | Scopes exceed approved grant | STS scope policy | Reject or explicitly downscope; record granted set |
| 16 | Missing actor on delegated-only API | API delegated-profile policy | Reject; required-actor failure |
| 17 | Malformed nested actor structure | STS/API schema validation | Reject; malformed identity context |
| 18 | Nested actor has privileged identity | API authorization engine | No privilege union; deny operation not allowed by top-level context |
| 19 | Valid token mutates wrong case | API object authorization | Reject; resource mismatch |
| 20 | Valid token changes forbidden field | API mutation authorization | Reject; actual-body constraint failure |
| 21 | Approval expired before exchange | STS approval service | Reject; stale grant |
| 22 | Approval revoked after token issuance | API current-grant control if configured | Reject within measured distribution/cache window |
| 23 | One-time authorization reused | API transactional grant control | No second mutation; atomic use evidence |
| 24 | Stolen bearer token presented elsewhere | Resource authentication | May succeed absent sender constraint; document residual risk |
| 25 | Wrong certificate for bound token | mTLS/token-binding verifier | Reject; certificate-thumbprint mismatch |
| 26 | Wrong DPoP key or token hash | DPoP-capable resource | Reject; proof/token binding failure |
| 27 | Replayed DPoP proof | DPoP replay/freshness verifier | Reject per deployed replay policy; proof evidence |
| 28 | Unknown kid during discovery outage | STS/API key validation | Reject unknown key; bounded refresh attempts |
| 29 | Planned key rollover with old/new tokens | STS/API verification caches | Valid intended tokens pass during planned overlap |
| 30 | Disabled actor uses cached valid JWT | Resource deny/revocation controls | Measure rejection latency; no unsupported instant-revocation claim |
| 31 | Workload does not match registration selectors | SPIRE workload issuance | No XYZ credential; attestation/issuance evidence |
| 32 | Unrelated pod chooses XYZ service account | Admission/RBAC plus SPIRE policy | Blocked deployment or deny issuance; otherwise record privilege gap |
| 33 | Unauthorized node attempts enrollment | SPIRE node attestation | No accepted eligible agent identity |
| 34 | Queued job runs after delegation revoked | Worker authorization boundary | Reject execution; log job and approval IDs |
| 35 | Tenant/resource identifier substitution | STS and resource tenant policy | Reject cross-tenant access |
| 36 | Policy/STS outage triggers retry fallback | Application/worker failure path | No anonymous or broader-authority fallback |
Acceptance criteria
- Every failure occurs at a documented boundary and emits useful non-secret audit evidence.
- No test silently changes a delegated request into impersonation or anonymous access.
- No requested audience or scope becomes trusted merely because it was requested.
- Resource-level constraints are checked against the actual operation and canonical object.
- Revocation and outage tests report measured windows, not assumed guarantees.
- Concurrent one-time execution tests demonstrate atomic behavior.
- Known valid controls still pass after policy tightening and planned key rotation.
Adversarial execution and evidence
Repeat tests with concurrency, stale caches, alternate replicas, and retrying workers. Exercise non-happy-path serialization and identifier normalization. Confirm that every API instance uses the same intended policy version. Capture both denial and business-state evidence: a rejected response is insufficient if a mutation occurred before the rejection.
Takeaway: a useful test report says where abuse was blocked, why, what residual exposure remains, and how quickly changes reach every enforcement point.
Genealogical Research for Our Property
We’ve tracked our property history through the recorder’s office, but I’ve discovered that the Medina library has USDA aerial photos from the 1930’s, 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s (they skipped the 1940’s due to the war). There is an index image that provides the photo identifier for each rectangle — so we’d take the index photo, find our number, and then pull the detail picture.
Our property in the 1930’s!
SPIFFE: Rotation Without Outages: Credential and Trust-Material Lifecycle
Automatic rotation removes manual renewal work, not lifecycle complexity. Your acceptance tests must cover planned rotation, unknown signing keys, transient outages, and the interaction between credentials issued at different layers.
Separate the trust-material paths
X.509-SVID verification uses certificate trust material. JWT-SVID verification uses the corresponding JWT signing public keys. An OIDC discovery/JWKS integration can expose JWT verification metadata for consumers, but an X.509 bundle is not interchangeable with a JWKS document. Document exactly which discovery component is deployed and how PingFederate trusts it.
Review discovery issuer association, TLS trust, permitted metadata endpoints, cache limits, and key rollover behavior. A kid identifies a candidate key; it does not make a key trustworthy. Do not follow arbitrary jku or x5u values from untrusted token input. Bind verification material to configured issuers.
Plan overlap and bounded refresh
Recommended sequence: publish the new verification key, allow intended verifiers to acquire it, begin signing with it, and retain old verification material for the remaining lifetime of valid old tokens plus permitted skew and bounded propagation delays. Confirm the actual signing-key publisher behavior rather than assuming it follows this sequence. Emergency compromise rollover requires a different plan because retaining the old key preserves trust in forged tokens.
On unknown kid, perform a bounded, issuer-specific refresh if supported. If the key remains unknown, deny the token. Rate-limit and coalesce refreshes to prevent attacker-controlled kid values from turning verification into a discovery-service denial of service. Valid cached material may remain usable within a documented policy; this is not permission to extend token expiration or trust unknown keys.
Failure and recovery matrix
| Condition | Recommended behavior | Evidence to collect |
| SPIRE unavailable | No fabricated credentials; use only still-valid material under policy | Issuance failures and remaining lifetime |
| STS unavailable | Do not bypass exchange or broaden authority | Exchange failures and job/backoff behavior |
| Discovery unavailable | Bounded cache use; reject unknown keys | Cache age and refresh outcomes |
| Clock skew | Enforce reviewed bounded leeway | Clock offset and time-validation failures |
| Old signing key removed | Observe rejected old credentials; follow planned policy | Affected kid and issuer |
| Policy distribution unavailable | Explicit fail behavior, never implicit permit | Policy version and stale-state duration |
Sender binding complicates credential rotation
RFC 8705 certificate-bound access tokens use the thumbprint of a specific client certificate. Binding to an X.509-SVID certificate therefore binds that token to that particular certificate, not merely to its stable SPIFFE ID. Coordinate token renewal and certificate rotation, and avoid a gap where only a replacement certificate remains but the access token expects the old one.
DPoP is an alternative sender-constraint mechanism only where the issuer and resource server support the agreed profile. Its key lifecycle is separate from SPIRE certificate rotation. Do not imply that configuring SPIRE automatically enables DPoP in PingFederate or a downstream API.
Connections and authorization lifetime
Established TLS connections and application sessions need their own lifecycle review. A certificate rollover is not guaranteed to trigger a new authentication handshake on every existing connection. Decide whether token authorization is evaluated per request, once per connection, or when a session is created; verify the implementation. Connection draining and maximum session duration may be needed for predictable containment.
- Exercise a planned rotation under normal load.
- Test new-key visibility before switching signers.
- Measure clock offsets and verification-cache behavior.
- Simulate dependency outages without allowing permissive fallbacks.
- Prove emergency issuer compromise response separately from routine rollover.
Takeaway: rotation must be tested as a distributed protocol, including consumers and their caches.
Coral Colored Mushrooms
Foraged Oyster Mushrooms
Cool Mushrooms
SPIFFE: Can We Reconstruct What Happened? Audit and Investigation
A useful audit trail must reconstruct whose authority applied, which software acted, what was approved, and what actually changed. A single username field cannot represent that model.
Create a verified request-scoped identity
At authentication, construct an immutable context from validated claims or trusted introspection: subject with issuer, current actor, prior actor history, OAuth client, transport peer, delegation reference, token identifier, granted constraints, and policy version. Propagate it through authorization and business-event logging. Do not use a mutable global user context across concurrent requests or workers.
For delegated tokens, the outermost act identifies the current actor; nested actors represent earlier actors. Prior actors are informational rather than an additional permission source. Preserve history for traceability without authorizing from a union of actor privileges.
A proposed structured business event
{
"event": "case.update",
"identity_mode": "user_delegation",
"effective_subject": {
"issuer": "https://identity.example.org",
"id": "user:lisa"
},
"current_actor": {
"id": "spiffe://agents.example.org/agent/xyz"
},
"transport_peer": "spiffe://services.example.org/tool/case-editor",
"oauth_client_id": "agent-xyz-client",
"delegation_id": "approval-81a6",
"token_id": "token-4b781",
"request_id": "req-a740",
"agent_run_id": "run-93a2",
"resource": "case/4821",
"authorization": {
"decision": "allow",
"policy_version": "case-policy-17"
},
"outcome": "committed"
}
These field names are recommendations, not a standards-defined event schema. A run ID helps correlation but does not prove identity. A token ID helps join events but does not make a token single-use. One-time semantics require protected state and atomic consumption at the appropriate transaction boundary.
One approval, five API calls
| Call | Observed behavior | Expected investigation conclusion |
| 1 | Read case/4821 under approved read authority | Authorized read, if included in approval |
| 2 | Update status on case/4821 | Authorized mutation and committed result |
| 3 | Update another field on case/4821 | Denied field-level violation |
| 4 | Update case/9920 | Denied resource mismatch |
| 5 | Repeat one-time status update | Denied replay or recorded idempotent retry under policy |
Join the approval event, STS decision, API decision, and business commit. A 200 response in an agent trace does not independently prove a database commit. An authorization allow does not prove the operation succeeded. Conversely, a failed response after a commit can cause a retry; the audit model must distinguish this from deliberate duplicate execution.
Background work and provenance
Queue messages should reference a protected grant and carry authenticated provenance. Re-evaluate permission when the worker executes. Record the originating agent and current worker separately, because the worker may become the current actor in a new token exchange. Preserve request and job correlation without trusting identity fields supplied by arbitrary producers.
Mark log fields by provenance: token-verified, authorization-service-issued, infrastructure-derived, or application-supplied. This prevents an agent-provided display name from being mistaken for the verified SPIFFE actor. Use stable identifiers for joins and display names only for presentation.
Logging controls
- Never log bearer tokens, private keys, or full authorization headers.
- Redact business payloads and approval details according to sensitivity.
- Record denied attempts as well as successful operations.
- Protect log transport, administrative access, and retention configuration.
- Synchronize clocks and retain event time separately from ingestion time.
- Version audit schemas and ensure downstream parsers preserve nested identity context.
- Record configuration/policy changes so investigators can reconstruct the decision in force.
Takeaway: attribution becomes useful only when it survives all the way to the committed business event.
SPIRE Setup Documentation
Overview
This setup deploys SPIRE as follows:
- SPIRE Server on <SPIRE_SERVER_HOST>
- SPIRE Agent on <SPIRE_AGENT_HOST>
- Trust domain: <TRUST_DOMAIN>
- Server/agent communication port: <SERVER_PORT>/tcp
How it works
SPIRE provides machine and workload identity.
The SPIRE Server on <SPIRE_SERVER_HOST> is the trust authority for the trust domain <TRUST_DOMAIN>.
The SPIRE Agent on <SPIRE_AGENT_HOST> attests to the server using x509pop with an X.509 certificate issued by an enterprise/internal CA.
Applications on <SPIRE_AGENT_HOST> do not talk directly to the SPIRE Server. They talk to the local SPIRE Agent over the local workload API socket <AGENT_SOCKET_PATH>.
The agent returns an X.509-SVID representing the workload identity.
Installation Instructions
- Install SPIRE binaries
Run on both hosts:
mkdir -p /opt/spire
cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/spiffe/spire/releases/download/v1.15.2/spire-1.15.2-linux-amd64-musl.tar.gz
tar zxf spire-1.15.2-linux-amd64-musl.tar.gz
cp -r spire-1.15.2/. /opt/spire/
On the SPIRE Server host:
ln -sf /opt/spire/bin/spire-server /usr/bin/spire-server
On the SPIRE Agent host:
ln -sf /opt/spire/bin/spire-agent /usr/bin/spire-agent
- Configure SPIRE Server
Create directories:
mkdir -p /opt/spire/conf
mkdir -p /opt/spire/data/server
mkdir -p /opt/spire/conf/x509pop
Place the CA bundle at:
/opt/spire/conf/x509pop/bundle.pem
Contents:
—–BEGIN CERTIFICATE—–
<REDACTED CA CERTIFICATE>
—–END CERTIFICATE—–
—–BEGIN CERTIFICATE—–
<REDACTED CA CERTIFICATE>
—–END CERTIFICATE—–
—–BEGIN CERTIFICATE—–
<REDACTED CA CERTIFICATE>
—–END CERTIFICATE—–
Create /opt/spire/conf/server.conf:
server {
bind_address = “0.0.0.0”
bind_port = “<SERVER_PORT>”
trust_domain = “<TRUST_DOMAIN>”
data_dir = “/opt/spire/data/server”
log_level = “INFO”
}
plugins {
DataStore “sql” {
plugin_data {
database_type = “sqlite3”
connection_string = “/opt/spire/data/server/datastore.sqlite3”
}
}
NodeAttestor “x509pop” {
plugin_data {
ca_bundle_path = “/opt/spire/conf/x509pop/bundle.pem”
}
}
KeyManager “memory” {
plugin_data {}
}
}
health_checks {
listener_enabled = true
bind_address = “127.0.0.1”
bind_port = “<HEALTH_PORT>”
}
Create /etc/systemd/system/spire-server.service:
[Unit]
Description=SPIRE Server
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/opt/spire/bin/spire-server run -config /opt/spire/conf/server.conf
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
LimitNOFILE=65536
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Start server:
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable –now spire-server
systemctl status spire-server –no-pager
Validate server:
spire-server healthcheck
- Configure SPIRE Agent
Create directories:
mkdir -p /opt/spire/conf
mkdir -p /opt/spire/data/agent
mkdir -p /opt/spire/sockets
mkdir -p /opt/spire/conf/x509pop
Issue a certificate through your enterprise PKI platform. Download as OpenSSL format and split CRT/KEY files. Copy the node certificate to:
/opt/spire/conf/x509pop/agent.crt
Copy the node private key to:
/opt/spire/conf/x509pop/agent.key
The private key must be unencrypted PEM.
Set permissions:
chmod 700 /opt/spire/conf/x509pop
chmod 600 /opt/spire/conf/x509pop/agent.key
chmod 644 /opt/spire/conf/x509pop/agent.crt
Create /opt/spire/conf/agent.conf:
agent {
data_dir = “/opt/spire/data/agent”
log_level = “INFO”
trust_domain = “<TRUST_DOMAIN>”
server_address = “<SPIRE_SERVER_HOST>”
server_port = “<SERVER_PORT>”
socket_path = “<AGENT_SOCKET_PATH>”
insecure_bootstrap = true
}
plugins {
KeyManager “disk” {
plugin_data {
directory = “/opt/spire/data/agent”
}
}
WorkloadAttestor “unix” {
plugin_data {}
}
NodeAttestor “x509pop” {
plugin_data {
private_key_path = “/opt/spire/conf/x509pop/agent.key”
certificate_path = “/opt/spire/conf/x509pop/agent.crt”
}
}
}
Create /etc/systemd/system/spire-agent.service:
[Unit]
Description=SPIRE Agent
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/opt/spire/bin/spire-agent run -config /opt/spire/conf/agent.conf
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
LimitNOFILE=65536
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Start agent:
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable –now spire-agent
systemctl status spire-agent –no-pager
- Validate x509pop agent attestation
On the SPIRE Server host:
spire-server agent list
Expected result:
- Agent attestation type is x509pop
- Can re-attest is true
- Parent ID format resembles:
spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/spire/agent/x509pop/<AGENT_HASH>
- Create workload registration entry
Use the current x509pop agent SPIFFE ID from spire-server agent list.
On the SPIRE Server host:
spire-server entry create \
-spiffeID spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/workload/<WORKLOAD_NAME> \
-parentID spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/spire/agent/x509pop/<AGENT_HASH> \
-selector unix:uid:0
This authorizes a root-owned process on the SPIRE Agent host.
- Fetch workload identity on the SPIRE Agent host
/opt/spire/bin/spire-agent api fetch x509 -socketPath <AGENT_SOCKET_PATH>
Expected SPIFFE ID:
spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/workload/<WORKLOAD_NAME>
- Write certs to disk for testing
Create destination directory:
mkdir -p /etc/spire/svid/test
chmod 700 /etc/spire/svid/test
Write files:
/opt/spire/bin/spire-agent api fetch x509 \
-socketPath <AGENT_SOCKET_PATH> \
-write /etc/spire/svid/test
Inspect output:
ls -l /etc/spire/svid/test
openssl x509 -in /etc/spire/svid/test/svid.0.pem -text -noout
- Reboot persistence validation
Reboot the SPIRE Agent host.
After reboot, validate:
systemctl status spire-agent –no-pager
ls -l <AGENT_SOCKET_PATH>
/opt/spire/bin/spire-agent api fetch x509 -socketPath <AGENT_SOCKET_PATH>
Expected behavior:
- spire-agent starts automatically
- Workload API socket exists
- X.509-SVID fetch succeeds
- Operational notes
- Current architecture: <SPIRE_SERVER_HOST> = SPIRE Server; <SPIRE_AGENT_HOST> = SPIRE Agent
- Current trust domain: <TRUST_DOMAIN>
- Current server/agent path: <SPIRE_AGENT_HOST> to <SPIRE_SERVER_HOST> on TCP <SERVER_PORT>
- Current Workload API socket: <AGENT_SOCKET_PATH>
- Current example workload selector: unix:uid:0
- Current example workload identity: spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/workload/<WORKLOAD_NAME>
JWT
Create JWT registration on the SPIRE Server host:
spire-server entry create \
-spiffeID spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/workload/<JWT_WORKLOAD_NAME> \
-parentID spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/spire/agent/x509pop/<AGENT_HASH> \
-selector unix:uid:0
Fetch JWT-SVID from the SPIRE Agent host:
/opt/spire/bin/spire-agent api fetch jwt \
-socketPath <AGENT_SOCKET_PATH> \
-audience <JWT_AUDIENCE> \
-spiffeID spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/workload/<JWT_WORKLOAD_NAME>
Example output:
token(spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/workload/<JWT_WORKLOAD_NAME>):
<REDACTED JWT-SVID>
bundle(spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>):
<REDACTED JWKS BUNDLE>
SPIRE OIDC Discovery Provider
On the SPIRE Server host:
mkdir -p /opt/spire-extras
cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/spiffe/spire/releases/download/v1.15.2/spire-extras-1.15.2-linux-amd64-musl.tar.gz
tar zxf spire-extras-1.15.2-linux-amd64-musl.tar.gz
cp -r spire-extras-1.15.2/ /opt/spire-extras/
ln -sf /opt/spire-extras/bin/oidc-discovery-provider /usr/bin/oidc-discovery-provider
mkdir -p /opt/spire-extras/conf/oidc-discovery-provider
Create certificate and key files:
/opt/spire-extras/conf/oidc-discovery-provider/tls.crt
/opt/spire-extras/conf/oidc-discovery-provider/tls.key
Set permissions:
chmod 644 /opt/spire-extras/conf/oidc-discovery-provider/tls.crt
chmod 600 /opt/spire-extras/conf/oidc-discovery-provider/tls.key
Create /opt/spire-extras/conf/oidc-discovery-provider/oidc-discovery-provider.conf:
log_level = “INFO”
domains = [“<OIDC_DISCOVERY_DOMAIN>”]
server_api {
address = “unix://<SPIRE_SERVER_API_SOCKET>”
}
serving_cert_file {
cert_file_path = “/opt/spire-extras/conf/oidc-discovery-provider/tls.crt”
key_file_path = “/opt/spire-extras/conf/oidc-discovery-provider/tls.key”
}
Create /etc/systemd/system/spire-oidc-discovery-provider.service:
[Unit]
Description=SPIRE OIDC Discovery Provider
After=network-online.target spire-server.service
Wants=network-online.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/opt/spire-extras/bin/oidc-discovery-provider -config /opt/spire-extras/conf/oidc-discovery-provider/oidc-discovery-provider.conf
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
LimitNOFILE=65536
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Ping Integration
PingFederate Integration Note for SPIRE JWT Validation
Purpose
Configure PingFederate to trust and validate JWTs issued from the SPIRE environment.
SPIRE issuer details
Use these values:
- Issuer: https://<OIDC_DISCOVERY_DOMAIN>
- OIDC discovery URL: https://<OIDC_DISCOVERY_DOMAIN>/.well-known/openid-configuration
- JWKS URL: https://<OIDC_DISCOVERY_DOMAIN>/keys
Trust model
PingFederate should validate JWT signatures using the JWKS published by the SPIRE OIDC Discovery Provider.
Ping does not need to call the SPIRE server directly for every token validation. It should use the discovery/JWKS metadata from the OIDC Discovery Provider.
Expected JWT characteristics
Issuer
Ping should require:
iss = https://<OIDC_DISCOVERY_DOMAIN>
Audience
Recommended audience value:
<PING_AUDIENCE>
Clients requesting JWT-SVIDs from SPIRE should request them with this audience.
Subject
The workload identity will be in:
sub
Example:
spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/workload/<WORKLOAD_NAME>
This is the primary identity claim Ping should use to identify the calling workload.
Recommended validation rules in Ping
Validate:
- JWT signature against SPIRE JWKS
- iss matches https://<OIDC_DISCOVERY_DOMAIN>
- aud contains <PING_AUDIENCE>
- token is within validity window (exp, iat)
- sub is an allowed SPIFFE ID or matches allowed policy rules
Example workload identity currently in use
Current example SPIFFE ID:
spiffe://<TRUST_DOMAIN>/workload/<WORKLOAD_NAME>
Client-side JWT retrieval model
A workload on the SPIRE Agent host should obtain its JWT from the local SPIRE agent, not from the SPIRE server directly.
Local agent socket:
<AGENT_SOCKET_PATH>
Example operational flow
- Workload on the SPIRE Agent host requests a JWT-SVID from the local SPIRE agent.
- JWT-SVID is issued with:
- issuer = https://<OIDC_DISCOVERY_DOMAIN>
- audience = <PING_AUDIENCE>
- subject = workload SPIFFE ID
- Workload presents JWT to PingFederate.
- PingFederate validates the JWT using SPIRE OIDC discovery/JWKS.
- PingFederate maps the SPIFFE workload identity to access policy, token issuance, or downstream application authorization.






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Vote for the person who is closer to where you think we should be instead of the waiting for your perfect candidate.