API Gateway

Overview

This API Gateway serves as the entry point to a microservices architecture, providing centralized routing, authentication, and service discovery. Designed to streamline requests and enhance security, this gateway acts as a robust intermediary between clients and backend services.

Features

1. JWT Authentication

• Integrates a JWT-based authentication system to validate user requests at the gateway level.
• Authentication requests are sent to an Authentication Server to verify credentials and issue tokens.
• Implements caching with Redis, so authenticated user details are stored temporarily, avoiding repeated calls to the Authentication Server for the same user.
  • This significantly reduces overhead and improves performance.

2. Single Sign-On (SSO) Simplification

• Once a user is authenticated at the gateway, all downstream services are shielded from handling authentication or SSO logic.
• Simplifies the security model across services by enforcing a single authentication entry point.

3. Service Discovery

• Fully configurable with Eureka Discovery Server, enabling dynamic service resolution and routing.
• Automatically discovers registered backend services, reducing the need for manual configurations.

4. Request Restriction at the Gateway

• Ability to restrict unauthorized or invalid requests at the gateway itself, ensuring backend services only receive secure, verified traffic.

Benefits

• Improved Security: Centralized JWT validation and caching mechanism ensure secure and efficient handling of user authentication.
• Performance Optimization: Redis caching minimizes redundant calls to the Authentication Server.
• Simplified Microservices: Downstream services focus on business logic without needing to implement authentication or SSO.
• Scalability: Integration with Eureka enables seamless scaling and dynamic service discovery in large systems.

Technology Stack

• Spring Cloud: Core framework for implementing gateway functionalities.
• Redis: For caching authentication data.
• Eureka Discovery Server: For service registration and discovery (optional and configurable).
• JWT: For secure token-based authentication.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Java 17 or higher
• Redis server running locally or accessible remotely
• Optional: Eureka Discovery Server

Running the Application

1. Clone the repository.

   git clone https://github.com/hemayet-nirjhoy/api-gateway.git

2. Configure the application properties for Redis and Eureka (if applicable).
3. Build and run the application:

  ./mvnw spring-boot:run

4. Access the gateway at:

   http://localhost:8080

Configurations

• Redis Cache Expiry: Configure the TTL (time-to-live) for user details in Redis to balance performance and freshness.
• Eureka Server: Enable or disable Eureka integration via application properties. If you do not have any, hardcode the base URL of the microservices in the application.yaml
• JWT Settings: Customize token expiration, signing algorithm, and secret in the configuration.

Contribution

We welcome contributions! Please fork the repository, create a branch for your feature or bug fix, and submit a pull request.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.