Custos is a multi-tenant security middleware for science gateways, developed under the Apache Airavata umbrella. It provides identity and access management, credential storage, federated authentication, and resource allocation services to science gateway frameworks through a language-independent API. Custos is designed as a set of composable product components that can be deployed independently or together, built on a scalable architecture to deliver highly available, fault-tolerant operations.
The Identity Server is the core IAM component of Custos. It handles user identity and access management, tenant profile management, resource secrets management, and groups and sharing management. Built with Java 17 and Spring Boot, it integrates with Keycloak for federated authentication, HashiCorp Vault for secrets management, and MariaDB for persistence.
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
identity/core |
Domain entities, repositories, protobuf definitions, mappers |
identity/services |
Business logic, Keycloak and Vault integrations |
identity/api |
REST API controllers |
identity/application |
Spring Boot entry point |
See identity/README.md for setup and development instructions.
The Allocations component provides meta-allocation authority services for HPC and cloud resources. It acts as a bridge between Custos-managed tenants and external resource allocation providers.
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
allocations/access-ci-service |
ACCESS CI AMIE packet adapter |
Additional allocation adapters for other resource providers are planned. See allocations/README.md for details as they become available.
airavata-custos/
├── identity/ # Identity Server
├── allocations/ # Allocation management and usage
├── compose/ # Docker Compose for local development
├── deployment/ # Terraform configurations (AWS)
├── legacy/ # Archived modules (not actively maintained)
└── pom.xml # Root Maven reactor
- Java 17
- Maven 3.6+
- Docker and Docker Compose
Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/apache/airavata-custos.git
cd airavata-custosStart the backing services (Keycloak, MariaDB, Vault, Adminer):
cd compose
docker compose up -dBuild all components:
mvn clean installRefer to each component's README for detailed configuration and run instructions.
- Open a GitHub issue
- Subscribe to the Custos mailing list:
custos-subscribe@airavata.apache.org
@inproceedings{10.1145/3311790.3396635,
author = {Ranawaka, Isuru and Marru, Suresh and Graham, Juleen and Bisht, Aarushi and Basney, Jim and Fleury, Terry and Gaynor, Jeff and Wannipurage, Dimuthu and Christie, Marcus and Mahmoud, Alexandru and Afgan, Enis and Pierce, Marlon},
title = {Custos: Security Middleware for Science Gateways},
year = {2020},
isbn = {9781450366892},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3311790.3396635},
doi = {10.1145/3311790.3396635},
booktitle = {Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing},
pages = {278–284},
numpages = {7},
location = {Portland, OR, USA},
series = {PEARC '20}
}
@inproceedings{10.1145/3491418.3535177,
author = {Ranawaka, Isuru and Goonasekara, Nuwan and Afgan, Enis and Basney, Jim and Marru, Suresh and Pierce, Marlon},
title = {Custos Secrets: A Service for Managing User-Provided Resource Credential Secrets for Science Gateways},
year = {2022},
isbn = {9781450391610},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3491418.3535177},
doi = {10.1145/3491418.3535177},
booktitle = {Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing},
articleno = {40},
numpages = {4},
location = {Boston, MA, USA},
series = {PEARC '22}
}
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
We are grateful to Trusted CI for conducting the First Principles Vulnerability Assessment (FPVA) for this software and providing security architecture guidance and improvements.