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Emphasise that OIDC is only for interactive users #3875

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Emphasise that OIDC is only for interactive users #3875

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Emphasise that OIDC is only for interactive users
tvernum Nov 11, 2025
6e570b2
Remove unncessary comma
tvernum Nov 11, 2025
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Apply suggestions from code review
tvernum Nov 13, 2025
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Merge branch 'main' into oidc-interactive-only
yetanothertw Nov 13, 2025
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Merge branch 'main' into oidc-interactive-only
tvernum Nov 28, 2025
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Add more explanation
tvernum Nov 28, 2025
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Improve wording
tvernum Nov 28, 2025
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Improve wording (again)
tvernum Nov 28, 2025
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5 changes: 5 additions & 0 deletions deploy-manage/users-roles/cluster-or-deployment-auth/openid-connect.md
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Expand Up @@ -470,6 +470,11 @@ xpack.security.authc.providers:

The OpenID Connect realm is designed to allow users to authenticate to {{kib}}. As a result, most sections of this guide assume {{kib}} is used. This section describes how a custom web application could use the relevant OpenID Connect REST APIs to authenticate the users to {{es}} with OpenID Connect.

::::{note}
The OpenID Connect protocol enables authentication for interactive users via a web browser. Users must be able to open a login URL in their browser and enter credentials when prompted.
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@shainaraskas shainaraskas Nov 28, 2025

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The OpenID Connect protocol enables authentication for interactive users via a web browser. Users must be able to open a login URL in their browser and enter credentials when prompted.
The OpenID Connect protocol enables authentication for interactive users through a web browser. Users must be able to open a login URL in their browser and enter credentials when prompted.

{{es}} does not support using OpenID Connect to authenticate non-interactive users such as service principals or automated processes. If you wish to authenticate a service, the [JWT](jwt.md) realm may be a suitable alternative.
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@ankit--sethi ankit--sethi Nov 19, 2025

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Suggestion: it might help to clarify that the JWT realm does (or at least, can) leverage the customer's existing OpenID Provider as the source of signed JWTs and provides the PKI for verifying said JWTs?

My sense from the SDHs we have had is that customers tend to think "JWT realm" is something alien that will take them away from the comfort and familiarity of their Entra, Okta, etc setups. They're not seeing their infra fitting into the picture.

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@tvernum tvernum Nov 20, 2025

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Probably. I struggled to come up with the right words that were succinct enough but didn't over promise.

Whether JWT actually
a. works with their existing infrastructure
b. solves their problem
is hard to predict. It probably does, but that requires more words than we want to put here.

Do you have suggested words?
In the end all it really needs to prompt is "Really, please follow that link and go read that page and hopefully it will all make sense to you" but I don't think we want to write that.

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@ankit--sethi ankit--sethi Nov 20, 2025

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"If you wish to authenticate a service, the JWT realm (which can integrate with tokens issued by an Open ID Provider) may be a suitable alternative. "

is what I can come up with. If we don't like parentheses, we can probably re-arrange it a bit!

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@shainaraskas shainaraskas Nov 28, 2025

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Suggested change
{{es}} does not support using OpenID Connect to authenticate non-interactive users such as service principals or automated processes. If you wish to authenticate a service, the [JWT](jwt.md) realm may be a suitable alternative.
{{es}} does not support using OpenID Connect to authenticate non-interactive users such as service principals or automated processes. If you want to authenticate a service, the [JWT](jwt.md) realm might be a suitable alternative.

::::

Single sign-on realms such as OpenID Connect and SAML make use of the Token Service in {{es}} and in principle exchange a SAML or OpenID Connect Authentication response for an {{es}} access token and a refresh token. The access token is used as credentials for subsequent calls to {{es}}. The refresh token enables the user to get new {{es}} access tokens after the current one expires.

::::{note}
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