Tigera Authentication

generated: '2026-08-05'
method: searched
source: >-
  https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/operations/install-apiserver,
  https://docs.tigera.io/calico-cloud/operations/usage-api,
  https://docs.tigera.io/calico-cloud/users/user-management,
  https://www.tigera.io/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
docs: https://docs.tigera.io/calico-cloud/users/user-management
description: >-
  Tigera has four distinct authentication surfaces and none of them are declared in an OpenAPI
  securityScheme — the published Swagger 2.0 definition for the Calico API carries no
  securityDefinitions block at all, because the API is a Kubernetes aggregated API server that
  inherits the host cluster's authenticators. This profile was written from the documentation
  and from probed OAuth metadata, not derived from the spec.
summary:
  types: [http, apiKey, oauth2, openIdConnect, mutualTLS]
  api_key_in: [header]
  oauth2_flows: [authorizationCode]
  derived_from_openapi: false
  openapi_security_definitions: 0
schemes:
- name: KubernetesBearerToken
  surface: Calico API (projectcalico.org/v3)
  type: http
  scheme: bearer
  description: >-
    The Calico aggregated API server sits behind the cluster's kube-apiserver, which performs
    authentication. Callers present a Kubernetes ServiceAccount token or an OIDC ID token as
    `Authorization: Bearer <token>`. Authorization is Kubernetes RBAC over
    projectcalico.org/v3 resources, extended by Calico's tier-scoped policy RBAC (a
    subject needs get on the tier plus the verb on the policy resource within that tier).
  docs: https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/operations/install-apiserver
  sources: [documentation]
- name: KubernetesClientCertificate
  surface: Calico API (projectcalico.org/v3)
  type: mutualTLS
  description: >-
    Client-certificate authentication to the kube-apiserver, the default for kubeconfig
    credentials created by kubeadm and most managed Kubernetes distributions. calicoctl and
    kubectl both read these from kubeconfig.
  docs: https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/operations/calicoctl/configure/kdd
  sources: [documentation]
- name: EtcdDatastoreCredentials
  surface: Calico API — etcdv3 datastore mode
  type: mutualTLS
  description: >-
    In etcdv3 datastore deployments calicoctl authenticates directly to etcd with
    ETCD_CERT_FILE / ETCD_KEY_FILE / ETCD_CA_CERT_FILE, or with ETCD_USERNAME / ETCD_PASSWORD.
  docs: https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/operations/calicoctl/configure/etcd
  sources: [documentation]
- name: CalicoCloudUsageApiKey
  surface: Calico Cloud Usage API
  type: apiKey
  in: header
  description: >-
    Read-only, organization-scoped API keys generated in the Calico Cloud web console under
    Settings > API Keys, with a chosen validity period. The key value is shown exactly once at
    creation and cannot be retrieved afterwards. Creating one requires the Admin + Usage Metrics
    roles or the Owner role. The console emits a ready-made command per key. Tigera does not
    publish the header name in public documentation, so it is recorded as unknown rather than
    guessed.
  parameter_name: null
  docs: https://docs.tigera.io/calico-cloud/operations/usage-api
  sources: [documentation]
- name: CalicoCloudConsoleSSO
  surface: Calico Cloud web console
  type: openIdConnect
  description: >-
    The Calico Cloud console authenticates users over OIDC (Auth0), with Google social login
    among the supported options, mapped onto the predefined roles Owner, Admin, Security and
    Viewer.
  docs: https://docs.tigera.io/calico-cloud/users/user-management
  sources: [documentation]
- name: TigeraMCPOAuth
  surface: Tigera MCP server
  type: oauth2
  description: >-
    OAuth 2.1 authorization-code with PKCE (S256) for the remote MCP server on www.tigera.io.
    Public clients (token_endpoint_auth_method none) identified by client-ID metadata document;
    bearer token presented in the Authorization header; single scope `mcp`.
  flows:
  - flow: authorizationCode
    authorizationUrl: https://www.tigera.io/oauth/authorize
    tokenUrl: https://www.tigera.io/oauth/token
    scopes: [mcp]
  detail: scopes/tigera-scopes.yml
  sources: [https://www.tigera.io/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server]
gaps:
- >-
  The published Calico Swagger 2.0 document declares no securityDefinitions and applies no
  security to any of its 261 operations. A generated client or an agent reading only the spec
  has no machine-readable signal about how to authenticate.
- >-
  The Calico Cloud Usage API's authentication header name and base URL are not published; both
  are only visible inside the authenticated console.
x-evidence:
  fetched: '2026-08-05'
  probes:
  - url: https://docs.tigera.io/calico-cloud/operations/usage-api
    status: 200
  - url: https://www.tigera.io/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
    status: 200
  - url: https://docs.tigera.io/json/calico-api-swagger.json
    status: 200
    finding: securityDefinitions absent