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Securing Endpoints with Basic Authentication

Basic Authentication (Basic Auth) is a simple but effective way to restrict access to your services by requiring a valid username and password before allowing requests to reach your upstream service.

When Basic Authentication is enabled:

🔐 Requests without valid credentials are automatically rejected with a 401 Unauthorized response.
🔐 Only authenticated users can access your protected services.
⚡ Authentication is enforced at the gateway level, reducing security overhead for your backend.

🔍 What are the Benefits of Basic Authentication?​

HTTP Basic Authentication is a simple yet effective way to restrict access to sensitive services without requiring complex identity providers or OAuth-based authentication systems.

Key Benefits:

  • Securing development or staging environments from public access.
  • Adding a lightweight authentication layer when no other auth system is available.
  • Protecting internal admin panels, dashboards, or API endpoints.
  • Protect temporary or short-lived services without setting up an OAuth provider.

If you need more secure authentication methods for production traffic, consider the OAuth, OIDC, and JWT Validation guides.

Basic Authentication Examples​

The following examples show how to set up an endpoint that accepts requests that contian basic auth credentials for either user:password1 or admin:password2. All other requests will be denied with a 401 response code.

Check out the basic auth traffic policy action page for more details about how it functions and the parameters it accepts.

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