# Using Keystone Middleware with Barbican

## Prerequisites

To enable Keystone integration with Barbican you’ll need a relatively current version of Keystone. It is sufficient if you are installing an OpenStack cloud where all services including Keystone and Barbican are from the same release. If you don’t have an instance of Keystone available, you can use one of the following ways to setup your own.

1. Simple Dockerized Keystone

2. Installing Keystone

3. An OpenStack cloud with Keystone (Devstack in the simplest case)

## Hooking up Barbican to Keystone

Assuming that you’ve already setup your Keystone instance, connecting Barbican to Keystone is quite simple. When completed, Barbican should require a valid X-Auth-Token to be provided with all API calls except the get version call.

1. Turn off any active instances of Barbican

2. Edit `/etc/barbican/barbican-api-paste.ini`

   1. Change the pipeline `/v1` value from unauthenticated `barbican_api` to the authenticated `barbican-api-keystone`. This step will not be necessary on barbican from OpenStack Newton or higher, since barbican will default to using Keystone authentication as of OpenStack Newton.

          [composite:main]
          use = egg:Paste#urlmap
          /: barbican_version
          /v1: barbican-api-keystone

   2. Replace `authtoken` filter values to match your Keystone setup

          [filter:authtoken]
          paste.filter_factory = keystonemiddleware.auth_token:filter_factory
          auth_plugin = password
          username = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_USERNAME}
          password = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_PASSWORD}
          user_domain_id = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_USER_DOMAIN}
          project_name = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_PROJECT}
          project_domain_id = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_PROJECT_DOMAIN}
          www_authenticate_uri = http://{YOUR_KEYSTONE_ENDPOINT}:5000/v3
          auth_url = http://{YOUR_KEYSTONE_ENDPOINT}:5000/v3

      Alternatively, you can shorten this to

          [filter:authtoken]
          paste.filter_factory = keystonemiddleware.auth_token:filter_factory

      and store Barbican’s Keystone credentials in the `[keystone_authtoken]` section of `/etc/barbican/barbican.conf`

          [keystone_authtoken]
          auth_plugin = password
          username = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_USERNAME}
          password = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_PASSWORD}
          user_domain_id = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_USER_DOMAIN}
          project_name = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_PROJECT}
          project_domain_id = {YOUR_KEYSTONE_PROJECT_DOMAIN}
          www_authenticate_uri = http://{YOUR_KEYSTONE_ENDPOINT}:5000/v3
          auth_url = http://{YOUR_KEYSTONE_ENDPOINT}:5000/v3

3. Start Barbican `{barbican_home}/bin/barbican.sh start`

this page last updated: 2026-04-01 16:51:00

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