Kong – no suitable authorization credentials were provided

techhadoop , , ,

The error “no suitable authorization credentials were provided” usually means Kong (or an upstream service) expected authentication information, but it either:

  • Didn’t receive it at all
  • Received it in the wrong format
  • Received it in the wrong location (header vs. query parameter)
  • Couldn’t match it to any configured credentials

Here’s how to troubleshoot it step-by-step:

1. Identify which plugin or service is throwing the error

  • Kong Plugin Layer – Often caused by key-auth, jwt, or openid-connect plugin when no valid credential is passed.
  • Upstream Service Layer – Could be from the API/backend if Kong passed the request without credentials.
  • Load Balancer / F5 – Sometimes strips or alters headers, so credentials never reach Kong.

2. Check the authentication type you’re using

  • API Key (key-auth plugin)
    • Expected: apikey in ?query or apikey in header (apikey: <key>).
    • Verify: curl -H "apikey: YOUR_API_KEY" https://your-kong-endpoint/your-api
  • JWT Plugin
    • Expected: Authorization: Bearer <jwt_token> header.
    • Token must be valid and match a configured consumer.
  • OpenID Connect (openid-connect plugin)
    • Expected: Valid ID/Access token, usually Authorization: Bearer <access_token>.
    • Token must be signed by a trusted issuer in plugin config.

3. Verify headers are not stripped

If you have F5 / Nginx / Apache in front of Kong:

  • Check that Authorization headers are forwarded.
  • In F5, enable HTTP::header Authorization forwarding.
  • In Nginx, ensure: proxy_set_header Authorization $http_authorization;

4. Check Kong logs for details

Run Kong in debug mode temporarily:

KONG_LOG_LEVEL=debug kong restart
tail -f /usr/local/kong/logs/error.log

Look for:

  • plugin=... lines showing missing credentials
  • no credentials found for given consumer/issuer

5. Confirm consumer mapping

For jwt or oidc:

  • The public key / JWKS URL must be correct.
  • The iss (issuer) in token must match plugin config.
  • The consumer must be linked to the credential.

💡 Common causes I’ve seen in your past scenarios with F5 + Kong + Ping Identity:

  • F5 stripping Authorization header before reaching Kong.
  • Wrong token type (ID token instead of Access token) in OIDC flow.
  • Consumer not mapped in Kong for the provided JWT/OIDC token.
  • client_id and client_secret missing in a token request.

If you want, I can draw you a flow diagram for Kong + Ping Identity showing exactly where the credential might be getting lost in your setup with F5 in the middle. That would make pinpointing the issue much faster.

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