fix(event-ledger): return 401 locally for requests with no Authorization header - #1968
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…ion header newPolicyMiddleware forwarded requests with a missing or malformed Authorization header to the policy evaluator with an empty API key, relying on the evaluator to deny it. The evaluator has no dedicated "no credential" verdict and returns 403, which event-ledger relayed as-is, misrepresenting an unauthenticated request as an unauthorized one. It also spent a network round trip on a request that can never succeed. Fail fast with 401 when Authorization is absent, unless JWT claims are already in the request context: in managed mode, jwtVerify clears the header after a successful local JWT verification before handing off to this middleware, so that case must still reach the policy evaluator. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Included review availability: Your plan provides up to 12 included reviews per hour; 10 remain after this review. 📝 WalkthroughWalkthroughThe policy middleware trims bearer credentials and returns 401 for empty or whitespace-only tokens when no verified JWT claims exist. Verified JWT claims still allow policy evaluation without an Authorization header. Tests verify evaluator calls, rejection paths, and identity propagation. ChangesPolicy authorization handling
Priority: ➖ Normal Estimated code review effort: 2 (Simple) | ~10 minutes Change: Bug fix · Severity of issue fixed: Medium Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to No concrete current-head regression remains identified. The intended local 401 behavior is covered by tests. 🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3 | ❌ 2❌ Failed checks (1 warning, 1 inconclusive)
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Inline comments:
In `@src/control-plane-services/event-ledger/internal/middleware/policy.go`:
- Around line 213-224: Update the authorization handling around the bearer-token
extraction to trim surrounding whitespace, reject empty or whitespace-only
tokens with HTTP 401 before calling policyClient.Evaluate, and preserve the
hasJWTClaims path. Log token extraction only when a usable token remains, and
add regression tests asserting 401 responses and no evaluator call for empty and
whitespace-only bearer credentials.
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src/control-plane-services/event-ledger/internal/middleware/policy.gosrc/control-plane-services/event-ledger/internal/middleware/policy_test.go
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The fail-fast check for a missing Authorization header only looked at the branch where the header wasn't Bearer-prefixed. A header of "Bearer " (or Bearer followed by only whitespace) still matched the Bearer-prefixed branch, so it skipped the check and reached the policy evaluator with an empty API key, same as the bug being fixed. Extract and trim the token first, then fail fast on an empty result regardless of which branch produced it, unless JWT claims are already in the request context. Verified end-to-end against a locally running instance (Cassandra + a stub policy evaluator): missing, empty, and whitespace-only Authorization headers all return 401 without reaching the evaluator; a real credential still reaches the evaluator and its allow/deny verdict (including 403 on deny) is unaffected. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
…horization-header' into fix/event-ledger/401-missing-authorization-header
| // hasJWTClaims covers the managed-mode JWT-then-policy chain, | ||
| // where jwtVerify already consumed and cleared this header | ||
| // after a successful local verification. | ||
| logger.WarnContext(traceCtx, "policy: no bearer token found in authorization header") |
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Do we need policy: in the log message?
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I am a bit confused. Does the endpoint accept both JWT and api-key as bearer tokens? If yes, should Event Ledger call UAM both when JWT and api-key are specified as bearer tokens? What does the rego policy do when a JWT is passed to UAM?
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You're right, it's redundant — the caller field already shows this came from policy.go:
sample log message:
2026-09-16T20:07:47.697340094Z {"level":"warn","ts":1789589267.697265,"msg":"policy: no bearer token found in authorization header","service.name":"nvcf-function-deployment-stages-api","service.version":"0.15.2","deployment.environment.name":"prd","trace_id":"f1649b1ce51391fbc568ce428ffcdaa2","span_id":"68366c5e65b604a5","otlp.trace_id":"f1649b1ce51391fbc568ce428ffcdaa2","caller":"src/control-plane-services/event-ledger/internal/middleware/policy.go:216 [newPolicyMiddleware.func2.1]"}
That said, this prefix convention is already used elsewhere in the file, so I'd rather keep it consistent than special-case this one line. Happy to drop it everywhere if you'd prefer.
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Yeah both JWT and api-keys are sent to UAM. I assume UAM checks the scopes of JWT to evaluate whether or not it should be authorized.
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No. UAM does not check scopes. For SAK, your rego policy can check the scopes in the key and return appropriate result. But, it is not how we do it typically. For JWT, there is no mechanism to check scopes.
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TL;DR
event-ledger write endpoints returned 403 for requests with no
Authorizationheader, because the request was still forwarded to the policy evaluator with
an empty API key. Now it fails fast with 401 locally instead.
Additional Details
newPolicyMiddleware(internal/middleware/policy.go) always forwarded therequest to the policy evaluator, even with no credential present, and relayed
whatever status the evaluator returned for that denial (403). No credentials
at all should be 401, not 403, and forwarding it also wastes a network round
trip on a request that can never succeed.
Fix: return 401 immediately when
Authorizationis missing or malformed,unless JWT claims are already in the request context. That exception
preserves the managed-mode JWT-then-policy chain, where
jwtVerifyclearsthe header after a successful local JWT verification before handing off to
this middleware.
For the Reviewer
internal/middleware/policy.go: the added early returninternal/middleware/policy_test.go: updated "No Token Provided" case,new case covering the already-verified-JWT path
For QA
Run all available auth related tests to check for regression.
Issues
Closes #1967
Checklist
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