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CORS

Enforce client-site access controls with cross-origin resource sharing (CORS).

For example, you can configure requests that are made on your behalf. At the same time, you can block requests that are made by attacks, such as Javascript code or malware. Consider the following request scenarios that you can configure with CORS.

A different domain, such as example.com site calls api.com
A different subdomain, such as example.com calls api.example.com
A different port, such as example.com calls example.com:3001
A different protocol, such as https://example.com calls http://example.com

For more information, see the following resources.

If you import or export resources across workspaces, your policies might not apply. For more information, see Import and export policies.

Before you begin

This guide assumes that you use the same names for components like clusters, workspaces, and namespaces as in the getting started. If you have different names, make sure to update the sample configuration files in this guide.

Complete the multicluster getting started guide to set up the following testing environment.
- Three clusters along with environment variables for the clusters and their Kubernetes contexts.
- The Gloo Platform CLI, meshctl, along with other CLI tools such as kubectl and istioctl.
- The Gloo management server in the management cluster, and the Gloo agents in the workload clusters.
- Istio installed in the workload clusters.
- A simple Gloo workspace setup.
Install Bookinfo and other sample apps.

Configure CORS policies

You can apply a CORS policy at the route level. For more information, see Applying policies.

Review the following sample configuration files.

apiVersion: security.policy.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: CORSPolicy
metadata:
  name: simple-cors
  namespace: bookinfo
  annotations:
    cluster.solo.io/cluster: $REMOTE_CLUSTER1
spec:
  applyToRoutes:
  - route:
      labels:
        route: ratings
  config:
    maxAge: 1m
    allowCredentials: true
    allowHeaders:
    - foo
    - bar
    allowMethods:
    - GET
    allowOrigins:
    - exact: http://istio.io

Review the following table to understand this configuration. For more information, see the API docs.

Setting	Description
`spec.applyToRoutes`	Configure which routes to apply the policy to, by using labels. The label matches the app and the route from the route table. If omitted, the policy applies to all routes in the workspace.
`maxAge`	Optionally specify how long the results of a preflight request are cached. This value translates to the `Access-Control-Max-Age` header. In this example, the value is `1m`.
`allowCredential`	Optionally let the caller send the actualy request with credentials, not just the preflight request. This value translates to the `Access-Control-Allow-Credentials` header. In this example, the value is `true`.
`allowHeaders`	Specify a list of HTTP headers that can be used in requests. This value is serialized to the `Access-Control-Allow-Headers` header. In this example, the `foo` and `bar` headers can be used in the request.
`allowMethods`	Specify a list of HTTP methods that can be used in requests. This value is serialized to the `Access-Control-Allow-Methods` header. In this example, only the `GET` method can be used to access the resource.
`allowOrigins`	Enter a string pattern to use to decide if an origin is allowed. An origin is allowed if any of the string patterns match the origin in the header. You can set up `exact`, `prefix`, `suffix`, or `regex` matches. By default, matching is case-sensitive for exact, prefix, and suffix matching, unless you include `ignoreCase: true`. This value is serialized to the `Access-Control-Allow-Origin` header. In this example, the origin header must match exactly `http://istio.io`.

Verify CORS policies

Apply the example CORS policy in the cluster with the Bookinfo workspace in your example setup.

kubectl apply --context ${REMOTE_CONTEXT1} -f - << EOF
apiVersion: security.policy.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: CORSPolicy
metadata:
  name: simple-cors
  namespace: bookinfo
  annotations:
    cluster.solo.io/cluster: $REMOTE_CLUSTER1
spec:
  applyToRoutes:
  - route:
      labels:
        route: ratings
  config:
    maxAge: 1m
    allowCredentials: true
    allowHeaders:
    - foo
    - bar
    allowMethods:
    - GET
    allowOrigins:
    - exact: http://istio.io
EOF

Create a route table for the ratings app. Because the policy applies at the route level, Gloo checks for the route in a route table resource.

kubectl apply --context ${REMOTE_CONTEXT1} -f - << EOF
apiVersion: networking.gloo.solo.io/v2
kind: RouteTable
metadata:
  name: ratings-rt
  namespace: bookinfo
spec:
  hosts:
  - ratings
  http:
  - forwardTo:
      destinations:
      - ref:
          name: ratings
          namespace: bookinfo
    labels:
      route: ratings
  workloadSelectors:
  - {}
EOF

Review the following table to understand this configuration. For more information, see the API docs.

Setting	Description
`hosts`	The host that the route table routes traffic for. In this example, the `ratings` host matches the ratings service within the mesh.
`http.forwardTo.destinations`	The destination to forward requests that come in along the host route. In this example, the ratings service is selected.
`http.labels`	The label for the route. This label must match the label that the policy selects.
`workloadSelectors`	The source workloads within the mesh that this route table routes traffic for. In the example, all workloads are selected. This way, the curl container that you create in subsequent steps can send a request along the ratings route.

Send a request to the ratings app from within the mesh.
- Kubernetes 1.22 or earlier
- Kubernetes 1.23 or later
Create a temporary curl pod in the bookinfo namespace, so that you can test the app setup. You can also use this method in Kubernetes 1.23 or later, but an ephemeral container might be simpler, as shown in the other tab.
1. Create the curl pod.
  kubectl run -it -n bookinfo --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 curl \ --image=curlimages/curl:7.73.0 --rm -- sh
2. Send a request to the ratings app.
  curl http://ratings:9080/ratings/1 -v -X OPTIONS -H "Origin: http://istio.io" -H "Access-Control-Request-Method: GET"
3. Exit the temporary pod. The pod deletes itself.
  exit
Use the kubernetes debug command to create an ephemeral curl container in the deployment. This way, the curl container inherits any permissions from the app that you want to test. If you don't run Kubernetes 1.23 or later, you can deploy a separate curl pod or manually add the curl container as shown in the other tab.
```
kubectl --context ${REMOTE_CONTEXT1} -n bookinfo debug -i pods/$(kubectl get pod --context ${REMOTE_CONTEXT1} -l app=reviews -A -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') --image=curlimages/curl -- curl -v http://ratings:9080/ratings/1 -X OPTIONS -H "Origin: http://istio.io" -H "Access-Control-Request-Method: GET"
```
If the output has an error about EphemeralContainers, see Ephemeral containers don’t work when testing Bookinfo.
Review the responses to verify your CORS policy. Depending on how you set up the policy, you might still expect to get a 200 response, but certain access control headers are missing, which let you know that the CORS is rejected.
- If CORS is enabled, you see an Access-Control-Allow-Origin header in the response.
- If CORS is disabled, you do not see any Access-Control-* headers in the response.
- If the preflight request is successful, the response includes the Access-Control-Allow-Origin, Access-Control-Allow-Methods, and Access-Control-Allow-Headers. If the request was not successful, these headers are missing.
Example response:
```
HTTP/1.1 200 OK 
access-control-allow-origin: http://istio.io 
access-control-allow-credentials: true 
access-control-allow-methods: GET 
access-control-allow-headers: foo,bar 
access-control-max-age: 60 
```

Optional: Clean up the resources that you created.

kubectl --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 -n bookinfo delete routetable ratings-rt
kubectl --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT1 -n bookinfo delete CORSPolicy simple-cors