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Cilium mutual authentication lets policy rules require workloads to authenticate their peers using SPIFFE identities and SPIRE-issued certificates. The documented feature is still beta and incomplete. It authenticates connections; it does not by itself encrypt application traffic. Cilium says encryption must also be enabled to meet most common service-to-service authentication and encryption requirements.
What Cilium mutual authentication does
Mutual TLS means both sides of a connection authenticate each other. Cilium describes its mutual-authentication handshake as out-of-band for regular connections, and lets a CiliumNetworkPolicy ingress or egress rule require authentication. In the documented implementation, workload identity management uses SPIFFE APIs, while SPIRE issues the workload credentials.
A Cilium Security Identity represents a set of pods described by a label set. The corresponding SPIFFE ID is a URI. In the documented SPIRE arrangement, a central server provides the trust-domain root, while a SPIRE agent on each node validates identity requests. The agent checks workload attributes, attests the request to the server, and provides an X.509 SVID containing a TLS keypair. Cilium agents can request identities on behalf of workloads.
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See Cilium’s Mutual Authentication documentation for the implementation and release-specific requirements.
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How to enable it with Cilium and SPIRE
Cilium’s stable guide, labeled 1.20.2, documents two deployment paths: install SPIRE with Cilium’s Helm chart or use a separately managed SPIRE server. The bundled installation requires PersistentVolumeClaim support by default. For a lab or local cluster, the guide suggests in-memory server storage as an alternative, with the consequence that SPIRE server data is recreated after a restart.
The guide’s CLI example requires Cilium CLI Helm mode version 0.15 or later. These settings enable mutual authentication and installation of the bundled SPIRE server:
authentication.mutual.spire.enabled=true
authentication.mutual.spire.install.enabled=trueUse the exact syntax and values for your installed Cilium release rather than assuming the stable example applies unchanged. The Cilium Helm values reference documents settings such as the SPIRE server address and SPIFFE trust domain; it lists spiffe.cilium as the trust-domain default for the documented release. Persistent SPIRE storage is enabled by default in those Helm values, so confirm the cluster has appropriate persistent-volume support before relying on the bundled setup.
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Apply authentication in network policy
Once SPIRE is running and workload identities are registered, require authentication in the ingress or egress rule where it is needed. Cilium’s example uses authentication: mode: "required" in a CiliumNetworkPolicy. That makes authentication an explicit policy condition rather than a blanket property of every connection.
Use the Mutual Authentication Example for the complete release-specific policy and workflow.
Verify that authentication is working
After deployment, check the components and the policy outcome rather than treating successful installation as proof that traffic is authenticated:
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- Confirm the SPIRE server is healthy.
- Confirm the Cilium agent, Cilium operator, and relevant workloads have registered identities.
- Apply the policy rule with authentication set to required for the intended ingress or egress traffic.
- Test both traffic that should be allowed and traffic that should be denied by policy.
- Inspect Cilium agent logs for certificate validation and successful authentication.
The documented example output is illustrative; results depend on the cluster and its release.
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Authentication and encryption answer different questions. Mutual authentication checks the identities of the communicating peers; it does not establish that application traffic is encrypted. Cilium’s documentation says, “For Cilium to meet most of the common requirements for service-to-service authentication and encryption, users must enable encryption.” It points to WireGuard and IPsec transparent encryption as options that create and maintain encrypted connections between pods. Consult Cilium’s mutual-authentication guide alongside its encryption guidance when both properties are required.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How the separate ztunnel option differs
Cilium also documents ztunnel as a beta option for transparent Layer 4 mTLS authentication and encryption for Cilium-managed endpoints. It is a separate implementation path, not simply another setting for the policy-driven handshake.
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| Aspect | Policy-driven mutual authentication | Ztunnel transparent encryption |
|---|---|---|
| Documented maturity | Beta and incomplete, per the mutual-authentication guide | Beta, per the ztunnel guide |
| How it is applied | Authentication is required by a CiliumNetworkPolicy ingress or egress rule | Pods are enrolled by namespace and traffic is redirected through a per-node ztunnel proxy |
| Encryption | Authentication alone does not encrypt application traffic; Cilium says to enable encryption for most common authentication-and-encryption requirements | Provides transparent Layer 4 mTLS authentication and encryption |
| Operational identity material | Documented identity path uses SPIFFE APIs and SPIRE-issued X.509 SVIDs | Required private keys and certificates must be available through Kubernetes secrets |
For ztunnel’s requirements and behavior, see Cilium’s Ztunnel Transparent Encryption guide. Check the documentation for your release before choosing between these approaches.
Compatibility and production-readiness limits
Cilium’s stable mutual-authentication guide labels the feature beta and says, “This feature is still incomplete, see Detailed Roadmap Status below for more details.” The guide also lists outstanding security and maturity work, including WireGuard integration, per-connection handshakes, syncing ipcache with authentication data, detailed security-model documentation, penetration testing, reducing packet drops, using the authentication secret for network encryption, and maturity review. These are release-sensitive status statements; consult the current guide before making deployment decisions.
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- SPIRE validation: Cilium says its support has been validated only with SPIRE. Other SPIFFE implementations may work in principle, but the project does not currently support them.
- Cluster Mesh: The documented feature is not compatible with clusters connected in Cluster Mesh because they do not share a trust domain for this feature.
- External mTLS: The guide says this feature is not compatible with an external mTLS solution.
- Storage: The documented bundled Helm configuration uses persistent SPIRE server storage by default, so suitable persistent-volume support is an operational prerequisite unless a different storage choice is made.
These constraints mean the documented feature should not be treated as a mature, universally interoperable mTLS layer. Validate compatibility and security requirements against the specific Cilium release and cluster design.
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