How to set up mTLS

Introduction

Calls from your backend to Lean are required to be made over Mutual Transport Layer Security (mTLS). mTLS is a certificate based authentication protocol that replaces oAuth public / private keys. Instead of sending a private key, you send your certificate with your calls to the Lean servers to authenticate.

If you'd like to learn more about what mTLS does and how it works you can learn more here.

Getting your certificates

When you create an application at dev.leantech.me you will be able to download two files from the authentication section of the developer portal. By clicking 'generate new certificate' a zip folder containing my_app_private_key.pem file and a my_app_cert.crt file will be downloaded.

Within the UI on dev.leantech.me you should also download the Lean certificate chain. To do this click the button labelled 'Certificate chain'. This should trigger a further download of a zipped folder containing lean_public_cert_chain.pem.

❗️
Protect your Lean Private Key
The private key must be managed securely during its entire lifecycle:

Store the private key in a secure vault or a key-management-system with role based access control, audit and authentication in place

Inform Lean in case of any key leakage so that we revoke your certificate

Do not share your credentials to anyone

With the above complete you should now have three files. You will find several code examples on how to use them further down on this page.

Testing mTLS in sandbox

In order to test mTLS in Sandbox, you will have to use a different base URL for the sandbox API:

https://mtls.sandbox.leantech.me

Any call made to this base URL requires you to use mTLS, with your certificates from the sandbox section in the developer portal. Calls to the https://sandbox.leantech.me base URL do not require mTLS and can be access just using the lean-app-token as authentication method.

Node example

const fs = require('fs')
const https = require('https')
const axios = require('axios')

const httpsAgent = new https.Agent({
  // This is your application certificate
  cert: fs.readFileSync('cert.crt'),
  // This is your private key associated with application certificate
  key: fs.readFileSync('key.pem'),
  // This is Lean's public certificate chain.
  ca: fs.readFileSync('ca.pem'),
})

const start = async () => {
  try {
    const request = await axios({
      method: 'post',
      headers: {
        'lean-app-token': 'LEAN_APP_TOKEN',
      },
      httpsAgent,
      // You can change the end point per your need. This endpoint is good for
      // testing mTLS
      url: 'https://api.leantech.me/customers/v1',
      withCredentials: true,
      jar: true,
    })
    console.log(request)
  } catch (error) {
    console.log(error)
  }
}

start()

Ruby example

require 'openssl'
require 'net/http'

options = {
  use_ssl: true,
  verify_mode: OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_PEER,
  cert: OpenSSL::X509::Certificate.new(File.read('cert.crt')),
  key: OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.new(File.read('key.pem')),
  ca_file: 'ca.pem'
}

uri = URI("https://api.leantech.me/banks/v1")
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
req["lean-app-token"] = "<LEAN_APP_TOKEN>"

res = Net::HTTP.start(uri.hostname, uri.port, options) { |http|
  http.request(req)
}

puts res.body

Python example

import requests

getBanksUrl = 'https://api.leantech.me/banks/v1/'

headers = {'lean-app-token': '<LEAN_APP_TOKEN>', 'Content-Type': 'application/json'}

result = requests.get(
    getBanksUrl,
    headers=headers,
    cert=('cert.crt', 'key.pem'), # Use the path to your own certificate and private key here
    verify='ca.pem'
    )

if (result.status_code == 200) :
    print (result.json())
else :
    print (f"Error - {result.json()['status']}: {result.json()['message']}")

Go example

package main

import (
	"crypto/tls"
	"crypto/x509"
	"flag"
	"io/ioutil"
	"log"
	"net/http"
)

var (
	// cert file MUST be a concatenation of certificate provided by Lean AND the certificate chain!!!
	certFile = flag.String("cert", "cert.crt", "Your application certificate provided by Lean concatenated with cert chain")
	keyFile  = flag.String("key", "key.pem", "Your private key attached to application certificate")
	caFile   = flag.String("CA", "ca.pem", "Lean's public certificate chain")
)

func main() {
	flag.Parse()

	// Load client cert
	cert, err := tls.LoadX509KeyPair(*certFile, *keyFile)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	// Load CA cert
	caCert, err := ioutil.ReadFile(*caFile)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	caCertPool := x509.NewCertPool()
	caCertPool.AppendCertsFromPEM(caCert)

	// Setup HTTPS client
	tlsConfig := &tls.Config{
		Certificates: []tls.Certificate{cert},
		RootCAs:      caCertPool,
	}
	tlsConfig.BuildNameToCertificate()
	transport := &http.Transport{TLSClientConfig: tlsConfig}
	client := &http.Client{Transport: transport}

	// Please change the end point and app token as required.
	req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://api.leantech.me/banks/v1", nil)
	req.Header.Set("lean-app-token", "<LEAN_APP_TOKEN>")
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	res, err := client.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	contents, err := ioutil.ReadAll(res.Body)
	log.Print(string(contents))

}

Dotnet / C# example

Please find the guide for .net on our Github: https://github.com/leantechnologies/lfs-mtls

Java example

Please find the example for Java on our Github: https://github.com/leantechnologies/integration-snippets/tree/master/mtls-examples/java

Introduction

Getting your certificates

❗️Protect your Lean Private Key

Testing mTLS in sandbox

Node example

Ruby example

Python example

Go example

Dotnet / C# example

Java example

❗️
Protect your Lean Private Key