authmcp-gateway 1.2.15
Universal Authentication Gateway for MCP (Model Context Protocol) Servers
Requires Python: >=3.11
Keywords: mcp, authentication, gateway, oauth2, jwt, proxy, model-context-protocol

# AuthMCP Gateway

**Secure authentication proxy for Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers**

[![PyPI version](https://badge.fury.io/py/authmcp-gateway.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/authmcp-gateway/)
[![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg)](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
[![Python 3.11+](https://img.shields.io/badge/python-3.11+-blue.svg)](https://www.python.org/downloads/)
[![Docker](https://img.shields.io/badge/docker-ready-brightgreen.svg)](https://hub.docker.com/)
[![MCP 2025-03-26](https://img.shields.io/badge/MCP-2025--03--26-purple.svg)](https://modelcontextprotocol.io)

AuthMCP Gateway is a **full MCP protocol proxy** with centralized authentication, authorization, and monitoring. It transparently proxies all MCP capabilities — tools, resources, prompts, and completions — from multiple backend servers through a single authenticated endpoint.

**OAuth + DCR ready:** the gateway supports OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code flow with Dynamic Client Registration (DCR), so MCP clients like Codex can self-register and authenticate without manual client provisioning.

## 📋 Table of Contents

- [✨ Features](#-features)
- [📸 Screenshots](#-screenshots)
- [🚀 Quick Start](#-quick-start)
- [⚙️ Configuration](#️-configuration)
- [💡 Usage](#-usage)
- [🏗️ Architecture](#️-architecture)
- [🔌 API Endpoints](#-api-endpoints)
- [🔐 Security](#-security)
- [🛠️ Development](#️-development)
- [📊 Monitoring](#-monitoring)
- [🔧 Troubleshooting](#-troubleshooting)

---

## ✨ Features

### 🔗 **Full MCP Protocol Proxy** (v1.2.0)
- **Tools** - `tools/list`, `tools/call` with intelligent routing (prefix, mapping, auto-discovery)
- **Resources** - `resources/list`, `resources/read`, `resources/templates/list`
- **Prompts** - `prompts/list`, `prompts/get`
- **Completions** - `completion/complete` with ref-based routing
- **Dynamic Capabilities** - queries backends on `initialize` and advertises only what they support
- **Multi-server aggregation** - list methods merge results from all backends; read/get/call routes to the correct one
- **Protocol version** - MCP 2025-03-26

### 🔐 **Authentication & Authorization**
- **OAuth 2.0 + JWT** - Industry-standard authentication flow
- **Dynamic Client Registration (DCR)** - MCP clients can self-register for OAuth
- **User Management** - Multi-user support with role-based access
- **Backend Token Management** - Secure storage and auto-refresh of MCP server credentials
- **Rate Limiting** - Per-user request throttling with configurable limits

### 📊 **Real-Time Monitoring**
- **Live MCP Activity Monitor** - Real-time request feed with auto-refresh
- **Performance Metrics** - Response times, success rates, requests/minute
- **Security Event Logging** - Unauthorized access attempts, rate limiting, suspicious activity
- **Health Checking** - Automatic health checks for all connected MCP servers

### 🎛️ **Admin Dashboard**
- **User Management** - Create, edit, and manage users
- **MCP Server Configuration** - Add and configure backend MCP servers
- **Token Management** - Monitor token health and manual refresh
- **Security Events** - View and filter security events
- **Security Audit** - MCP vulnerability scanning

### 🛡️ **Security**
- JWT token-based authentication with refresh tokens
- Secure credential storage with encrypted database support
- CORS protection and request validation
- Security event logging and monitoring
- **File-based logging** - JSON logs for auth & MCP requests with rotation; security events remain in SQLite for audit/queries

## 📸 Screenshots

<details>
<summary><b>🖥️ Dashboard - Real-time Overview</b></summary>

![Dashboard](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/loglux/authmcp-gateway/main/screenshots/01-dashboard.png)

*Live statistics, server health monitoring, top tools usage, and recent activity feed*
</details>

<details>
<summary><b>🔧 MCP Servers - Connection Management</b></summary>

![MCP Servers](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/loglux/authmcp-gateway/main/screenshots/02-mcp-servers.png)

*Manage backend MCP server connections with status monitoring and health checks*
</details>

<details>
<summary><b>📊 MCP Activity Monitor - Real-time Request Tracking</b></summary>

![MCP Activity](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/loglux/authmcp-gateway/main/screenshots/03-mcp-activity.png)

*Monitor live MCP requests with detailed metrics, top tools ranking, and request feed*
</details>

<details>
<summary><b>🛡️ Security Events - Threat Detection</b></summary>

![Security Events](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/loglux/authmcp-gateway/main/screenshots/04-security-events.png)

*Track security events, rate limiting, suspicious payloads, and unauthorized access attempts*
</details>

<details>
<summary><b>🔒 MCP Security Audit - Vulnerability Scanner</b></summary>

![MCP Security Audit](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/loglux/authmcp-gateway/main/screenshots/05-mcp-security-audit.png)

*Test any MCP server for security vulnerabilities with comprehensive automated checks*
</details>

---

## 🚀 Quick Start

### Option 1: PyPI Package (Recommended)

**1. Install:**
```bash
pip install authmcp-gateway
```

**2. First Run:**
```bash
authmcp-gateway start
# ✓ Auto-creates .env with JWT_SECRET_KEY
# ✓ Auto-creates data/ directory
# ✓ Initializes database
```

**3. Access Setup Wizard:**
Open **http://localhost:8000/** in your browser to create admin user.

**4. Optional - Customize Configuration:**
```bash
# Edit auto-generated .env or download full example
curl -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/loglux/authmcp-gateway/main/.env.example.pypi

# Common settings to customize in .env:
# PORT=9000                          # Change server port
# PASSWORD_REQUIRE_SPECIAL=false     # Relax password requirements
# LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG                    # More detailed logs

# Restart to apply changes
authmcp-gateway start
```

**Available Commands:**
```bash
authmcp-gateway start                    # Start server (default: 0.0.0.0:8000)
authmcp-gateway start --port 9000        # Start on custom port
authmcp-gateway start --host 127.0.0.1   # Bind to localhost only
authmcp-gateway start --env-file custom.env  # Use custom config file

authmcp-gateway init-db                  # Initialize database
authmcp-gateway create-admin             # Create admin user via CLI
authmcp-gateway version                  # Show version
authmcp-gateway --help                   # Show all options
```

### Option 2: Docker Compose

1. **Clone and configure:**
   ```bash
   git clone https://github.com/loglux/authmcp-gateway.git
   cd authmcp-gateway
   cp .env.example .env
   # Edit .env with your settings
   ```

2. **Start the gateway:**
   ```bash
   docker-compose up -d
   ```

3. **Access admin panel:**
   - Open http://localhost:9105/
   - Complete setup wizard to create admin user
   - Add your MCP servers

## ⚙️ Configuration

### Environment Variables

```bash
# Gateway Settings
GATEWAY_PORT=9105              # Host port mapping for Docker (container listens on 8000)
JWT_SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key # JWT signing key (auto-generated if not set)
AUTH_REQUIRED=true             # Enable authentication (default: true)

# Admin Settings
ADMIN_USERNAME=admin           # Initial admin username
ADMIN_PASSWORD=secure-password # Initial admin password
```

### Adding MCP Servers

Via Admin Panel:
1. Navigate to **MCP Servers** → **Add Server**
2. Enter server details:
   - Name (e.g., "GitHub MCP")
   - URL (e.g., "http://github-mcp:8000/mcp")
   - Backend token (if required)

Via API:
```bash
curl -X POST http://localhost:9105/admin/api/mcp-servers \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "GitHub MCP",
    "url": "http://github-mcp:8000/mcp",
    "backend_token": "optional-token"
  }'
```

## 💡 Usage

### For End Users

1. **Login to get access token:**
   ```bash
   curl -X POST http://localhost:9105/auth/login \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"username":"your-username","password":"your-password"}'
   ```

2. **Use token to access MCP endpoints:**
   ```bash
   # List tools from all backends
   curl -X POST http://localhost:9105/mcp \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}'

   # List resources
   curl -X POST http://localhost:9105/mcp \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"resources/list"}'

   # List prompts
   curl -X POST http://localhost:9105/mcp \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":3,"method":"prompts/list"}'

   # Ping
   curl -X POST http://localhost:9105/mcp \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":4,"method":"ping"}'
   ```

### For Administrators

**Admin Panel Features:**
- **Dashboard** - Overview of users, servers, and activity
- **MCP Activity** - Real-time monitoring of all MCP requests
- **Security Events** - View unauthorized access attempts and suspicious activity
- **User Management** - Create and manage user accounts
- **Token Management** - Monitor and refresh backend tokens

## 🏗️ Architecture

```
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│     MCP Clients (Claude, Codex, etc.)    │
│     OAuth 2.0 / JWT Authentication       │
└──────────────┬───────────────────────────┘
               │
       ┌───────▼────────────────────────┐
       │       AuthMCP Gateway          │
       │     MCP 2025-03-26 Proxy      │
       │                                │
       │  • Full MCP Protocol Proxy     │
       │  • Tools / Resources / Prompts │
       │  • OAuth 2.0 + DCR            │
       │  • JWT Authentication          │
       │  • Rate Limiting               │
       │  • Security Logging            │
       │  • Multi-Server Aggregation    │
       │  • Health Monitoring           │
       │  • Admin Dashboard             │
       └───────┬────────────────────────┘
               │
    ┌──────────┼──────────┬──────────┐
    ▼          ▼          ▼          ▼
┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐
│GitHub  │ │  RAG   │ │Zapier  │ │Custom  │
│ MCP    │ │  MCP   │ │  MCP   │ │  MCP   │
└────────┘ └────────┘ └────────┘ └────────┘
```

## 🔌 API Endpoints

### Public Endpoints
- `POST /auth/login` - User login
- `POST /auth/register` - User registration (if enabled)
- `POST /auth/refresh` - Refresh access token
- `POST /oauth/register` - OAuth dynamic client registration (if enabled)
- `GET /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server` - OAuth discovery

### Protected Endpoints
- `POST /mcp` - Aggregated MCP endpoint (all servers)
- `POST /mcp/{server_name}` - Specific MCP server endpoint
- `GET /mcp` - Streamable MCP endpoint (SSE/stream clients)
- `GET /auth/me` - Current user info
- `POST /auth/logout` - Logout

### Supported MCP Methods

| Method | Description |
|--------|-------------|
| `initialize` | Dynamic capabilities discovery from backends |
| `ping` | Health check |
| `tools/list` | Aggregated tools from all backends |
| `tools/call` | Routed to correct backend (prefix/mapping/auto-discovery) |
| `resources/list` | Aggregated resources from all backends |
| `resources/read` | Routed by URI to owning backend |
| `resources/templates/list` | Aggregated resource templates |
| `prompts/list` | Aggregated prompts from all backends |
| `prompts/get` | Routed by name to owning backend |
| `completion/complete` | Routed by ref type (prompt/resource) |
| `logging/setLevel` | Accepted (no-op at gateway level) |
| `notifications/*` | Gracefully ignored |
| Direct tool name (e.g. `rag_query`) | Codex-style: routed as `tools/call` ([openai/codex#2264](https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/2264)) |
| Unknown namespaced methods | Returns JSON-RPC `-32601 Method not found` |

## 🤖 Codex OAuth (DCR) Login (Manual Callback)

Codex uses OAuth Authorization Code + PKCE and Dynamic Client Registration (DCR). When running in a terminal
without an auto-launching browser, you must manually open the authorization URL and then **call the localhost
callback URL yourself** to finish the login.

Steps:

1. Add the MCP server in Codex:
```bash
codex mcp add rag --url https://your-domain.com/mcp/your-backend
```
2. Codex prints an **Authorize URL**. Open it in your browser.
3. Complete the login (admin/user credentials).
4. After successful login you will be redirected to a `http://127.0.0.1:<port>/callback?...` URL.
   Copy that full URL and call it from another terminal:
```bash
curl "http://127.0.0.1:<port>/callback?code=...&state=..."
```
You should see: `Authentication complete. You may close this window.`

Once completed, Codex shows the MCP server as logged in.

### Headless Token Storage (Important)

On headless servers (no desktop environment), Codex cannot access the OS keyring to store OAuth tokens.
This causes "Auth required" errors even after a successful login. To fix this, switch to file-based token storage:

```toml
# ~/.codex/config.toml
mcp_oauth_credentials_store = "file"
```

Reference: [Codex Config Reference](https://developers.openai.com/codex/config-reference)

Without this parameter Codex fails to refresh tokens because it looks for a keyring security service and
fails. That forces you to re-login each time again and again following the manual procedure above.
After updating the config, restart Codex.

If you are already locked out and see this warning:

```
⚠ The rag MCP server is not logged in. Run `codex mcp login rag`.
⚠ MCP startup incomplete (failed: rag)
```

You can refresh tokens with the helper script without going through the manual authentication procedure again:

```bash
python3 scripts/codex_refresh_mcp.py rag https://your-domain.com/oauth/token
```

### Codex Multi-Machine Note

If Codex runs on multiple machines, each machine stores its own local tokens. In that case, a login from one
machine can invalidate tokens on another when **Enforce Single Session** is enabled (one active token per user).
Disable **Enforce Single Session** in the admin settings to avoid forced logouts in multi-machine setups.



## 🔐 Security

### Security Features
- ✅ JWT-based authentication with refresh tokens
- ✅ Rate limiting per user
- ✅ Security event logging
- ✅ MCP request tracking with suspicious activity detection
- ✅ Health monitoring for backend servers
- ✅ CORS protection
- ✅ Secure credential storage

## 🛠️ Development

### Local Development

```bash
# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/loglux/authmcp-gateway.git
cd authmcp-gateway

# Create virtual environment
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # or `venv\Scripts\activate` on Windows

# Install dependencies
pip install -e .

# Run gateway
authmcp-gateway
```

### Running Tests

```bash
pytest tests/
```

### Project Structure

```
authmcp-gateway/
├── src/authmcp_gateway/
│   ├── admin/           # Admin panel routes and logic
│   ├── auth/            # Authentication & authorization
│   ├── mcp/             # MCP proxy and handlers
│   ├── security/        # Security logging and monitoring
│   ├── middleware.py    # Request middleware
│   └── app.py           # Main application
│   ├── templates/       # Jinja2 templates (admin UI)
├── docs/                # Documentation
├── tests/               # Test suite
└── docker-compose.yml   # Docker deployment
```

## 📊 Monitoring

### Real-Time Dashboard

Access `/admin/mcp-activity` for:
- Live request feed (updates every 3 seconds)
- Requests per minute
- Average response times
- Success rates
- Top tools usage
- Per-server statistics

### Logs

View logs in real-time:
```bash
docker logs -f authmcp-gateway
```

## 🔧 Troubleshooting

**Cannot access admin panel:**
- Ensure you've completed the setup wizard at `/setup`
- Check that cookies are enabled
- Verify JWT_SECRET_KEY is set correctly

**MCP server shows as offline:**
- Check server URL is correct and reachable
- Verify backend token if required
- View error details in MCP Servers page

**401 Unauthorized errors:**
- Token may have expired - use refresh token
- Verify Authorization header format: `Bearer YOUR_TOKEN`
- Check user has permission for the MCP server

For more help, see the troubleshooting and usage sections above.

## License

MIT License - see [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for details.