Authenticating ML Workload with OpenID Connect Providers

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To authenticate machine learning (ML) workloads with OpenID Connect (OIDC) Providers in the context of Pulumi and cloud services, it's common to incorporate identity services that are part of cloud offerings. For example, if you're deploying your ML workload on AWS, you could use Amazon Cognito with an OIDC provider, or for Azure, you could use Azure Active Directory (AD).

The process typically involves creating an OIDC identity provider in your cloud's identity service, configuring the identity provider with the details provided by the OIDC provider (like client ID, client secret, and issuer URL), and then using this identity setup to control access to your ML workloads.

Here is how you might set up an OIDC provider with AWS Cognito and then use it to authenticate an ML workload. AWS Cognito offers capabilities to create an identity pool with OIDC providers which can then be used to grant authenticated and unauthenticated users access to AWS services.

Below is a Pulumi program written in Python that shows how to create an OIDC provider in AWS Cognito:

```python
import pulumi
import pulumi_aws as aws

# Create an AWS Cognito User Pool
user_pool = aws.cognito.UserPool("mlUserPool", name="ml-user-pool")

# OIDC Identity Provider details (replace the placeholder strings with actual values from your OIDC Provider)
# You would have these values from the OIDC Provider you are integrating with.
# 'client_id' is the OIDC Client ID.
# 'issuer' is the OIDC Issuer URL.
# The 'provider_details' depend on the specific OIDC Provider but typically include authorization and token endpoint information.
oidc_provider_details = {
    "client_id": "your_oidc_client_id",
    "issuer": "your_oidc_issuer_url",
    "authorize_scopes": "openid,profile,email",
    # ... Other details specific to your OIDC Provider
}

# Create an AWS Cognito User Pool Identity Provider and connect it with the OIDC provider details.
user_pool_idp = aws.cognito.IdentityProvider("mlIdp", 
    user_pool_id=user_pool.id,
    provider_name="OIDC_provider_name",
    provider_type="OIDC",
    provider_details=oidc_provider_details,
    attribute_mapping={
        # Map OIDC token claims to Cognito User Pool attributes
        "email": "email",
        "username": "sub",
        # ... Other mappings as required
    }
)

# Outputs are a way to expose information about the resources created by your Pulumi program. 
# Here we are exporting the ID of the User Pool and the name of our OIDC provider. 
# This information can be used to configure other services or in the application code that uses Cognito for authentication.
pulumi.export('user_pool_id', user_pool.id)
pulumi.export('identity_provider_name', user_pool_idp.provider_name)
```

This program does the following:
1. Creates a new Amazon Cognito User Pool with the name `ml-user-pool`. User pools are user directories that provide sign-up and sign-in options for your app users.
2. Sets up an OIDC identity provider in the user pool. The identity provider configuration includes various details necessary for the integration, such as the client ID, issuer URL, and authorization scopes.
3. Maps attributes from the OIDC provider to the user pool, like the user's email and username.
4. Exports the user pool ID and identity provider name for potential use elsewhere, like in a CI/CD pipeline or in an application configuration.

Remember to replace placeholder strings such as `"your_oidc_client_id"` and `"your_oidc_issuer_url"` with actual values from your OIDC provider. The `attribute_mapping` component will vary based on the claim names provided by your OIDC provider.

Once you've established the OIDC provider in AWS Cognito, you can reference the user pool in the IAM policies for your AWS resources related to the ML workload to control access based on authentication status.

Before running this Pulumi program, make sure to install the necessary [Pulumi AWS SDK](https://www.pulumi.com/registry/packages/aws/api-docs/) by running `pip install pulumi_aws`. Additionally, configure the [AWS CLI](https://aws.amazon.com/cli/) with the necessary permissions and default region.

The above is a simplification for the purposes of illustration; actual infrastructure code might need to consider more aspects such as error handling and tagging of resources for better manageability.