Machine Identities

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Concept

An Infisical machine identity is an entity that represents a workload or application that require access to various resources in Infisical. This is conceptually similar to an IAM user in AWS or service account in Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Each identity must authenticate with the API using a supported authentication method like Universal Auth to get back a short-lived access token to be used in subsequent requests.

Key Features:

• Role Assignment: Identities must be assigned roles. These roles determine the scope of access to resources, either at the organization level or project level.
• Auth/Token Configuration: Identities must be configured with corresponding authentication methods and access token properties to securely interact with the Infisical API.

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Workflow

A typical workflow for using identities consists of four steps:

1. Creating the identity with a name and role in Organization Access Control > Machine Identities. This step also involves configuring an authentication method for it such as Universal Auth.
2. Adding the identity to the project(s) you want it to have access to.
3. Authenticating the identity with the Infisical API based on the configured authentication method on it and receiving a short-lived access token back.
4. Authenticating subsequent requests with the Infisical API using the short-lived access token.

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Authentication Methods

To interact with various resources in Infisical, Machine Identities are able to authenticate using:

• Universal Auth: the most versatile authentication method that can be configured on an identity from any platform/environment to access Infisical.

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FAQ