To configure an Ory Oathkeeper access rule for your Ory Network project, you need to define access rules for your API endpoints. These rules can be stored on the file system, set as an environment variable, or fetched from HTTP(s) remotes. Here is an example of how you can create an access rule: 1. Create a file named

access-rules.yml

with the following content:

yaml - id: "ws:protected"     upstream:       preserve_host: true       url: "<http://ws:8080>"     match:       url: "<http://127.0.0.1:8080/<**>>"       methods:       - GET       - POST     authenticators:       - handler: cookie_session     mutators:       - handler: noop     authorizer:       handler: allow     errors:       - handler: redirect       config:         to: <http://127.0.0.1:4455/login>

This configuration uses the cookie authenticator against Ory Kratos and proxies only authenticated requests to

<http://ws:8080>

upstream. The

ws

hostname is resolved through the Docker network. If you aren't deploying your application within Docker, this would just be your localhost IP. 2. Then, you need to configure Ory Oathkeeper to use these access rules. This can be done in the configuration file (

oathkeeper -c ./path/to/config.yml ...

). Here is an example of how to configure the access rules:

yaml access_rules:     repositories:       - <file://path/to/rules.json>

In this example, the access rules are fetched from the local file system. You can also fetch them from HTTP(s) locations, or from an object storage like AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Azure Blob Storage. For more detailed information, please refer to the [Ory Oathkeeper documentation](https://www.ory.sh/docs/oathkeeper/api-access-rules).

The

cookie_session

authenticator in the Ory Oathkeeper configuration points to the Ory Network instance by using the

check_session_url

parameter. This parameter is set to the Ory Kratos'

/sessions/whoami

API, which is used to identify if a request contains a session or not. Here is the relevant part of the configuration:

yaml authenticators:     cookie_session:       enabled: true       config:         check_session_url: <http://kratos:4433/sessions/whoami>         preserve_path: true         extra_from: "@this"         subject_from: "identity.id"         only:         - ory_kratos_session

In this example,

<http://kratos:4433/sessions/whoami>

is the URL of the Ory Kratos'

/sessions/whoami

API. You should replace

<http://kratos:4433>

with the URL of your Ory Network instance. For more information, please refer to the [Ory Oathkeeper documentation](https://www.ory.sh/docs/kratos/guides/zero-trust-iap-proxy-identity-access-proxy#ory-oathkeeper-identity-and-access-proxy).

To enable the self-service return to parameter when using Ory Network, you can append a

return_to=<your-url>

query parameter to the URL. This redirects the user to the set URL when they complete the self-service flow. Here's an example:

html <a href="/.ory/self-service/login/browser?return_to=https://localhost:4000/my-url">Log in</a>

The domain used in

return_to

must be an allow-listed URL set in the project configuration. The URL must include the protocol and domain. Relative URLs aren't supported. For more information, refer to the [Ory Proxy URL structure documentation](https://www.ory.sh/docs/guides/cli/proxy-and-tunnel#url-structure).

New message text here

To redirect a user back to the original URL after login, you can use the

return_to

query parameter when initializing the login flow. The

return_to

URL is the redirect URL after the flow is completed. Here's an example of how to achieve this: 1. Initialize the flow with a

return_to

URL. For example, if a user requests

<https://www.myapp.com/blog/write>

but isn't logged in, you want the user to end up at that page after login. To achieve that, append

?return_to=<https://www.myapp.com/blog/write>

when initializing the Login flow.

html <a href="/.ory/self-service/login/browser?return_to=https://www.myapp.com/blog/write">Log in</a>

2. Use the flow data to render the UI. 3. Submit the flow with user data. 4. If the flow is successful, the user is redirected to the URL defined in the

return_to

parameter. Remember, the

return_to

URL must be in the allow list of your Ory configuration to prevent [Open Redirect Attacks](https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/Unvalidated_Redirects_and_Forwards_Cheat_Sheet.html). For more information, refer to the [Ory documentation on Advanced Redirects](https://www.ory.sh/docs/kratos/bring-your-own-ui/custom-ui-advanced-integration#advanced-redirects).

The configuration you've provided seems to be on the right track. However, the

return_to

parameter in the

to

field of the

redirect

error handler might not work as expected. The

return_to

parameter is typically used in the context of Ory Kratos' self-service flows, not Ory Oathkeeper's error handlers. In Ory Oathkeeper, the

redirect

error handler returns a HTTP 302/301 response with a

Location

Header. If you want to append the current URL (where the error happened) to the address redirected to, you can specify

return_to_query_param

to set the name of the parameter that will hold the URL. Here's an example of how to use the

redirect

error handler:

json {   "handler": "redirect",   "config": {     "to": "<http://my-website/login>",     "return_to_query_param": "return_to",     "code": 301,     "when": [       // ...     ]   } }

In this example, when the user accesses a protected URL

<http://my-website/settings>

, they will be redirected to

<http://my-website/login?return_to=http%3A%2F%2Fmy-website%2Fsettings>

. The login page can use the

return_to

parameter to return the user to the intended page after a successful login. For more information, refer to the [Ory Oathkeeper documentation on Error Handlers](https://www.ory.sh/docs/oathkeeper/pipeline/error#redirect).