agent_gateway

An mTLS HTTP/2 CONNECT proxy that authorizes connections based on custom X.509 certificate extensions.

The proxy accepts incoming mTLS connections, extracts a custom extension value from the client certificate, and checks it against a TOML policy file to decide whether the client may connect to the requested destination. If allowed, it opens a raw TCP connection to the destination and tunnels data bidirectionally. The client is responsible for establishing its own TLS session to the destination through the tunnel.

Building

cargo build --release

The sidecar uses a simulated TPM identity. Install the native TPM stack before building or running it:

sudo apt-get install libtss2-dev swtpm tpm2-tools pkg-config

Quick start

./examples/generate-certs.sh          # server CA + gateway cert under certs/
cp config.example.toml config.toml    # edit to taste

generate-certs.sh only creates server TLS material (server-ca.pem, server.pem, ...). Each agent platform enrolls with ./examples/connect.sh, which starts a local swtpm, creates a persistent P-256 signing key in that simulated TPM, and issues machine-client.pem for the TPM public key. The gateway needs the generated machine-client-ca.pem in certs/client-ca-bundle.pem before it can trust that sidecar.

Typical first-time flow:

1. ./examples/generate-certs.sh and cp config.example.toml config.toml.
2. ./examples/connect.sh --gateway 127.0.0.1:8443 --gateway-ca certs/server-ca.pem creates machine-client-ca.pem under ~/.local/share/agent-gateway/ (or $XDG_DATA_HOME). Append that file to client_ca_path (for example, cat ~/.local/share/agent-gateway/machine-client-ca.pem >> certs/client-ca-bundle.pem).
3. Start the gateway (cargo run -- --config config.toml), then return to the terminal running connect.sh and press Enter to start the sidecar and Claude.

On later runs, start the gateway first, run connect.sh, and press Enter after confirming the machine CA is still registered. --regenerate-certs creates a fresh simulated TPM state and machine client CA, so the new CA must be appended to client_ca_path.

Pass a custom policy extension value: connect.sh ... --extension-value agent-beta.

The simulated TPM state lives under ~/.local/share/agent-gateway/swtpm/ unless XDG_DATA_HOME is set. By default, the sidecar uses TCTI swtpm:host=127.0.0.1,port=2321 and persistent handle 0x81010004; override the handle or simulator data port with connect.sh --tpm-handle and --swtpm-port. The swtpm control port is always the data port plus one, which matches the TSS swtpm TCTI convention.

Configuration

Copy config.example.toml to config.toml and edit it. Key sections:

[server] -- Listen address and TLS material.

Field	Required	Description
listen_addr	yes	host:port to bind (e.g. 0.0.0.0:8443)
tls_cert_path	yes	PEM server certificate
tls_key_path	yes	PEM private key for the server cert
client_ca_path	yes	PEM bundle of per-machine client CAs (append each machine-client-ca.pem)

[policy] -- Maps certificate extension values to allowed destinations.

Field	Description
client_ext_oid	OID of the custom X.509 extension to extract (dotted notation)
rules[].extension_value	Value to match in the extension
rules[].allowed_destinations	List of host or host:port entries. Port defaults to 443 if omitted.

[observability] -- Logging and tracing.

Field	Required	Description
log_level	yes	tracing filter (e.g. info, debug, agent_gateway=debug)
otlp_endpoint	no	OTLP gRPC endpoint for distributed tracing

Running

agent_gateway --config config.toml

Shut down cleanly with Ctrl-C.

Client requirements

Clients must:

1. Connect over HTTP/2 with mTLS. Present a client certificate signed by the CA specified in client_ca_path. The certificate must contain a custom X.509 extension at the OID configured in policy.client_ext_oid, with a DER-encoded UTF8String value.

2. Use the HTTP CONNECT method. The request authority must be host:port (port defaults to 443 if omitted). Example using hyper:

   let req = Request::builder()
       .method(Method::CONNECT)
       .uri("api.example.com:443")
       .body(Empty::<Bytes>::new())?;

3. Handle TLS to the destination. After receiving 200 OK, the tunnel is an opaque TCP pipe. The client must perform its own TLS handshake with the destination through the tunnel.

Response codes

Status	Meaning
200	Tunnel established -- begin sending data
400	Malformed request (missing/invalid authority)
403	Policy denied the connection
405	Non-CONNECT method used
502	Could not reach the destination

Client certificate extension

The extension value is matched exactly (case-sensitive) against policy rules. The extension must be an X.509 extension at the configured OID containing a single DER-encoded ASN.1 UTF8String.

Example certificate generation with rcgen:

use rcgen::{CertificateParams, CustomExtension};

let oid: &[u64] = &[1, 3, 6, 1, 4, 1, 57264, 1, 1];
let value = der_encode_utf8_string("agent-alpha");
params.custom_extensions.push(
    CustomExtension::from_oid_content(oid, value),
);

Tests

cargo test

38 integration tests cover policy evaluation, destination normalization (including IPv6 and default port), config validation, TLS PKI generation, and proxy request parsing.