Zuplo

API Key Authentication

Secure Your Grape API with API Keys

The Zuplo API Gateway protects your backend API from unauthorized access, abuse, and overload. Add API key authentication to your Grape API in minutes.

Secure Access

Authenticate every request before it reaches your backend.

Control Costs

Set rate limits and quotas to prevent runaway usage.

Ensure Reliability

Shield your backend from overload with traffic management.

How it works

The Zuplo API Gateway sits between your clients and your Grape backend, providing a secure layer of protection and control.

Client
Zuplo API Gateway

Customer VPC

Backend

Step-by-step tutorial

It takes only a few minutes to put Zuplo in front of your Grape backend, adding API key authentication, and configuring your origin to trust requests from Zuplo using shared secrets.

1

Create a Route in Zuplo

First, create a new route in your Zuplo project that will proxy requests to your Grape backend. This route will be the entry point for your API consumers.

Creating a route in Zuplo
Learn how to create routes

📄 OpenAPI native. Import your existing OpenAPI spec to instantly create routes and power your API documentation .

2

Add API Key Authentication Policy

Add the API Key Authentication policy to your route. This policy validates incoming API keys and ensures only authorized consumers can access your API.

Adding API Key Authentication policy in Zuplo
API Key Authentication docs

🔐 Leaked key? No problem. As a GitHub Secret Scanning partner, Zuplo can automatically revoke exposed keys before they can be exploited.

3

Add Set Header Policy

Add the Set Header policy to your route. This policy sets the shared secret header on requests to ensure only requests from Zuplo are accepted by your API.

Adding Set Header policy in Zuplo
Set Header Policy docs
4

Secure Your Grape API with the Shared Secret

Configure your Grape backend to validate the shared secret header set by Zuplo. This ensures that only requests coming through your Zuplo gateway are accepted.

RubyRuby
require 'grape'
require 'rack/utils'
require 'openssl'

class API < Grape::API
  before do
    validate_shared_secret
  end

  helpers do
    def validate_shared_secret
      secret = headers['X-Shared-Secret']
      expected_secret = ENV['SHARED_SECRET']

      error!('Server configuration error', 500) unless expected_secret
      error!('No secret provided', 401) unless secret

      unless secure_compare(secret, expected_secret)
        error!('Invalid secret', 401)
      end
    end

    def secure_compare(a, b)
      return false unless a.bytesize == b.bytesize

      OpenSSL.secure_compare(a, b)
    end
  end

  resource :protected do
    get do
      { message: 'Access granted' }
    end
  end
end
5

Call Your API Through Zuplo

Now you can call your API through Zuplo using an API key. The request will be authenticated at the gateway, and securely forwarded to your Grape backend.

Terminalbash
curl -X GET \
  'https://your-api.zuplo.dev/your-route' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY'

Ready to secure your API?

Get started with Zuplo for free and add API key authentication to your Grape API in minutes.