Max PeintnerandGitHub ceba26f434 fix(login): verify API credentials at startup instead of in readiness probe (#12742)
# Which Problems Are Solved

The Login V2 readiness endpoint `/ui/v2/login/ready` performs an
authenticated `SettingsService.GetGeneralSettings` call on every
invocation.

This only affects self-hosted Login V2 deployments that probe the
endpoint periodically, for example via the Helm chart's readiness and
startup probes, the Docker `HEALTHCHECK`, or a custom HTTP probe. In
those setups every login replica continuously issues authenticated API
calls that pass through the access-log interceptor and are treated as
regular authenticated requests of the instance, although they are only
probe traffic. The login hosted by ZITADEL Cloud is not affected, and
neither are self-hosted deployments that do not probe `/ready`.

Independent of the counting, validating credentials on every probe is
unusual: readiness probes are meant to report whether a replica can
serve traffic, while configuration errors such as invalid credentials
are better caught once at startup.

# How the Problems Are Solved

The readiness endpoint now only checks that the ZITADEL API is reachable
and ready, using the API's unauthenticated `/debug/ready` endpoint. That
endpoint is served outside the access-log and quota interceptors, so
probe traffic is no longer recorded. `CUSTOM_REQUEST_HEADERS` are
applied to the readiness request as they are to gRPC requests.

The credential check moves to process startup: `register()` in
`instrumentation.ts` calls the new `verifyApiCredentials()` once, using
the same auth and transport path as real requests. If the API rejects
the credentials (`Unauthenticated`/`PermissionDenied`) or no credentials
are configured, the process exits with a clear error so misconfiguration
is visible immediately. If the API is not reachable at startup, a
warning is logged and the process continues; reachability remains the
job of the readiness probe and `ZITADEL_API_AWAITINITIALCONN`. Unit
tests cover the readiness route, the credential check result mapping,
and the startup behavior of `register()`.

No changes to the Helm chart or Dockerfile are required. Self-hosted
deployments pick up the fix with the next login image; until then, the
probe interval can be increased to reduce the number of calls.
2026-09-15 11:27:35 +00:00
2023-07-17 10:08:20 +02:00
2026-09-04 06:13:37 +02:00
2024-07-26 22:39:55 +02:00
2021-02-08 16:48:41 +01:00
2025-04-02 16:53:06 +02:00
2026-02-04 11:51:43 +01:00
2026-02-25 19:36:00 -03:00
2026-06-10 11:53:26 +00:00

ZITADEL Logo ZITADEL Logo

GitHub Workflow Status (with event) GitHub contributors

The Identity Infrastructure for Developers

ZITADEL is an open-source identity and access management platform built for teams that need more than basic auth. Whether you're securing a SaaS product, building a B2B platform, or self-hosting a production IAM stack — ZITADEL gives you everything out of the box: SSO, MFA, Passkeys, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, and a battle-tested multi-tenancy model.

No vendor lock-in. No compromise on control. Just a robust, API-first identity platform you can own.


🏡 Website  |  💬 Chat  |  📋 Docs  |  🧑‍💻 Blog  |  📞 Contact


Why ZITADEL

We built ZITADEL to handle the hardest IAM challenges at scale — starting with multi-tenancy.

ZITADEL FusionAuth Keycloak Auth0/Okta
Open-source ✅ ❌ ✅ ❌
Self-hostable ✅ ✅ ✅ ❌
Infrastructure-level tenants ✅ Instances (High scale) ✅ Tenants 🟡 Realms (Scaling limits) ❌ (Multi-tenant = multi-account)
B2B Organizations ✅ Native & Unlimited 🟡 via Entity Management ✅ (Recent addition) 🟡 (Plan/Account dependent)
Full audit trail ✅ Comprehensive Event Stream* 🟡 Audit logs 🟡 Audit logs 🟡 Audit logs
Passkeys (FIDO2) ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
Actions / webhooks ✅ ✅ 🟡 via SPI ✅
API-first (gRPC + REST) ✅ 🟡 REST only 🟡 REST only 🟡 REST only
SaaS + self-host parity ✅ ✅ ➖ N/A ➖ N/A

ZITADEL Cloud and self-hosted ZITADEL run the same codebase.

Key differentiators for architects:

  • Relational core, event-driven soul — every mutation is written as an immutable event for a complete, API-accessible audit trail. Unlike systems that log only select activities, ZITADEL provides a comprehensive event stream that can be audited or streamed to external systems via Webhooks.
  • Strict multi-tenant hierarchy — Identity System → Organizations → Projects, with isolated data and policy scoping at multiple levels
  • API-first design — every resource and action is available via connectRPC, gRPC, and HTTP/JSON APIs
  • Zero-downtime updates and horizontal scalability without external session stores

Get Started in 3 Minutes

👉 Quick Start Guide

ZITADEL Self-Hosted

# Docker Compose — up and running in under 3 minutes
curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zitadel/zitadel/main/deploy/compose/docker-compose.yml \
  && curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zitadel/zitadel/main/deploy/compose/.env.example \
  && cp .env.example .env \
  && docker compose up -d --wait

Full deployment guides:

Need professional support for your self-hosted deployment? Contact us.

ZITADEL Cloud (SaaS)

Start for free at zitadel.com — no credit card required. Available in US · EU · AU · CH. Pay-as-you-go pricing.


Integrate with the V2 API

ZITADEL exposes every capability over a typed API. Here's how to create a user with the V2 REST API:

curl -X POST https://$ZITADEL_DOMAIN/v2/users/human \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "username": "[email protected]",
    "profile": { "givenName": "Alice", "familyName": "Smith" },
    "email": { "email": "[email protected]", "sendCode": {} }
  }'

Explore the full API reference — including connectRPC and gRPC transports — or jump straight to quickstart examples.


Features

Authentication

Multi-Tenancy

Integration

Self-Service & Admin

Deployment

Track upcoming features on our roadmap and follow our changelog for recent updates.


Showcase

Login V2

Our new, fully customizable login experience — documentation


Adopters & Ecosystem

Used in production by organizations worldwide. See the full Adopters list — and add yours by submitting a pull request.


How To Contribute

ZITADEL is built in the open and welcoming to contributions of all kinds.

Contributors

Made with contrib.rocks.


Security

Security policy: SECURITY.md

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy — how to responsibly report security issues.

Technical Advisories are published for major issues that could impact security or stability in production.

License

AGPL-3.0 — see LICENSING.md for the full licensing policy, including Apache 2.0 and MIT exceptions for specific directories.

S
Description
No description provided
Readme AGPL-3.0
510 MiB
Languages
Go 74.6%
TypeScript 12%
MDX 7.9%
HTML 2.6%
SCSS 1.2%
Other 1.7%