Better Route JWKS JWT authentication

Use Rs256JwksJwtVerifier for asymmetric bearer JWTs and adapt it to the generic bearer middleware.

use BetterRoute\Middleware\Auth\BearerTokenAuthMiddleware;
use BetterRoute\Middleware\Auth\JwtBearerTokenVerifierAdapter;
use BetterRoute\Middleware\Jwt\HttpJwksProvider;
use BetterRoute\Middleware\Jwt\Rs256JwksJwtVerifier;

$jwks = new HttpJwksProvider(
    jwksUri: 'https://issuer.example/.well-known/jwks.json',
    ttlSeconds: 3600,
    issuer: 'https://issuer.example',
    minimumRefreshIntervalSeconds: 30
);

$verifier = new Rs256JwksJwtVerifier(
    jwks: $jwks,
    leewaySeconds: 60,
    expectedIssuer: 'https://issuer.example',
    expectedAudience: 'my-api',
    requireExpiration: true,
    maxLifetimeSeconds: 3600,
    allowedAlgorithms: ['RS256'],
    kidMissRefreshCooldownSeconds: 30
);

$auth = new BearerTokenAuthMiddleware(
    verifier: new JwtBearerTokenVerifierAdapter($verifier),
    requiredScopes: ['orders:read']
);

$router->get('/orders', $handler)
    ->middleware([$auth])
    ->protectedByMiddleware('bearerAuth');

Verification contract

• Require a non-empty JOSE alg and kid.
• Allow only explicitly configured RS256 and/or ES256; none, HS*, and other algorithms are rejected.
• Match kid to exactly one usable signing key. Ambiguous, incompatible, or absent matches fail closed.
• Require exp by default. Setting maxLifetimeSeconds also requires iat and bounds exp - iat.
• Pin both expectedIssuer and expectedAudience for production integrations.
• Keep token size, clock leeway, and key-refresh cooldown bounded.

Remote JWKS behavior

HttpJwksProvider accepts HTTPS URLs only and rejects URL credentials. Its WordPress transport uses wp_safe_remote_get(), TLS verification, a ten-second timeout, at most one redirect, and a 256 KiB response limit.

It caches sanitized public keys in memory and a transient. Refreshes use a persistent cooldown and, when $wpdb is available, a bounded MySQL named lock. A failed refresh preserves the last known-good cached key set. A kid miss can trigger a refresh, but the verifier has its own cooldown to prevent attacker-driven fetch storms.

The better_route/jwks_refresh action clears matching caches. Supply the provider issuer so a targeted action does not flush unrelated providers. StaticJwksProvider is appropriate for pinned or test keys.

Operational checks

• Confirm WordPress HTTP SSRF protection is not bypassed with a custom httpGet callback.
• Exercise signing-key rotation: cached old key, new kid, refresh, then successful verification.
• Exercise refresh failure and verify the last known-good set remains usable.
• Test duplicate kid, wrong kty/crv, mismatched key alg/use, invalid signature, and stale token.
• Never fetch a JWKS URL selected by an untrusted request.

Source references: src/Middleware/Jwt/HttpJwksProvider.php, src/Middleware/Jwt/Rs256JwksJwtVerifier.php, src/Middleware/Jwt/JwksKeySanitizer.php, src/Middleware/Auth/JwtBearerTokenVerifierAdapter.php.

References

• Official documentation: https://lonsdale201.github.io/better-docs/docs/better-route/agents