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Securing MCP Gateway

This guide provides essential security configurations and best practices for deploying MCP Gateway in production environments.

⚠️ Critical Security Notice

MCP Gateway is currently in early beta (v0.6.0) and requires careful security configuration for production use:

  • The Admin UI is development-only and must be disabled in production
  • MCP Gateway is not a standalone product - it's an open source component to integrate into your solution
  • No official support is provided - security is your responsibility
  • Expect breaking changes between versions until 1.0 release
  • Do not use it with insecure MCP servers.

🚨 Production Security Checklist

1. Disable Development Features

# Required for production - disable all admin interfaces
MCPGATEWAY_UI_ENABLED=false
MCPGATEWAY_ADMIN_API_ENABLED=false

# Disable unused features
MCPGATEWAY_ENABLE_ROOTS=false    # If not using roots
MCPGATEWAY_ENABLE_PROMPTS=false  # If not using prompts
MCPGATEWAY_ENABLE_RESOURCES=false # If not using resources

2. Enable Authentication & Security

# Configure strong authentication
MCPGATEWAY_AUTH_ENABLED=true
MCPGATEWAY_AUTH_USERNAME=custom-username  # Change from default
MCPGATEWAY_AUTH_PASSWORD=strong-password-here  # Use secrets manager

# Set environment for security defaults
ENVIRONMENT=production

# Configure domain for CORS
APP_DOMAIN=yourdomain.com

# Ensure secure cookies (automatic in production)
SECURE_COOKIES=true
COOKIE_SAMESITE=strict

# Configure CORS (auto-configured based on APP_DOMAIN in production)
CORS_ALLOW_CREDENTIALS=true

3. Network Security

  • Configure TLS/HTTPS with valid certificates
  • Implement firewall rules and network policies
  • Use internal-only endpoints where possible
  • Configure appropriate CORS policies (auto-configured by ENVIRONMENT setting)
  • Set up rate limiting per endpoint/client
  • Verify security headers are present (automatically added by SecurityHeadersMiddleware)
  • Configure iframe embedding policy (X_FRAME_OPTIONS=DENY by default, change to SAMEORIGIN if needed)

4. Container Security

# Run containers with security constraints
docker run \
  --read-only \
  --user 1001:1001 \
  --cap-drop ALL \
  --security-opt no-new-privileges \
  mcpgateway:latest
  • Use minimal base images (UBI Micro)
  • Run as non-root user
  • Enable read-only filesystem
  • Set resource limits (CPU, memory)
  • Scan images for vulnerabilities

5. Secrets Management

  • Never store secrets in environment variables directly
  • Use a secrets management system (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, etc.)
  • Rotate credentials regularly
  • Restrict container access to secrets
  • Never commit .env files to version control

6. MCP Server Validation

Before connecting any MCP server:

  • Verify server authenticity and source code
  • Review server permissions and data access
  • Test in isolated environment first
  • Monitor server behavior for anomalies
  • Implement rate limiting for untrusted servers

7. Database Security

  • Use TLS for database connections
  • Configure strong passwords
  • Restrict database access by IP/network
  • Enable audit logging
  • Regular backups with encryption

8. Monitoring & Logging

  • Set up structured logging without sensitive data
  • Configure log rotation and secure storage
  • Implement monitoring and alerting
  • Set up anomaly detection
  • Create incident response procedures

9. Integration Security

MCP Gateway should be integrated with:

  • API Gateway for auth and rate limiting
  • Web Application Firewall (WAF)
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM)
  • SIEM for security monitoring
  • Load balancer with TLS termination

10. Well-Known URI Security

Configure well-known URIs appropriately for your deployment:

# For private APIs (default) - blocks all crawlers
WELL_KNOWN_ENABLED=true
WELL_KNOWN_ROBOTS_TXT="User-agent: *\nDisallow: /"

# For public APIs - allow health checks, block sensitive endpoints
# WELL_KNOWN_ROBOTS_TXT="User-agent: *\nAllow: /health\nAllow: /docs\nDisallow: /admin\nDisallow: /tools"

# Security contact information (RFC 9116)
WELL_KNOWN_SECURITY_TXT="Contact: mailto:security@example.com\nExpires: 2025-12-31T23:59:59Z\nPreferred-Languages: en"

Security considerations: - [ ] Configure security.txt with current contact information - [ ] Review robots.txt to prevent unauthorized crawler access - [ ] Monitor well-known endpoint access in logs - [ ] Update security.txt Expires field before expiration - [ ] Consider custom well-known files only if necessary

11. Downstream Application Security

Applications consuming MCP Gateway data must:

  • Validate all inputs from the gateway
  • Implement context-appropriate sanitization
  • Use Content Security Policy (CSP) headers
  • Escape data for output context (HTML, JS, SQL)
  • Implement their own authentication/authorization

🔐 Environment Variables Reference

Security-Critical Settings

# Core Security
MCPGATEWAY_UI_ENABLED=false              # Must be false in production
MCPGATEWAY_ADMIN_API_ENABLED=false       # Must be false in production
MCPGATEWAY_AUTH_ENABLED=true             # Enable authentication
MCPGATEWAY_AUTH_USERNAME=custom-user     # Change from default
MCPGATEWAY_AUTH_PASSWORD=<from-secrets>  # Use secrets manager

# Feature Flags (disable unused features)
MCPGATEWAY_ENABLE_ROOTS=false
MCPGATEWAY_ENABLE_PROMPTS=false
MCPGATEWAY_ENABLE_RESOURCES=false

# Network Security
MCPGATEWAY_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=https://your-domain.com
MCPGATEWAY_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED=true
MCPGATEWAY_RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTE=100

# Logging (no sensitive data)
MCPGATEWAY_LOG_LEVEL=INFO               # Not DEBUG in production
MCPGATEWAY_LOG_SENSITIVE_DATA=false     # Never log sensitive data

🚀 Deployment Architecture

┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│                 │     │                 │     │                 │
│   WAF/CDN       │────▶│  Load Balancer │────▶│   API Gateway   │
│                 │     │   (TLS Term)    │     │  (Auth/Rate)    │
└─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘     └────────┬────────┘
                                                          │
                                                          ▼
                                                 ┌─────────────────┐
                                                 │                 │
                                                 │  MCP Gateway    │
                                                 │  (Internal)     │
                                                 └────────┬────────┘
                                                          │
                              ┌───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┐
                              │                           │                           │
                              ▼                           ▼                           ▼
                     ┌─────────────────┐        ┌─────────────────┐        ┌─────────────────┐
                     │                 │        │                 │        │                 │
                     │  Trusted MCP    │        │    Database     │        │     Redis       │
                     │    Servers      │        │   (TLS/Auth)    │        │   (TLS/Auth)    │
                     └─────────────────┘        └─────────────────┘        └─────────────────┘

🔍 Security Validation

Pre-Production Checklist

  1. Run Security Scans 

    make security-all        # Run all security tools
make security-report     # Generate security report
make trivy              # Scan container vulnerabilities

  2. Validate Configuration

  3. Review all environment variables
  4. Confirm admin features disabled
  5. Verify authentication enabled

  6. Check TLS configuration

  7. Test Security Controls

  8. Attempt unauthorized access
  9. Verify rate limiting works
  10. Test input validation

  11. Check error handling

  12. Review Dependencies 

    make pip-audit          # Check Python dependencies
make sbom              # Generate software bill of materials

📚 Additional Resources

⚡ Quick Start Security Commands

# Development (with security checks)
make security-all && make test && make run

# Production build
make docker-prod

# Security audit
make security-report

Remember: Security is a shared responsibility. MCP Gateway provides some security controls, but you must properly configure and integrate it within a comprehensive security architecture.