# Grafana jwt auth issue with jwt token

**URL:** <https://community.grafana.com/t/grafana-jwt-auth-issue-with-jwt-token/163495>\
**Category:** Authentication\
**Created:** [June 30, 2026, 2:12pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/grafana-jwt-auth-issue-with-jwt-token/163495 "2026-06-30T14:12:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashutoshkumar4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@ashutoshkumar4](https://community.grafana.com/u/ashutoshkumar4)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2026, 2:12pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/grafana-jwt-auth-issue-with-jwt-token/163495/1 "2026-06-30T14:12:01Z")

</div>

- What Grafana version and what operating system are you using?  
I am using grafana: 13.0.2

- **What** are you trying to achieve?  
Implement jwt auth in grafana by passing jwt token in headers

- **How** are you trying to achieve it?  
I was testing this feature, so I created a node server with the following details:

```auto
  // server.js
  const express = require('express');
  const { createProxyMiddleware } = require('http-proxy-middleware');

  const app = express();
  app.use('/', createProxyMiddleware({
  target: 'my_grafana_localhost_url',
  changeOrigin: true,
  onProxyReq: (proxyReq, req, res) => {
  const jwtToken = "my_jwt_token";
  proxyReq.setHeader('X-JWT-Assertion', `${jwtToken}`);
  }
  }));

  app.get('/wrapper', (req, res) => {
  res.send(` <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Grafana Dashboard via JWT Proxy</title> <style> body, html { margin:0; padding:0; height:100%; } iframe { width:100%; height:100%; border:none; } </style> </head> <body> <!-- IMPORTANT: iframe src points to /d/... directly --> <iframe src="/d/dashboard_id?orgId=1"></iframe> </body> </html> `);
  });

  app.listen(8081, () => {
  console.log('JWT proxy running at http://localhost:8081');
  });

```

and the minimal grafana conf are:

```auto
  [auth.jwt]

  enabled = true

  header_name = X-JWT-Assertion

  username_claim = sub

  email_claim = sub

  auto_sign_up = false # because I have created these users in grafana and want to validate them against their dashboard permissions

```

- What happened?  
It keeps sending me to login page

- What did you **expect** to happen?  
I wanted the user to log in with the jwt token inside the iframe

- Did you receive any errors in the Grafana UI or in related logs? If so, please tell us **exactly** what they were.  
No errors, not even in inspect elements (as far as I can find)

- Did you follow any online instructions? If so, what is the URL?  
yes [this](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/setup-grafana/configure-access/configure-authentication/jwt/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![infofcc3](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/grafana/user_avatar/community.grafana.com/infofcc3/32/51248_2.png) [@infofcc3](https://community.grafana.com/u/infofcc3)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 4:51am UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/grafana-jwt-auth-issue-with-jwt-token/163495/2 "2026-07-02T04:51:45Z")

</div>

The config you’ve shared doesn’t show a JWT verification key source (`jwk_set_file`, `key_file`, `jwk_set_url`, etc.). If one isn’t configured, Grafana cannot validate the JWT signature, so JWT authentication will fail. For browser requests, this commonly results in the login page being shown.

Also make sure you have:

```auto
[auth.jwt]
enable_login_token = true

[security]
allow_embedding = true

```

`enable_login_token` allows Grafana to create a login session after successful JWT authentication, which is typically required for browser/iframe access. `allow_embedding` is required if you’re embedding Grafana in an iframe.

To see why authentication is failing, enable debug logging:

```auto
[log]
level = debug
filters = auth.jwt:debug

```

Restart Grafana and check the logs → they should indicate why the JWT was rejected.

> **[Configure JWT authentication | Grafana documentation](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/setup-grafana/configure-access/configure-authentication/jwt/)**
>
> Grafana JWT Authentication

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashutoshkumar4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@ashutoshkumar4](https://community.grafana.com/u/ashutoshkumar4)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2026, 9:33am UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/grafana-jwt-auth-issue-with-jwt-token/163495/3 "2026-07-10T09:33:50Z")

</div>

@infofcc3 thank you for your response.  
Yes I did miss to write JWT step in the question but it was in place using a public private key.

Actually, the issue was with nginx configuration. It seems Grafana queries multiple endpoints at once to authenticate the user (haven’t confirmed this statement yet). I added the following endpoints in nginx and it worked for me:

```auto
worker_processes 1;

events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
    include mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    sendfile on;
    keepalive_timeout 65;

    map $cookie_jwt_token $jwt_token {
        "" "";
		default $cookie_jwt_token;
    }

    server {
        listen 8080;
        server_name localhost;

        
        location / {
            root full/path/to/nginx/html_folder;
            index index.html;
        }
		
		

        
        location /d/<dashboard_key>/<dashboard_name>{
            proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000/d/<dashboard_key>/<dashboard_name>;
            proxy_set_header Host $host;
			
            proxy_set_header X-JWT-Assertion "$jwt_token";
			
        }

        location /login {
            proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000/login;
            proxy_set_header Host $host;
            proxy_set_header X-JWT-Assertion "$jwt_token";
            #proxy_hide_header X-Frame-Options;
        }

        location /api {
            proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000/api;
            proxy_set_header Host $host;
            proxy_set_header X-JWT-Assertion "$jwt_token";
        }

        location /public {
            proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000/public;
            proxy_set_header Host $host;
        }
    }
}

```

I hope this helps someone struggling for hours if not days like me 🙂

More about this is present in the following links:

1. [Run Grafana behind a reverse proxy | Grafana Labs](https://grafana.com/tutorials/run-grafana-behind-a-proxy/#configure-nginx)