Certificate-initiated access to services

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• terminating, at a reverse proxy, a mutual authentication handshake with a client computing system, the handshake including reception by the reverse proxy of a public key certificate associated with the client computing system;
• generating, by the reverse proxy, of an authentication token based on the public key certificate;
• and
• receiving, at the reverse proxy, a request to access an application from the client computing system;
• forwarding the request and the authentication token from the reverse proxy to the application;
• receiving the request and the authentication token at the application;
• requesting, by the application, of an authorization token from an Open Authorization (OAuth) server based on the authentication token;
• receiving the authorization token from the OAuth server;
• storing the authorization token received from the OAuth server in association with a session identifier associated with the request received from the client computing system;
• and
• transmitting a response to the client computing system based on the authorization token received from the OAuth server and the request received from the client computing system.

A computing system comprising:

• a reverse proxy component to:
• receive a public key certificate from a client computing system;
• execute a mutual authentication handshake with the client computing system to authenticate the client computing system based on the public key certificate;
• and
• receive a request from the client computing system;
• and
• an application to:
• receive the request and the public key certificate from the reverse proxy component;
• create an authentication token based on the public key certificate;
• request an authorization token from an Open Authorization (OAuth) server based on the authentication token;
• receive the authorization token from the OAuth server;
• store the authorization token received from the OAuth server in association with a session identifier associated with the request received from the client computing system;
• and
• transmit a response to the client computing system based on the authorization token received from the OAuth server and the request received from the client computing system.