Inference Auth Posture

Overview

GET /v1/models and the inference endpoints are gated by different settings. The most natural probe an operator runs to answer “is my API protected?” can therefore return the wrong answer.

Endpoint	Gated by
`GET /v1/models`	The dashboard login posture — `isAuthRequired()`, overridable per-instance with `requireAuthForModels` (`src/app/api/v1/models/catalogRequest.ts`)
`POST /v1/chat/completions`, `POST /v1/responses`, and the other client API routes	`REQUIRE_API_KEY` (`src/server/authz/policies/clientApi.ts`)

On an instance that has an admin password set and REQUIRE_API_KEY=false, /v1/models answers 401 while inference is open to anyone who can reach the port.

Probing caveat: a 401 from /v1/models does not verify that inference is protected. It only tells you the dashboard requires login.

This is not hypothetical. In discussion #13310 a self-hosted instance behind Traefik had its Codex quota spent by anonymous POST /v1/responses traffic while /v1/models returned 401 — which, in the reporter’s words, “initially created the impression that the entire API was protected” and sent them investigating the wrong component.

How to actually check

Probe an inference route, not the catalog:

curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' \
  -X POST http://<host>:<api-port>/v1/chat/completions \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"model":"<any-model>","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"ping"}]}'

A 401 means REQUIRE_API_KEY is enforcing. Anything that reaches routing (including a model-not-found error) means anonymous traffic is accepted.

Note that with REQUIRE_API_KEY=false an invalid bearer degrades to anonymous rather than rejecting (#2257), so sending a junk key is not a valid probe either.

Startup warning

When REQUIRE_API_KEY is disabled and a server binds a non-loopback interface, OmniRoute logs a warning at boot (src/lib/startup/nonLoopbackApiKeyGuard.ts). This covers three surfaces:

the Dashboard/API server that serves /v1 inference — HOST, default 0.0.0.0
the API bridge — API_HOST, default 127.0.0.1
the live dashboard WebSocket — its own host

The warning never blocks boot: a reverse proxy in front of OmniRoute may already be enforcing its own authentication.