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  1. Products
  2. Cloudflare Zero Trust
  3. Identity
  4. Service tokens

Service tokens

You can provide automated systems with service tokens to authenticate against your Zero Trust policies. Cloudflare Access will generate service tokens that consist of a Client ID and a Client Secret. Automated systems or applications can then use these values to reach an application protected by Access.

This section covers how to create, renew, and revoke a service token.

​​ Create a service token

  1. In Zero Trust, navigate to Access > Service Auth > Service Tokens.

  2. Select Create Service Token.

  3. Name the service token. The name allows you to easily identify events related to the token in the logs and to revoke the token individually.

  4. Choose a Service Token Duration. This sets the expiration date for the token.

  5. Select Generate token. You will see the generated Client ID and Client Secret for the service token, as well as their respective request headers.

  6. Copy the Client Secret.

You can now use the service token in your Access policies and device enrollment rules. When creating these policies, select the Service Auth action to ensure that the identity provider login screen is not required for end users.

​​ Connect your service to Access

To authenticate to an Access application using your service token, add the following to the headers of any HTTP request:

CF-Access-Client-Id: <Client ID>

CF-Access-Client-Secret: <Client Secret>

If the service token is valid, Access generates a JWT scoped to the application. All subsequent requests with that JWT will succeed until the expiration of that JWT.

​​ Renew service tokens

Service tokens expire according to the token duration you selected when you created the token.

To renew the service token:

  1. In Zero Trust, navigate to Access > Service Auth > Service Tokens.
  2. Locate the token you want to renew.
  3. To extend the token’s lifetime by one year, select Refresh.
  4. To extend the token’s lifetime by more than a year:
    1. Select Edit.
    2. Choose a new Service Token Duration.
    3. Select Save. The expiration date will be extended by the selected amount of time.

​​ Revoke service tokens

If you need to revoke access before the token expires, simply delete the token.

  1. In Zero Trust, navigate to Access > Service Auth > Service Tokens.
  2. Delete the token you need to revoke.

Services that rely on a deleted service token can no longer reach your application.

​​ Set a token expiration alert

An alert can be configured to notify a week before a service token expires to allow an administrator to invoke a token refresh.

To configure a service token expiration alert:

  1. In the Cloudflare dashboard, navigate to the Notifications tab.
  2. Select Add.
  3. Select Expiring Access Service Token.
  4. Enter a name for your alert and an optional description.
  5. (Optional) Add other recipients for the notification email.
  6. Select Save.

Your alert has been set and is now visible in the Notifications tab of the Cloudflare dashboard.