Tyk Open Source API Gateway - Production-Ready

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

## What You Get

A production-ready Tyk API Gateway (version 5.14.0) running as hardened systemd services within minutes of launch. No manual installation of the gateway or Redis, no configuration writing, no nginx wiring - just launch, retrieve your unique credentials, and start defining APIs.

## Why Tyk Gateway

Tyk Gateway is a fast, cloud-native, open source API gateway written in Go. It handles authentication, authorization, rate limiting, quotas, request and response transformation, API versioning, and analytics - all driven by declarative API definitions. Tyk is trusted across the open source community for its performance and flexibility.

This cloudimg image ships the open source Gateway in file-based mode with a local Redis datastore, giving you a complete standalone gateway with no external dependencies, no Dashboard, and no commercial components.

## Example Use Case

Place one gateway in front of a fleet of microservices so every request is authenticated, rate limited, and routed through a single entry point. Define each upstream service as a declarative API definition through the control API. The gateway proxies and load balances traffic, and you version and evolve APIs without touching the services behind them. Because the gateway keeps its keys, quotas, and rate limit counters in Redis, it enforces limits consistently across every request.

## Architecture Overview

• Tyk Gateway binary - runs under its own systemd unit, bound to loopback only, serving the data plane, health endpoint, and secret-gated control API on one local port
• Local Redis instance - bound to loopback, stores keys, analytics, and rate limiting counters
• Nginx front end - publishes the data plane and public health endpoint on port 80, explicitly refuses the control API path so the control plane is never reachable from the internet

## Security Architecture

The image ships with no known control API secret. On first boot, a one-shot service generates a unique 64-character secret for this instance alone, rewrites the gateway configuration with strict permissions, resolves the instance public URL, and records the secret and URL in a root-only file. The control API and Redis are bound to loopback, and port 80 returns a forbidden response for the control API path. Two instances launched from this image get different secrets - no two instances ever share a control plane credential.

## Getting Started

1. Launch this image with a security group allowing TCP 80 for API traffic and SSH from your admin address

2. SSH in and read your instance control API secret and public URL from the credentials file

3. Create your first API definition through the control API and reload the gateway

4. Send a request through the public data plane to confirm it is proxied to your upstream

5. Check the health endpoint to confirm the gateway and Redis are ready

For a guided onboarding walkthrough or help connecting the gateway to your services, contact cloudimg support at any time - we are available 24/7 with a one-hour average response time for critical issues.

## About cloudimg

cloudimg provides expert-supported AMIs on AWS Marketplace, specializing in open source infrastructure software. Our engineers help with every stage from initial deployment through production scaling and version upgrades.

## Licensing

Tyk Gateway is distributed under the MPL-2.0 license. cloudimg is not affiliated with or endorsed by Tyk Technologies; the Tyk name is used only to identify the open source software shipped in this image. All product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.