Cornell University: Open WebUI v0.6.14 on `onepl.aap.cornell.edu` — Auth-On + API Keys Enabled

NuClide Research · 2026-05-19

Summary

Cornell University runs an Open WebUI instance at onepl.aap.cornell.edu (128.253.41.30:3000). /api/config returned Open WebUI v0.6.14 with enable_signup: false (auth-on; no signup-open class) and enable_api_key: true (post-authentication API key minting enabled). Properly configured for closed enrollment. Documented here as a wave-2 cohort entry: contrasts with wave-1 signup-open hosts.

Infrastructure

Observations

Open WebUI v0.6.14 on :3000

GET http://onepl.aap.cornell.edu:3000/api/config returned 200 with:

{
  "status": true,
  "name": "Open WebUI",
  "version": "0.6.14",
  "default_locale": "",
  "oauth": {"providers": {}},
  "features": {
    "auth": true,
    "auth_trusted_header": false,
    "enable_signup_password_confirmation": false,
    "enable_ldap": false,
    "enable_api_key": true,
    "enable_signup": false,
    "enable_login_form": true,
    "enable_websocket": true,
    "enable_version_update_check": true
  }
}

Class memberships observed:

• enable_signup: false — public self-registration DISABLED. No signup-open class on this host.
• enable_login_form: true — login UI present (closed-enrollment users access via existing accounts).
• enable_api_key: true — authenticated users CAN mint API keys. Class: post-authentication API-key minting enabled.
• enable_ldap: false — no LDAP backend.
• oauth.providers: {} — no OIDC integration; either local accounts or some other backend.
• auth_trusted_header: false — no auth-bypass header trust.

Class summary: properly closed-enrollment Open WebUI deployment. The enable_api_key: true flag is worth noting — authenticated users can self-issue API keys that bypass UI-level controls (rate limits, content filters, audit logs that only apply to UI sessions). Whether Cornell’s deployment intends this and tracks it auditably is a deployment-policy question, not a finding from external probe.

Operator attribution (per Insight #4)

• WHOIS OrgName: Cornell University (Cornell holds 128.253.0.0/16)
• Hostname: onepl.aap.cornell.edu — AAP (Architecture, Art, and Planning) college subdomain
• Distinct from prior Cornell finds: the existing NuClide baseline doesn’t have a Cornell case study (Cornell is a NEW institution surfaced by this 2026-05-19 sweep at the institutional level, though they have prior unrelated infrastructure surveyed)

Cross-tool confirmations

Notable details

• Wave-2 cohort posture: Cornell’s Open WebUI matches the wave-2 pattern (5/5 wave-2 OW hosts had enable_signup: false). Wave-1 (Duke, Syracuse, UCLA, UMD, VT) was the opposite (5/5 enable_signup: true). Cornell, Cooper Union, Red Rocks CC, UCSB ResNet, and RIT seappsvr09 all share the closed-enrollment posture in wave-2.
• enable_api_key: true is the one elevation-class flag on this host. In wave-1, VT also had this flag set alongside signup-open (which combined to enable self-mint API keys post-signup-takeover). On Cornell, signup is closed, so API-key minting requires a pre-existing authenticated account.
• AAP college subdomain suggests this host is a research-instructional Open WebUI for the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning rather than a campus-wide service. The single-host posture (no observed sister hosts on aap.cornell.edu) is consistent with a small-scale departmental deployment.

Class-membership summary (no tier labels per survey convention)

• Open WebUI auth-on class — OBSERVED (data: enable_signup: false, auth: true, login form enabled)
• API-key minting class — OBSERVED (data: enable_api_key: true — post-auth elevation surface, not a signup-open exposure)
• Properly-configured wave-2 cohort exemplar — OBSERVED

No tier labels assigned per survey convention. This is a documentation-of-good-deployment case, included for contrast with wave-1 signup-open cohort and for thesis-falsification data.

Discovery method

• Initial surfacing: Stage-0 dork-map of 1,629 verified Shodan dorks scoped to hostname:.edu — host hit the Open WebUI title-and-port dork.
• Verification: direct /api/config probe.
• Cross-validation: visorbishop post-G5-fix run classified independently as auth=auth severity=info matching the manual marker probe.

Source artifacts

• Workspace: ~/recon/edu-llm-infra-2026-05-19/stage2-wave2/
• Direct probe: wave2-openwebui-signup-verify.json (Cornell-onepl section)
• aimap wave-2 report: aimap-wave2.json
• visorbishop wave-2: arsenal/visorbishop-wave2.json