some doubts about comsumer in apisix

[li-zheng-hao]

After reading documentation, I still have some doubts about comsumer：

1. Does consumer refer to a user (jack, marry) or a class of users (administrator, buyers, sellers)? From the documentation it seems to refer to users, does this mean I need to store all user data in apisix? (I'd like to store user data in the database, but that seems to mean I have to use the forward-auth plugin to do the authentication)

[tokers]

After reading documentation, I still have some doubts about comsumer：

1. Does consumer refer to a user (jack, marry) or a class of users (administrator, buyers, sellers)? From the documentation it seems to refer to users, does this mean I need to store all user data in apisix? (I'd like to store user data in the database, but that seems to mean I have to use the forward-auth plugin to do the authentication)

Consumer is the abstraction for the api consumer. You don't have to store any user specific data in it.

[tzssangglass]

1. does this mean I need to store all user data in apisix?

no, user data should be stored in IdP server or other authentication services

[li-zheng-hao]

@tzssangglass @tokers i got it ,thanks!