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What happened?

What happened?

When a non-admin user edits a virtual key in the UI and changes only the models list, saving fails with a 403 if the key was originally created with a key_type (e.g. "LLM API"). The UI round-trips the full key object back to /key/update, which includes allowed_routes: ["llm_api_routes"] — a value that was set by the system via key_type at creation time, not by the user now. The backend's _check_allowed_routes_caller_permission treats any non-empty allowed_routes in the update payload as an unauthorized attempt to set routes, and raises a 403.

Expected behavior:

Non-admin users should be able to update models on a key that has allowed_routes already set via key_type. The permission check should only trigger if the user is changing allowed_routes from its current value, not when they're submitting it unchanged.

Actual behavior:

403: {'error': 'Only proxy admins can set `allowed_routes` on a key. Use `key_type` to pick a preset route bucket instead.'}

Request payload sent by UI:

{
  "key_alias": "pi-fury",
  "models": ["main", "gemini/gemini-3-flash-preview", "cerebras/gpt-oss-120b", "cerebras/zai-glm-4.7"],
  "allowed_routes": ["llm_api_routes"],
  ...
}

allowed_routes: ["llm_api_routes"] was set at key creation via key_type, not by the user during this edit.

Root cause:

_check_allowed_routes_caller_permission raises for any non-admin submitting a non-empty allowed_routes, with no check for whether the value differs from what's already stored on the key. The correct fix is to compare the submitted allowed_routes against the existing key's value and only raise if it's actually changing:

# Suggested fix:
if not is_proxy_admin and allowed_routes != existing_key.allowed_routes:
    raise HTTPException(...)

Version: v1.83.13
Configuration: UI only, no config.yaml

Workaround: Call /key/update via API omitting allowed_routes entirely:

curl -X POST 'http://your-litellm-host:4000/key/update' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <your-session-token>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "key": "sk-your-key",
    "models": ["main", "gemini/gemini-3-flash-preview"]
  }'

Steps to Reproduce

1. As internal_user, create a virtual key with key_type set to "LLM API" (sets allowed_routes: ["llm_api_routes"])
2. Navigate to Keys → Edit that key
3. Add or remove a model from the allowed models list
4. Click Save → 403 error

Relevant log output

litellm-1 | 19:08:30 - LiteLLM Proxy:ERROR: key_management_endpoints.py:2314 - update_key_fn(): Exception occured - 403: {'error': 'Only proxy admins can set `allowed_routes` on a key...'}

  File "key_management_endpoints.py", line 2237, in update_key_fn
    await _validate_update_key_data(...)
  File "key_management_endpoints.py", line 1939, in _validate_update_key_data
    _check_allowed_routes_caller_permission(
        allowed_routes=data.allowed_routes,
        user_api_key_dict=user_api_key_dict,
    )
  File "key_management_endpoints.py", line 476, in _check_allowed_routes_caller_permission
    raise HTTPException(...)

What part of LiteLLM is this about?

UI Dashboard

What LiteLLM version are you on ?

v1.83.13-nightly

Twitter / LinkedIn details

No response