nginxauthdaemon 1.1.0
Authentication daemon for nginx-proxied or nginx-served applications
License: MIT
Keywords: nginx auth

nginxauthdaemon
===============

Authentication daemon for nginx-proxied or nginx-served applications. 

Installation and Configuration
------------------------------

1. Create virtual environment for the daemon ``virtualenv env``

2. Activate it using ``. ./env/bin/activate``

3. Install nginxauthdaemon from pypi ``pip install nginxauthdaemon``

4. Create config file overriding default values, see [Daemon configuration]. *NB!* You need to override default ``SESSION_SALT``, ``DES_IV`` and ``DES_KEY`` for security.

5. Setup env variable ``DAEMON_SETTINGS`` pointing to your config file.

6. Run daemon with your favorite WSGI server, for ex ``gunicorn nginxauthdaemon:app``.

7. Update nginx.conf. See [NGINX Configuration].

8. Reload nginx (``nginx -t reload``).

9. Test your setup.

Daemon configuration
--------------------

Basic configuration properties are:

+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Option         | Description                                                    |
+================+================================================================+
| REALM_NAME     | Realm name shown on login page                                 |
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| SESSION_COOKIE | Session cookie name. Typically you do not need to change this. |
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| TARGET_HEADER  | Header used to pass protected URL from NGINX                   |
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| SESSION_SALT   | Long string used a salt for creation of session key.           |
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| DES_IV         | 8byte initial vector for DES algorithm                         |
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| DES_KEY        | 8byte DES encryption key                                       |
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| AUTHENTICATOR  | Authenticator class name, by default 'auth.DummyAuthenticator' |
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+


Authenticators available out-of-the-box:

+----------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Authenticator name                           | Description                                              |
+==============================================+==========================================================+
| nginxauthdaemon.auth.DummyAuthenticator      | Simplest authenticator checking username equals password |
+----------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| nginxauthdaemon.crowdauth.CrowdAuthenticator | Atlassian Crowd based authenticator                      |
+----------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------+

Crowd authenticator has additional options:

+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Option             | Description                                               |
+====================+===========================================================+
| CROWD_URL          | Crowd server URL, for ex ``http://localhost:8095/crowd/`` |
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| CROWD_APP_NAME     | Crowd application name                                    |
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| CROWD_APP_PASSWORD | Crowd application password                                |
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+



NGINX Configuration
-------------------

Your NGINX should be compiled with ``ngx_http_auth_request_module``. Please check it using ``nginx -V`` command.

Example configuration::

    upstream auth-backend {
        server 127.0.0.1:5000;
    }

    location = /auth/validate {
        internal;
        proxy_pass http://auth-backend;

        proxy_pass_request_body off;
        proxy_set_header Content-Length "";
    }

    location = /auth/login {
        proxy_pass http://auth-backend;
        proxy_set_header X-Target $request_uri;
    }

    # Protected application
    location / {
        auth_request /auth/validate;

        # redirect 401 and 403 to login form
        error_page 401 403 =200 /auth/login;
    }

Limitations
-----------

Daemon can be extended to support LDAP or any other auth method, but it support only Atlassian Crowd for now. I'll be happy to merge PRs with new auth methods. 

License
-------

The reference implementation is subject to MIT License.