--- title: "Secrets" description: "Using the Secrets Configuration Method." lead: "Authelia allows providing configuration via secrets method. This section describes how to implement this." date: 2022-03-20T12:52:27+11:00 draft: false images: [] menu: configuration: parent: "methods" weight: 101400 toc: true aliases: - /c/secrets - /docs/configuration/secrets.html --- Configuration of *Authelia* requires several secrets and passwords. Even if they can be set in the configuration file or standard environment variables, the recommended way to set secrets is to use this configuration method as described below. See the [security](#security) section for more information. ## Layers *__Important Note:__* While this method is the third layer of the layered configuration model as described by the [introduction](introduction.md#layers), this layer is special in as much as *Authelia* will not start if you define a secret as well as any other configuration method. For example if you define `jwt_secret` in the [files method](files.md) and/or `AUTHELIA_JWT_SECRET` in the [environment method](environment.md), as well as the `AUTHELIA_JWT_SECRET_FILE`, this will cause the aforementioned error. ## Security This method is a slight improvement over the security of the other methods as it allows you to easily separate your configuration in a logically secure way. ## Environment variables A secret value can be loaded by *Authelia* when the configuration key ends with one of the following words: `key`, `secret`, `password`, or `token`. If you take the expected environment variable for the configuration option with the `_FILE` suffix at the end. The value of these environment variables must be the path of a file that is readable by the Authelia process, if they are not, *Authelia* will fail to load. Authelia will automatically remove the newlines from the end of the files contents. For instance the LDAP password can be defined in the configuration at the path __authentication_backend.ldap.password__, so this password could alternatively be set using the environment variable called __AUTHELIA_AUTHENTICATION_BACKEND_LDAP_PASSWORD_FILE__. Here is the list of the environment variables which are considered secrets and can be defined. Please note that only secrets can be loaded into the configuration if they end with one of the suffixes above, you can set the value of any other configuration using the environment but instead of loading a file the value of the environment variable is used. | Configuration Key | Environment Variable | |:-------------------------------------------------:|:--------------------------------------------------------:| | tls_key | AUTHELIA_TLS_KEY_FILE | | jwt_secret | AUTHELIA_JWT_SECRET_FILE | | duo_api.secret_key | AUTHELIA_DUO_API_SECRET_KEY_FILE | | session.secret | AUTHELIA_SESSION_SECRET_FILE | | session.redis.password | AUTHELIA_SESSION_REDIS_PASSWORD_FILE | | session.redis.high_availability.sentinel_password | AUTHELIA_REDIS_HIGH_AVAILABILITY_SENTINEL_PASSWORD_FILE | | storage.encryption_key | AUTHELIA_STORAGE_ENCRYPTION_KEY_FILE | | storage.mysql.password | AUTHELIA_STORAGE_MYSQL_PASSWORD_FILE | | storage.postgres.password | AUTHELIA_STORAGE_POSTGRES_PASSWORD_FILE | | notifier.smtp.password | AUTHELIA_NOTIFIER_SMTP_PASSWORD_FILE | | authentication_backend.ldap.password | AUTHELIA_AUTHENTICATION_BACKEND_LDAP_PASSWORD_FILE | | identity_providers.oidc.issuer_private_key | AUTHELIA_IDENTITY_PROVIDERS_OIDC_ISSUER_PRIVATE_KEY_FILE | | identity_providers.oidc.hmac_secret | AUTHELIA_IDENTITY_PROVIDERS_OIDC_HMAC_SECRET_FILE | ## Secrets in configuration file If for some reason you decide on keeping the secrets in the configuration file, it is strongly recommended that you ensure the permissions of the configuration file are appropriately set so that other users or processes cannot access this file. Generally the UNIX permissions that are appropriate are 0600. ## Secrets exposed in an environment variable In all versions 4.30.0+ you can technically set secrets using the environment variables without the `_FILE` suffix by setting the value to the value you wish to set in configuration, however we strongly urge people not to use this option and instead use the file-based secrets above. Prior to implementing file secrets the only way you were able to define secret values was either via configuration or via environment variables in plain text. See [this article](https://diogomonica.com/2017/03/27/why-you-shouldnt-use-env-variables-for-secret-data/) for reasons why setting them via the file counterparts is highly encouraged. ## Docker Secrets can be provided in a `docker-compose.yml` either with Docker secrets or bind mounted secret files, examples of these are provided below. ### Compose with Docker secrets This example assumes secrets are stored in `/path/to/authelia/secrets/{secretname}` on the host and are exposed with Docker secrets in a `docker-compose.yml` file: ```yaml version: '3.8' networks: net: driver: bridge secrets: jwt: file: /path/to/authelia/secrets/jwt duo: file: /path/to/authelia/secrets/duo session: file: /path/to/authelia/secrets/session redis: file: /path/to/authelia/secrets/redis mysql: file: /path/to/authelia/secrets/mysql smtp: file: /path/to/authelia/secrets/smtp ldap: file: /path/to/authelia/secrets/ldap services: authelia: image: authelia/authelia container_name: authelia secrets: - jwt - duo - session - redis - mysql - smtp - ldap volumes: - /path/to/authelia:/config networks: - net expose: - 9091 restart: unless-stopped environment: - AUTHELIA_JWT_SECRET_FILE=/run/secrets/jwt - AUTHELIA_DUO_API_SECRET_KEY_FILE=/run/secrets/duo - AUTHELIA_SESSION_SECRET_FILE=/run/secrets/session - AUTHELIA_SESSION_REDIS_PASSWORD_FILE=/run/secrets/redis - AUTHELIA_STORAGE_MYSQL_PASSWORD_FILE=/run/secrets/mysql - AUTHELIA_NOTIFIER_SMTP_PASSWORD_FILE=/run/secrets/smtp - AUTHELIA_AUTHENTICATION_BACKEND_LDAP_PASSWORD_FILE=/run/secrets/ldap - TZ=Australia/Melbourne ``` ### Compose with bind mounted secret files This example assumes secrets are stored in `/path/to/authelia/secrets/{secretname}` on the host and are exposed with bind mounted secret files in a `docker-compose.yml` file at `/config/secrets/`: ```yaml version: '3.8' networks: net: driver: bridge services: authelia: image: authelia/authelia container_name: authelia volumes: - /path/to/authelia:/config networks: - net expose: - 9091 restart: unless-stopped environment: - AUTHELIA_JWT_SECRET_FILE=/config/secrets/jwt - AUTHELIA_DUO_API_SECRET_KEY_FILE=/config/secrets/duo - AUTHELIA_SESSION_SECRET_FILE=/config/secrets/session - AUTHELIA_SESSION_REDIS_PASSWORD_FILE=/config/secrets/redis - AUTHELIA_STORAGE_MYSQL_PASSWORD_FILE=/config/secrets/mysql - AUTHELIA_NOTIFIER_SMTP_PASSWORD_FILE=/config/secrets/smtp - AUTHELIA_AUTHENTICATION_BACKEND_LDAP_PASSWORD_FILE=/config/secrets/ldap - TZ=Australia/Melbourne ``` ## Kubernetes Secrets can be mounted as files using the following sample manifests. To create a secret, the following manifest can be used ```yaml --- kind: Secret apiVersion: v1 metadata: name: a-nice-name namespace: your-authelia-namespace data: duo_key: >- UXE1WmM4S0pldnl6eHRwQ3psTGpDbFplOXFueUVyWEZhYjE0Z01IRHN0RT0K jwt_secret: >- anotherBase64EncodedSecret ... ``` where `UXE1WmM4S0pldnl6eHRwQ3psTGpDbFplOXFueUVyWEZhYjE0Z01IRHN0RT0K` is Base64 encoded for `Qq5Zc8KJevyzxtpCzlLjClZe9qnyErXFab14gMHDstE`, the actual content of the secret. You can generate these contents with ```console LENGTH=64 tr -cd '[:alnum:]' < /dev/urandom \ | fold -w "${LENGTH}" \ | head -n 1 \ | tr -d '\n' \ | tee actualSecretContent.txt \ | base64 --wrap 0 \ ; echo ``` which writes the secret's content to the `actualSecretContent.txt` file and print the Base64 encoded version on `stdout`. `${LENGTH}` is the length in characters of the secret content generated by this pipe. If you don't want the contents to be written to `actualSecretContent.txt`, just delete the line with the `tee` command. ### Kustomization * __Filename:__ ./kustomization.yaml * __Command:__ kubectl apply -k * __Notes:__ this kustomization expects the Authelia configuration.yml in the same directory. You will need to edit the kustomization.yaml with your desired secrets after the equal signs. If you change the value before the equal sign you'll have to adjust the volumes section of the daemonset template (or deployment template if you're using it). ```yaml #filename: ./kustomization.yaml generatorOptions: disableNameSuffixHash: true labels: type: generated app: authelia configMapGenerator: - name: authelia files: - configuration.yml secretGenerator: - name: authelia literals: - jwt_secret=myverysecuresecret - session_secret=mysessionsecret - redis_password=myredispassword - sql_password=mysqlpassword - ldap_password=myldappassword - duo_secret=myduosecretkey - smtp_password=mysmtppassword ``` ### DaemonSet * __Filename:__ ./daemonset.yaml * __Command:__ kubectl apply -f ./daemonset.yaml * __Notes:__ assumes Kubernetes API 1.16 or greater ```yaml #filename: daemonset.yaml #command: kubectl apply -f daemonset.yaml #notes: assumes kubernetes api 1.16+ apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: DaemonSet metadata: name: authelia namespace: authelia labels: app: authelia spec: selector: matchLabels: app: authelia updateStrategy: type: RollingUpdate template: metadata: labels: app: authelia spec: containers: - name: authelia image: authelia/authelia:latest imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent env: - name: AUTHELIA_JWT_SECRET_FILE value: /app/secrets/jwt - name: AUTHELIA_DUO_API_SECRET_KEY_FILE value: /app/secrets/duo - name: AUTHELIA_SESSION_SECRET_FILE value: /app/secrets/session - name: AUTHELIA_AUTHENTICATION_BACKEND_LDAP_PASSWORD_FILE value: /app/secrets/ldap_password - name: AUTHELIA_NOTIFIER_SMTP_PASSWORD_FILE value: /app/secrets/smtp_password - name: AUTHELIA_STORAGE_MYSQL_PASSWORD_FILE value: /app/secrets/sql_password - name: AUTHELIA_SESSION_REDIS_PASSWORD_FILE value: /app/secrets/redis_password - name: TZ value: America/Toronto ports: - name: authelia-port containerPort: 9091 startupProbe: httpGet: path: /api/state port: authelia-port initialDelaySeconds: 15 timeoutSeconds: 5 periodSeconds: 5 failureThreshold: 4 livenessProbe: httpGet: path: /api/state port: authelia-port initialDelaySeconds: 60 timeoutSeconds: 5 periodSeconds: 30 failureThreshold: 2 readinessProbe: httpGet: path: /api/state port: authelia-port initialDelaySeconds: 15 timeoutSeconds: 5 periodSeconds: 5 failureThreshold: 5 volumeMounts: - mountPath: /config name: config-volume - mountPath: /app/secrets name: secrets readOnly: true volumes: - name: config-volume configMap: name: authelia items: - key: configuration.yml path: configuration.yml - name: secrets secret: secretName: authelia items: - key: jwt_secret path: jwt - key: duo_secret path: duo - key: session_secret path: session - key: redis_password path: redis_password - key: sql_password path: sql_password - key: ldap_password path: ldap_password - key: smtp_password path: smtp_password ```