Hello everyone,
I have a Traefik installation and I wish to increase the security of my setup.
I plan to deploy a crowdsec bouncer, but I also have stumbled upon Authentik and Authelia, and I am not sure I totally understand their purpose.
From what I understand, those services would allow to only allow Traefik to redirect the user to the appropriate service if correctly authenticated, is that correct?
Also, using either Authentik or Authelia, user can use SSO to register/login ? How can I control who can register?
Finally, assuming my understanding of those services is correct, I suspect that using a web browser to access the services, the login UI will be prompted, but what if I use a mobile application? For instance I use immich to backup my pictures, so in the immich mobile app server settings I have : immich.mydomain.com, how would that works out if I use either Authentik or Authelia?
I thank you in advance for your answers.
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From what I understand, those services would allow to only allow Traefik to redirect the user to the appropriate service if correctly authenticated, is that correct?
Exactly. In Traefik, this is often called a forwardAuth middleware. Only if you are authenticated against Authelia/Authentik, Traefik will obtain the go to proxy the user request to the actual proxy service.
Also, using either Authentik or Authelia, user can use SSO to register/login ? How can I control who can register?
Yes but it depends on the proxied application. Some do not support OAuth/OIDC/SAML and whatever. Then, you have to authenticate against Authelia/Authentik and a second time at the service via username and password usually. Some apps however support it. Then you can setup the app and Authelia/Authentik for SSO. If done, only a single login against Authelia/Authentik is required and you’ll be automatically logged into the app. No second login necessary. Authelia/Authentik will handle it. Whether a user can register or not depends on the app and how it is setup. Portainer e.g. can allow SSO user registering but also deny it. If denied, you’d have to create the users first manually in Portainer with the same email address as in Authentik. Then the user can login.
For instance I use immich to backup my pictures, so in the immich mobile app server settings I have : immich.mydomain.com, how would that works out if I use either Authentik or Authelia?
Unfortunately, Immich does not support OAuth/OIDC/SAML yet. Therefore, you are left with authenticating against Authelia/Authentik and then as well against immich via your user credentials. As correctly assumed, this requires a web browser to obtain the Authelia/Authentik login screen. For the immich mobile app, this is not possible.
There is some discussion on GitHub here about this topic:
https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/3118
I’ve also implemented Authentik with Traefik. May read here:
How about accessing your selfhosted applications that only you use only via VPN? Exposing your selfhosted applications to the world is only needed if, well, you need the whole or a part of the world to access it? Authentik works great for authentication, but that’s about it, and you are right, most apps don’t work anymore if you add an authentication layer that does not natively exist on it.