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: . ./env/bin/activate
3. Install dependencies: pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements-run.txt
4. Create config file in TOML format, see Daemon Configuration. NB! You need to override default SESSION_SALT, DES_KEY, and JWT_PRIVATE_KEY for security.
5. Setup env variable DAEMON_SETTINGS pointing to your .toml config file.
6. Run daemon with your favorite WSGI server, e.g. gunicorn nginxauthdaemon.wsgi:app.
7. Update nginx.conf. See NGINX Configuration.
8. Reload nginx (nginx -t reload).
9. Test your setup.

Docker

• Build: docker build -t nginxauthdaemon .
• Launch: docker run -p 5000:5000 -v $(pwd)/example.toml:/app/config.toml -e DAEMON_SETTINGS=/app/config.toml -e WEB_CONCURRENCY=4 nginxauthdaemon
• Compose file located in docker-compose.yml.sample

Development Setup

Prerequisites

virtualenv env && . ./env/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install -r requirements-run.txt

SpecKit (AI-assisted development)

This project uses SpecKit for AI-assisted specification, planning, and task management. To set up the development environment with SpecKit:

1. Install the SpecKit CLI integration for your AI coding assistant (Claude Code, Copilot CLI, etc.).
2. The .specify/ directory contains project templates and the constitution — these are not committed to the repository.
3. Run /speckit-constitution to initialize project principles on a fresh clone.
4. Use /speckit-specify, /speckit-plan, and /speckit-tasks for feature development workflows.

Running Locally

DAEMON_SETTINGS=/path/to/config.toml python -m nginxauthdaemon.nginxauthdaemon
# Or with gunicorn:
DAEMON_SETTINGS=/path/to/config.toml gunicorn -b 0.0.0.0:5000 -k gthread --threads 4 nginxauthdaemon.wsgi:app

Daemon Configuration

Configuration uses TOML format. Point DAEMON_SETTINGS environment variable to your .toml config file.

Basic configuration properties (TOML field names are lowercase):

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 as salt for creation of session key. Must override.
des_key	8-byte DES encryption key. Must override.
authenticator	Authenticator type: "crowd" (default) or "dummy" (test only)
jwt_private_key	RSA private key in PEM format for access token signing. Must override.
auth_url_prefix	URL prefix for auth routes (default: /auth)
testing	Set to true to enable DummyAuthenticator (default: false)

Authenticators

Available authenticators (set via authenticator config field):

Value	Description
"crowd"	Atlassian Crowd based authenticator (default, production use)
"dummy"	Simplest authenticator checking username equals password (test only, requires testing = true)

Crowd authenticator additional options (required when authenticator = "crowd"):

Option	Description
crowd_url	Crowd server URL, e.g. https://localhost:8095/crowd/
crowd_app_name	Crowd application name
crowd_app_password	Crowd application password

Access Token Options

Option	Description
jwt_private_key	RS256 secret key for access token signing
access_token_cookie	Access token cookie name

NGINX Configuration

Your NGINX should be compiled with ngx_http_auth_request_module. Check using nginx -V.

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;
}

HAProxy Configuration

Install haproxy-auth-request script from https://github.com/TimWolla/haproxy-auth-request/

Sample HAProxy config (thanks to Dmitry Kamenskikh):

global
        log /dev/log        local0
        log /dev/log        local1 notice
        chroot /var/lib/haproxy
        stats socket /run/haproxy/admin.sock mode 660 level admin expose-fd listeners
        stats timeout 30s
        user haproxy
        group haproxy
        daemon

        lua-load /usr/share/haproxy/auth-request.lua

defaults
        log        global
        mode        http
        option        httplog
        option        dontlognull
        timeout connect 5000
        timeout client  50000
        timeout server  50000

frontend main
        mode http
        bind :80

        acl management path_beg /management
        acl login_page path -i /auth/login
        http-request lua.auth-request auth_request /auth/validate if management
        acl login_success var(txn.auth_response_successful) -m bool
        http-request add-header X-target %[path] if management
        http-request set-path /auth/login if management ! login_success
        use_backend auth_request if login_page

        default_backend just200

backend just200
        server main 172.17.0.1:3000 check

backend auth_request
        mode http
        server main 172.17.0.1:5000 check

Limitations

Daemon can be extended to support LDAP or any other auth method, but it supports only Atlassian Crowd for now. PRs with new auth methods are welcome.

License

The reference implementation is subject to MIT License.