authelia/docs/content/en/integration/prologue/get-started.md

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---
title: "Get Started"
description: "A getting started guide for Authelia."
lead: "This document serves as a get started guide for Authelia. It contains links to various sections and has some key notes in questions frequently asked by people looking to perform setup for the first time."
date: 2022-06-15T17:51:47+10:00
draft: false
images: []
menu:
integration:
parent: "prologue"
weight: 120
toc: true
---
It's important to note that this guide has a layout which we suggest as the best order in areas to tackle, but you may
obviously choose a different path if you are so inclined.
## Prerequisites
### Forwarded Authentication
Forwarded Authentication is a simple per-request authorization flow that checks the metadata of a request and a session
cookie to determine if a user must be forwarded to the authentication portal.
Due to the fact a cookie is use, it's an intentional design decision that *__ALL__* applications/domains protected via
this method *__MUST__* use secure schemes (`https` and `wss`) for all of their communication.
### OpenID Connect
Only requires Authelia to be use a secure scheme (`https`).
## Configuration
It's important to customize the configuration for *Authelia* in advance of deploying it. The configuration is static and
not configured via web GUI. You can find a
[configuration template](https://github.com/authelia/authelia/blob/master/config.template.yml) on GitHub which can be
used as a basis for configuration.
The important sections to consider in initial configuration are as follows:
1. [jwt_secret](../../configuration/miscellaneous/introduction.md#jwt_secret) which is used to sign identity
verification emails
2. [default_redirection_url](../../configuration/miscellaneous/introduction.md#default_redirection_url) which is the
default URL users will be redirected to when visiting *Authelia* directly
3. [authentication_backend](../../configuration/first-factor/introduction.md) which you must pick between
[LDAP](../../configuration/first-factor/ldap.md) and a [YAML File](../../configuration/first-factor/file.md) and is
essential for users to authenticate.
4. [storage](../../configuration/storage/introduction.md) which you must pick between the SQL Storage Providers, the
recommended one for testing and lite deployments is [SQLite3](../../configuration/storage/sqlite.md) and the
recommended one for production deployments otherwise is [PostgreSQL](../../configuration/storage/postgres.md).
5. [session](../../configuration/session/introduction.md) which is used to configure the session cookies, the
[domain](../../configuration/session/introduction.md#domain) and
[secret](../../configuration/session/introduction.md#secret) are the most important, and
[redis](../../configuration/session/redis.md) is recommended for production environments.
6. [notifier](../../configuration/notifications/introduction.md) which is used to send 2FA registration emails etc,
there is an option for local file delivery but the [SMTP](../../configuration/notifications/smtp.md) option is
recommended for production.
7. [access_control](../../configuration/security/access-control.md) is also important but should be configured with a
very basic policy to begin with. Something like:
```yaml
access_control:
default_policy: deny
rules:
- domain: "*.example.com"
policy: one_factor
```
## Deployment
There are several methods of deploying *Authelia* and we recommend reading the
[Deployment Documentation](../deployment/introduction.md) in order to perform deployment.
## Proxy Integration
The default method of utilizing *Authelia* is via the [Proxy Integrations](../proxies/introduction.md). It's
recommended that you read the relevant [Proxy Integration Documentation](../proxies/introduction.md).
*__Important Note:__ When your [Deployment](#deployment) is on [Kubernetes](../kubernetes/introduction/index.md) we
recommend viewing the dedicated [Kubernetes Documentation](../kubernetes/introduction/index.md) prior to viewing the
[Proxy Integration Documentation](../proxies/introduction.md).*
## Moving to Production
We consider it important to do several things in moving to a production environment.
1. Move all [secret values](../../configuration/methods/secrets.md#environment-variables) out of the configuration and
into [secrets](../../configuration/methods/secrets.md).
2. Spend time understanding [access control](../../configuration/security/access-control.md) and granularly configure it
to your requirements.
3. Review the [Security Measures](../../overview/security/measures.md) and
[Threat Model](../../overview/security/threat-model.md) documentation.
4. Ensure you have reviewed the [Forwarded Headers](../proxies/fowarded-headers/index.md) documentation to ensure your
proxy is not allowing insecure headers to be passed to *Authelia*.
5. Review the other [Configuration Options](../../configuration/prologue/introduction.md).