authelia/docs/configuration/authentication/file.md

layout	title	parent	grand_parent	nav_order
default	File	Authentication backends	Configuration	1

File

Authelia supports a file as a users database.

Configuration

Configuring Authelia to use a file is done by specifying the path to the file in the configuration file.

authentication_backend:
    file:
        path: /var/lib/authelia/users.yml

Format

The format of the file is as follows.

users:
    john:
        password: "$6$rounds=500000$jgiCMRyGXzoqpxS3$w2pJeZnnH8bwW3zzvoMWtTRfQYsHbWbD/hquuQ5vUeIyl9gdwBIt6RWk2S6afBA0DPakbeWgD/4SZPiS0hYtU/"
        email: john.doe@authelia.com
        groups:
            - admins
            - dev

    harry:
        password: "$6$rounds=500000$jgiCMRyGXzoqpxS3$w2pJeZnnH8bwW3zzvoMWtTRfQYsHbWbD/hquuQ5vUeIyl9gdwBIt6RWk2S6afBA0DPakbeWgD/4SZPiS0hYtU/"
        email: harry.potter@authelia.com
        groups: []

    bob:
        password: "$6$rounds=500000$jgiCMRyGXzoqpxS3$w2pJeZnnH8bwW3zzvoMWtTRfQYsHbWbD/hquuQ5vUeIyl9gdwBIt6RWk2S6afBA0DPakbeWgD/4SZPiS0hYtU/"
        email: bob.dylan@authelia.com
        groups:
            - dev

    james:
        password: "$6$rounds=500000$jgiCMRyGXzoqpxS3$w2pJeZnnH8bwW3zzvoMWtTRfQYsHbWbD/hquuQ5vUeIyl9gdwBIt6RWk2S6afBA0DPakbeWgD/4SZPiS0hYtU/"
        email: james.dean@authelia.com

This file should be set with read/write permissions as it could be updated by users resetting their passwords.

Passwords

The file contains hash of passwords instead of plain text passwords for security reasons.

You can use authelia binary or docker image to generate the hash of any password.

For instance, with the docker image, just run

$ docker run authelia/authelia:latest authelia hash-password yourpassword
$6$rounds=50000$BpLnfgDsc2WD8F2q$be7OyobnQ8K09dyDiGjY.cULh4yDePMh6CUMpLwF4WHTJmLcPE2ijM2ZsqZL.hVAANojEfDu3sU9u9uD7AeBJ/

## Password Hash Function

The only supported hash function is salted sha512 determined by the prefix $6$ as described in this wiki page.

Although not the best hash function, Salted SHA512 is a decent algorithm given the number of rounds is big enough. It's not the best because the difficulty to crack the hash does not on the performance of the machine. The best algorithm, Argon2 does though. It won the Password Hashing Competition in 2015 and is now considered the best hashing function. There is an open issue to add support for this hashing function.