Authentication

As of Firefly III 4.7.8 there are two ways to authenticate users. The settings to change these can be accessed through the .env-file in the root directory of your installation, or they can be changed through environment variables (Docker).

If an environment variable itself contains the = character, you must escape the entire value using quotes:

-e NORMAL_VAR=hello \
-e COMPLEX_VAR="dn=example" \

NORMAL_VAR=hello
COMPLEX_VAR="dn=example"

Built-in

By default Firefly III uses the "eloquent" driver that allows users to register and login locally. This is based on the user's email address.

Firefly III will allow one user to register itself after which registration will be blocked. The user who first registered is made administrator and can change the setting over at /admin to allow others to register.

Remote user

Firefly III supports RFC 3875 which means your users can authenticate using the REMOTE_USER header. When you enable this method, an authentication proxy in front of Firefly III MUST be set up to care of the user's login and authentication. This lets you to use advanced login methods like hardware tokens, single sign-on, fingerprint readers and more. Once the authentication proxy says you're logged in, it will forward you to Firefly III.

A very popular tool that can do this Authelia.

Enable the remote user option

To enable this function set the AUTHENTICATION_GUARD environment variable to remote_user_guard.

How it works

Once you're authenticated by the proxy Firefly III will receive the request with your user ID in the REMOTE_USER header. Firefly III will then log you in. There are no further checks.

When Firefly III is in remote_user_guard mode, it will do absolutely NO checks on the validity of the header or the contents. Firefly III will not ask for passwords, if won't check for MFA, nothing. All authentication is delegated to the authentication proxy and Firefly III just doesn't care anymore.

So if you use this authentication method make sure there is NO way around the authentication proxy you've set up. Block all other access to the container or the server.

The guard header was unexpectedly empty

As a troubleshooting step, try setting the AUTHENTICATION_GUARD_HEADER environment variable to HTTP_REMOTE_USER. If this doesn't work, unset the AUTHENTICATION_GUARD_HEADER environment variable and make the change below.

Make sure that the header is forwarded to Firefly III. For example, add the following lines to public/.htaccess.

    RewriteCond %{HTTP:REMOTE_USER} .
    RewriteRule .* - [E=REMOTE_USER:%{HTTP:REMOTE_USER}]

This is less than optimal when you're using the Docker image but if the header is sent to your reverse proxy and not to Firefly III directly, it may be necessary to make such a change.

Customizing remote user header

If you are able to customize your authentication system to send a header other than REMOTE_USER to Firefly III, then set the AUTHENTICATION_GUARD_HEADER environment variable to the PHP name of that header. For example, if the custom header is FFIII-User, then set AUTHENTICATION_GUARD_HEADER to HTTP_FFIII_USER. Another benefit of using a custom header is that you do not need to change the public/.htaccess file as mentioned above.

If the user's email address is also available through a different HTTP header, then set the AUTHENTICATION_GUARD_EMAIL environment variable to the PHP name of that yeader. For example, if the custom header is FFIII-Email, then set AUTHENTICATION_GUARD_EMAIL to HTTP_FFIII_EMAIL

LDAP

In the following instructions I will refer to environment variables in all caps, like EXAMPLE_VARIABLE.

To enable LDAP authentication first set LOGIN_PROVIDER to ldap.

Connection configuration

1. Change ADLDAP_CONNECTION_SCHEME to say either OpenLDAP, FreeIPA, or ActiveDirectory, depending on your server.
2. Set ADLDAP_AUTO_CONNECT to true or false. I highly recommend to leave this at true.

Connection settings

Continue the configuration by changing the following settings:

• ADLDAP_CONTROLLERS. A space separated list of LDAP controllers.
• ADLDAP_PORT, ADLDAP_TIMEOUT, ADLDAP_USE_SSL and ADLDAP_USE_TLS to fine tune the connection. Use ADLDAP_FOLLOW_REFFERALS if you have multiple LDAP servers that may redirect requests.

Change the ADLDAP_BASEDN to indicate where the users can be located. If necessary, set ADLDAP_ADMIN_USERNAME and ADLDAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD to authenticate towards your LDAP server.

Users type the ADLDAP_DISCOVER_FIELD into the "User identifier"-box of Firefly III. This could be the distinguishedname, the uid or something else entirely. Firefly III will then use the ADLDAP_AUTH_FIELD to bind users to itself. The ADLDAP_SYNC_FIELD finally, will be stored in the user table of Firefly III. My strong suggestion is to keep all of these the same.

If necessary, you can set the following prefixes and suffixes so that the user's LDAP accounts are properly formatted for use with your LDAP server:

• ADLDAP_ACCOUNT_PREFIX
• ADLDAP_ACCOUNT_SUFFIX

The administrator account should have these already set in your configuration.

Authentication settings

When you're feeling especially daring, you can change the following fields to fine tune authentication with Firefly III.

If you set ADLDAP_PASSWORD_SYNC to true, Firefly III will sync the user's password to its local user table. This allows users to login to Firefly III when the LDAP server is unavailable. This requires ADLDAP_LOGIN_FALLBACK to be true as well.

Finishing up and possible problems

Generally speaking, Firefly III will give you a "password not accepted" error when something goes wrong. I refer you to the log files of your LDAP server and those of Firefly III to see what went wrong. When in doubt, turn on debug mode and try again.

If you get "cannot be NULL"-errors or "field unavailable"-errors or something like that it means that the discover field, sync field or auth field is empty. Make sure you pick the right field.

Example configuration

The following configuration will allow you to connect to Forum System's excellent example LDAP server. If you configure your Firefly III system, you can login with user "einstein" with password "password".

LOGIN_PROVIDER=ldap

# LDAP connection configuration
# OpenLDAP, FreeIPA or ActiveDirectory
ADLDAP_CONNECTION_SCHEME=OpenLDAP
ADLDAP_AUTO_CONNECT=true

# LDAP connection settings
ADLDAP_CONTROLLERS=ldap.forumsys.com
ADLDAP_PORT=389
ADLDAP_TIMEOUT=5
ADLDAP_BASEDN="dc=example,dc=com"
ADLDAP_FOLLOW_REFFERALS=false
ADLDAP_USE_SSL=false
ADLDAP_USE_TLS=false

ADLDAP_ADMIN_USERNAME="cn=read-only-admin,dc=example,dc=com"
ADLDAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD=password

ADLDAP_ACCOUNT_PREFIX="uid="
ADLDAP_ACCOUNT_SUFFIX=",dc=example,dc=com"

# LDAP authentication settings.
ADLDAP_PASSWORD_SYNC=false
ADLDAP_LOGIN_FALLBACK=false

ADLDAP_DISCOVER_FIELD=uid
ADLDAP_AUTH_FIELD=uid

# Will allow SSO if your server provides an AUTH_USER field.
WINDOWS_SSO_DISCOVER=samaccountname
WINDOWS_SSO_KEY=AUTH_USER

# field to sync as local username.
ADLDAP_SYNC_FIELD=uid

Example configuration for FreeIPA

The following is an example configuration for FreeIPA:

LOGIN_PROVIDER=ldap

# LDAP connection configuration
# OpenLDAP, FreeIPA or ActiveDirectory
ADLDAP_CONNECTION_SCHEME=FreeIPA
ADLDAP_AUTO_CONNECT=true

# LDAP connection settings
ADLDAP_CONTROLLERS=ipa.example.com
ADLDAP_PORT=389
ADLDAP_TIMEOUT=5
ADLDAP_BASEDN="dc=example,dc=com"
ADLDAP_FOLLOW_REFFERALS=false
ADLDAP_USE_SSL=false
ADLDAP_USE_TLS=false

ADLDAP_ADMIN_USERNAME="uid=read-only-admin,cn=users,cn=accounts,dc=example,dc=com"
ADLDAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD=password

ADLDAP_ACCOUNT_PREFIX="uid="
ADLDAP_ACCOUNT_SUFFIX=",cn=users,cn=accounts,dc=example,dc=com"

# LDAP authentication settings.
ADLDAP_PASSWORD_SYNC=false
ADLDAP_LOGIN_FALLBACK=false

ADLDAP_DISCOVER_FIELD=uid
ADLDAP_AUTH_FIELD=uid

# Will allow SSO if your server provides an AUTH_USER field.
WINDOWS_SSO_DISCOVER=samaccountname
WINDOWS_SSO_KEY=AUTH_USER

# field to sync as local username.
ADLDAP_SYNC_FIELD=uid

Example configuration for Active Directory

The following is an example configuration for Active Directory:

LOGIN_PROVIDER=ldap

# LDAP connection configuration
# OpenLDAP, FreeIPA or ActiveDirectory
ADLDAP_CONNECTION_SCHEME=ActiveDirectory
ADLDAP_AUTO_CONNECT=true

# LDAP connection settings
ADLDAP_CONTROLLERS=ldap.example.com
ADLDAP_PORT=389
ADLDAP_TIMEOUT=5
ADLDAP_BASEDN="dc=example,dc=com"
ADLDAP_FOLLOW_REFFERALS=false
ADLDAP_USE_SSL=false
ADLDAP_USE_TLS=false

ADLDAP_ADMIN_USERNAME="ldap"
ADLDAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD=password

#ADLDAP_ACCOUNT_PREFIX=
#ADLDAP_ACCOUNT_SUFFIX=

# LDAP authentication settings.
ADLDAP_PASSWORD_SYNC=false
ADLDAP_LOGIN_FALLBACK=false

ADLDAP_DISCOVER_FIELD=samaccountname
ADLDAP_AUTH_FIELD=distinguishedname

# Will allow SSO if your server provides an AUTH_USER field.
WINDOWS_SSO_DISCOVER=samaccountname
WINDOWS_SSO_KEY=AUTH_USER

# field to sync as local username.
ADLDAP_SYNC_FIELD=samaccountname

Two-step authentication

Two-step authentication, or two-factor authentication (2FA) asks you for an extra code to enter. This adds security, so even when you lose your password your account is still protected.

You can enable it in your profile.

If you enable 2FA, you will also see eight backup codes that you should save just in case you lose access to your Authenticator app.

To confirm your 2FA settings, submit a code from your Authenticator app twice. In your settings, you will see the upgraded status for 2FA: