Common

Syntax

The following represent common syntax used within the configuration which have specific format requirements that are used in multiple areas. This is intended on assisting in understanding these specific values, and not as a specific guide on configuring any particular instance.

Duration

The base type for this syntax is a string, and it also handles integers however this is discouraged.

If you supply an integer, it is considered a representation of seconds. If you supply a string, it parses the string in blocks of quantities and units (number followed by a unit letter). For example 5h indicates a quantity of 5 units of h.

The following is ignored or stripped from the input:

  • all spaces
  • leading zeros
  • the word and

While you can use multiple of these blocks in combination, we suggest keeping it simple and use a single value. In addition it’s important to note that the format while somewhat human readable still requires you closely follow the expected formats.

Unit Legend

The following is a legend for the unit formats available in this syntax. The long form units are only available from v4.38.0 or newer.

Unit Short Unit Human Readable Long Unit
Years y year, years
Months M month, months
Weeks w week, weeks
Days d day, days
Hours h hour, hours
Minutes m minute, minutes
Seconds s second, seconds
Milliseconds ms millisecond, milliseconds

Examples

Desired Value Configuration Examples (Short) Configuration Examples (Long)
1 hour and 30 minutes 90m or 1h30m or 5400 or 5400s 1 hour and 30 minutes
1 day 1d or 24h or 86400 or 86400s 1 day
10 hours 10h or 600m or 9h60m or 36000 10 hours

Address

The base type for this syntax is a string.

The address type is a string that indicates how to configure a listener (i.e. listening for connections) or connector (i.e. opening remote connections), which are the two primary categories of addresses.

Format

This section outlines the format for these strings. The formats use a conventional POSIX format to indicate optional and required elements. The square brackets [] surround optional portions, and the angled brackets <> surround required portions. Required portions may exist within optional portions, in which case they are often accompanied with other format specific text which indicates if the accompanying text exists then it is actually required, otherwise it’s entirely optional.

The square brackets indicate optional sections, and the angled brackets indicate required sections. The following sections elaborate on this. Sections may only be optional for the purposes of parsing, there may be a configuration requirement that one of these is provided.

Hostname

The following format represents the hostname format. It’s valid for both a listener and connector in most instances. Refer to the individual documentation for an option for clarity. In this format as per the notation the scheme and port are optional. The default for these when not provided varies.

[<scheme>://]<hostname>[:<port>][/<path>]
Port

The following format represents the port format. It’s valid only for a listener in most instances. Refer to the individual documentation for an option for clarity. In this format as per the notation the scheme and hostname are optional. The default for the scheme when not provided varies, and the default for the hostname is all available addresses when not provided.

[<scheme>://][hostname]:<port>[/<path>]
Unix Domain Socket

The following format represents the unix domain socket format. It’s valid for both a listener and connector in most instances. Refer to the individual documentation for an option for clarity. In this format as per the notation there are no optional portions.

The Unix Domain Socket format also accepts a query string. The following query parameters control certain behavior of this address type.

Parameter Listeners Connectors Purpose
umask Yes No Sets the umask prior to creating the socket and restores it after creating it. The value must be an octal number with 3 or 4 digits.
path Yes No Sets the path variable to configure the subpath, specifically for a unix socket but technically works for TCP as well. Note that this should just be the alphanumeric portion it should not be prefixed with a forward slash
unix://<path>
unix://<path>?umask=0022
unix://<path>?path=auth
unix://<path>?umask=0022&path=auth
Examples

Various examples for these formats.

0.0.0.0
tcp://0.0.0.0
tcp://0.0.0.0/subpath
tcp://0.0.0.0:9091
tcp://0.0.0.0:9091/subpath
tcp://:9091
tcp://:9091/subpath
0.0.0.0:9091

udp://0.0.0.0:123
udp://:123

unix:///var/lib/authelia.sock

scheme

The entire scheme is optional, but if the scheme host delimiter :// is in the string, the scheme must be present. The scheme must be one of the following (the listeners and connectors columns indicate support for the scheme on the respective address type):

Scheme Listeners Connectors Default Port Notes
tcp Yes Yes N/A Standard TCP Socket which allows IPv4 and/or IPv6 addresses
tcp4 Yes Yes N/A Standard TCP Socket which allows only IPv4 addresses
tcp6 Yes Yes N/A Standard TCP Socket which allows only IPv6 addresses
udp Yes Yes N/A Standard UDP Socket which allows IPv4 and/or IPv6 addresses
udp4 Yes Yes N/A Standard UDP Socket which allows only IPv4 addresses
udp6 Yes Yes N/A Standard UDP Socket which allows only IPv6 addresses
unix Yes Yes N/A Standard Unix Domain Socket which allows only absolute paths
ldap No Yes 389 Remote LDAP connection via TCP with implicit TLS via StartTLS
ldaps No Yes 636 Remote LDAP connection via TCP with explicit TLS
ldapi No Yes N/A LDAP connection via Unix Domain Socket
smtp No Yes 25 Remote SMTP connection via TCP using implicit TLS via StartTLS
submission No Yes 587 Remote SMTP Submission connection via TCP using implicit TLS via StartTLS
submissions No Yes 465 Remote SMTP Submission connection via TCP using explicit TLS

If the scheme is absent, the default scheme is assumed. If the address has a / prefix it’s assumed to be unix, otherwise it’s assumed to betcp. If the scheme is unix it must be suffixed with an absolute path i.e. /var/local/authelia.sock would be represented as unix:///var/run/authelia.sock.

hostname

The hostname is required if the scheme is one of the tcp or udp schemes and there is no port specified. It can be any IP that is locally addressable or a hostname which resolves to a locally addressable IP.

If specifying an IPv6 it should be wrapped in square brackets. For example for the IPv6 address ::1 with the tcp scheme and port 80 the correct address would be tcp://[::1]:80.

port

The hostname is required if the scheme is one of the tcp or udp schemes and there is no hostname specified.

Regular Expressions

We have several sections of configuration that utilize regular expressions. We use the Google RE2 regular expression engine which is the full Go regular expression syntax engine, the syntax of which is described here by the authors. It’s very similar to regular expression engines like PCRE, Perl, and Python; with the major exceptions being that it doesn’t have backtracking.

It’s recommended to validate your regular expressions manually either via tools like Regex 101 (ensure you pick the Golang option) or some other means.

It’s important when attempting to utilize a backslash that it’s utilized correctly. The YAML parser is likely to parse this as you trying to use YAML escape syntax instead of regex escape syntax. To avoid this use single quotes instead of no quotes or double quotes.

Good Example:

configuration.yml
domain_regex: '^(admin|secure)\.example\.com$'

Bad Example:

configuration.yml
domain_regex: "^(admin|secure)\.example\.com$"

Structures

The following represent common data structures used within the configuration which have specific requirements that are used in multiple areas. This is intended on assisting in understanding these specific structures, and not as a specific guide on configuring any particular instance.

TLS

Various sections of the configuration use a uniform configuration section called TLS. Notably LDAP and SMTP. This section documents the usage.

Various sections of the configuration use a uniform configuration section called tls which configure TLS socket and TLS verification parameters. Notably the LDAP, SMTP, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Redis sections. This section documents the common parts of this structure.

configuration.yml
tls:
  server_name: 'example.com'
  skip_verify: false
  minimum_version: 'TLS1.2'
  maximum_version: 'TLS1.3'
  certificate_chain: |
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    ...
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    ...
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----    
  private_key: |
    -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
    ...
    -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----    

server_name

string not required

The key server_name overrides the name checked against the certificate in the verification process. Useful if you require an IP address for the host of the backend service but want to verify a specific certificate server name.

skip_verify

boolean false not required

The key skip_verify completely negates validating the certificate of the backend service. This is not recommended, instead you should tweak the server_name option, and the global option certificates directory.

minimum_version

string TLS1.2 not required

Controls the minimum TLS version Authelia will use when performing TLS handshakes. The possible values are TLS1.3, TLS1.2, TLS1.1, TLS1.0, SSL3.0. Anything other than TLS1.3 or TLS1.2 are very old and deprecated. You should avoid using these and upgrade your backend service instead of decreasing this value. At the time of this writing SSL3.0 will always produce errors.

maximum_version

string TLS1.3 not required

Controls the maximum TLS version Authelia will use when performing TLS handshakes. The possible values are TLS1.3, TLS1.2, TLS1.1, TLS1.0, SSL3.0. Anything other than TLS1.3 or TLS1.2 are very old and deprecated. You should avoid using these and upgrade your backend service instead of decreasing this value. At the time of this writing SSL3.0 will always produce errors.

certificate_chain

string not required

The certificate chain/bundle to be used with the private_key to perform mutual TLS authentication with the server.

The value must be one or more certificates encoded in the DER base64 (RFC4648) encoded PEM format. If more than one certificate is provided, in top down order, each certificate must be signed by the next certificate if provided.

private_key

string not required

Important Note

This can also be defined using a secret which is strongly recommended especially for containerized deployments.

The private key to be used with the certificate_chain for mutual TLS authentication. The public key material of the private key must match the private key of the first certificate in the certificate_chain.

The value must be one private key encoded in the DER base64 (RFC4648) encoded PEM format and must be encoded per the PKCS#8, PKCS#1, or SECG1 specifications.

Server Buffers

Various sections of the configuration use a uniform configuration section called buffers which configure HTTP server buffers. Notably the server and metrics telemetry sections. This section documents the common parts of this structure.

configuration.yml
buffers:
  read: 4096
  write: 4096

read

integer 4096 not required

Configures the maximum request size. The default of 4096 is generally sufficient for most use cases.

write

integer 4096 not required

Configures the maximum response size. The default of 4096 is generally sufficient for most use cases.

Server Timeouts

Various sections of the configuration use a uniform configuration section called timeouts which configure HTTP server timeouts. Notably the server and metrics telemetry sections. This section documents the common parts of this structure.

configuration.yml
timeouts:
  read: '6s'
  write: '6s'
  idle: '30s'

read

string integer duration 6 seconds not required

Reference Note

This configuration option uses a common syntax. For more information please see both the configuration example and the Common Syntax: Duration reference guide.

Configures the server read timeout.

write

string integer duration 6 seconds not required

Reference Note

This configuration option uses a common syntax. For more information please see both the configuration example and the Common Syntax: Duration reference guide.

Configures the server write timeout.

idle

string integer duration 30 seconds not required

Reference Note

This configuration option uses a common syntax. For more information please see both the configuration example and the Common Syntax: Duration reference guide.

Configures the server idle timeout.

Historical References

This contains links to historical anchors.

Duration Notation Format

See duration common syntax.