.. _authentication:

Authentication setup

====================

Users can be authenticated in different ways. By default, Kallithea

uses its internal user database. Alternative authentication

methods include LDAP, PAM, Crowd, and container-based authentication.

.. _ldap-setup:

LDAP Authentication

-------------------

Kallithea supports LDAP authentication. In order

to use LDAP, you have to install the python-ldap_ package. This package is

available via PyPI, so you can install it by running::

    pip install python-ldap

.. note:: ``python-ldap`` requires some libraries to be installed on

          your system, so before installing it check that you have at

          least the ``openldap`` and ``sasl`` libraries.

Choose *Admin > Authentication*, click the ``kallithea.lib.auth_modules.auth_ldap`` button

installed.

- The Kallithea source repository can be cloned and used -- it is kept stable and

  can be used in production. The Kallithea maintainers use the development

  branch in production. The advantage of installation from source and regularly

  updating it is that you take advantage of the most recent improvements. Using

  it directly from a DVCS also means that it is easy to track local customizations.

  Running ``pip install -e .`` in the source will use pip to install the

  necessary dependencies in the Python environment and create a

  ``.../site-packages/Kallithea.egg-link`` file there that points at the Kallithea

  source.

- Kallithea can also be installed from ready-made packages using a package manager.

  The official released versions are available on PyPI_ and can be downloaded and

  installed with all dependencies using ``pip install kallithea``.

  With this method, Kallithea is installed in the Python environment as any

  other package, usually as a ``.../site-packages/Kallithea-X-py2.7.egg/``

  directory with Python files and everything else that is needed.

  (``pip install kallithea`` from a source tree will do pretty much the same

  but build the Kallithea package itself locally instead of downloading it.)

The tool npm_ is used to download external dependencies and orchestrate the

processing. The ``npm`` binary must thus be available.

Web server

----------

Kallithea is (primarily) a WSGI_ application that must be run from a web

server that serves WSGI applications over HTTP.

Kallithea itself is not serving HTTP (or HTTPS); that is the web server's

responsibility. Kallithea does however need to know its own user facing URL

(protocol, address, port and path) for each HTTP request. Kallithea will

usually use its own HTML/cookie based authentication but can also be configured

to use web server authentication.

There are several web server options:

- Kallithea uses the Gearbox_ tool as command line interface. Gearbox provides

  ``gearbox serve`` as a convenient way to launch a Python WSGI / web server

  from the command line. That is perfect for development and evaluation.

  Actual use in production might have different requirements and need extra

  work to make it manageable as a scalable system service.