Plug.BasicAuth (Plug v1.11.1) View Source

Functionality for providing Basic HTTP authentication.

It is recommended to only use this module in production if SSL is enabled and enforced. See Plug.SSL for more information.

Compile-time usage

If you have a single username and password, you can use the basic_auth/2 plug:

import Plug.BasicAuth
plug :basic_auth, username: "hello", password: "secret"

Or if you would rather put those in a config file:

# lib/your_app.ex
import Plug.BasicAuth
plug :basic_auth, Application.compile_env(:my_app, :basic_auth)

# config/config.exs
config :my_app, :basic_auth, username: "hello", password: "secret"

Once the user first accesses the page, the request will be denied with reason 401 and the request is halted. The browser will then prompt the user for username and password. If they match, then the request succeeds.

Both approaches shown above rely on static configuration. Let's see alternatives.

Runtime-time usage

As any other Plug, we can use the basic_auth at runtime by simply wrapping it in a function:

plug :auth

defp auth(conn, opts) do
  username = System.fetch_env!("AUTH_USERNAME")
  password = System.fetch_env!("AUTH_PASSWORD")
  Plug.BasicAuth.basic_auth(conn, username: username, password: password)
end

This approach is useful when both username and password are specified upfront and available at runtime. However, you may also want to compute a different password for each different user. In those cases, we can use the low-level API.

Low-level usage

If you want to provide your own authentication logic on top of Basic HTTP auth, you can use the low-level functions. As an example, we define :auth plug that extracts username and password from the request headers, compares them against the database, and either assigns a :current_user on success or responds with an error on failure.

plug :auth

defp auth(conn, _opts) do
  with {user, pass} <- Plug.BasicAuth.parse_basic_auth(conn),
       %User{} = user <- MyApp.Accounts.find_by_username_and_password(user, pass) do
    assign(conn, :current_user, user)
  else
    _ -> conn |> Plug.BasicAuth.request_basic_auth() |> halt()
  end
end

Keep in mind that:

  • The supplied user and pass may be empty strings;

  • If you are comparing the username and password with existing strings, do not use ==/2. Use Plug.Crypto.secure_compare/2 instead.

Link to this section Summary

Functions

Higher level usage of Basic HTTP auth.

Encodes a basic authentication header.

Parses the request username and password from Basic HTTP auth.

Requests basic authentication from the client.

Link to this section Functions

Link to this function

basic_auth(conn, options \\ [])

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Higher level usage of Basic HTTP auth.

See the module docs for examples.

Options

  • :username - the expected username
  • :password - the expected password
  • :realm - the authentication realm. The value is not fully sanitized, so do not accept user input as the realm and use strings with only alphanumeric characters and space
Link to this function

encode_basic_auth(user, pass)

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Encodes a basic authentication header.

This can be used during tests:

put_req_header(conn, "authorization", encode_basic_auth("hello", "world"))

Parses the request username and password from Basic HTTP auth.

It returns either {user, pass} or :error. Note the username and password may be empty strings. When comparing the username and password with the expected values, be sure to use Plug.Crypto.secure_compare/2.

See the module docs for examples.

Link to this function

request_basic_auth(conn, options \\ [])

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Requests basic authentication from the client.

It sets the response to status 401 with "Unauthorized" as body. The response is not sent though (nor the connection is halted), allowing developers to further customize it.

Options

  • :realm - the authentication realm. The value is not fully sanitized, so do not accept user input as the realm and use strings with only alphanumeric characters and space