Authentication

The authentication is tied to the auth plugin you are using. The package restrictions are also handled by the Package Access.

The client authentication is handled by the npm client itself. Once you log in to the application:

npm adduser --registry http://localhost:4873

A token is generated in the npm configuration file hosted in your user home folder. For more information about .npmrc read the official documentation.

cat .npmrc
registry=http://localhost:5555/
//localhost:5555/:_authToken="secretVerdaccioToken"
//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=secretNpmjsToken

Anonymous publish

verdaccio allows you to enable anonymous publish. To achieve that you will need to correctly set up your packages access.

Eg:

'my-company-*':
  access: $anonymous
  publish: $anonymous
  proxy: npmjs

caution

Allowing $anonymous to publish is not enough on its own: npm still refuses to publish without being logged in, answering ENEEDAUTH, no matter what the registry permits. This is current behaviour, not a historical quirk — it was originally reported in issue #212 against npm@5.3.0 and still applies to npm@11.

Run npm adduser first, even when the package itself needs no permissions.

Understanding Groups

The meaning of $all and $anonymous

As you know Verdaccio uses htpasswd by default. That plugin does not implement the methods allow_access, allow_publish and allow_unpublish. Thus, Verdaccio will handle that in the following way:

• If you are not logged in (you are anonymous), $all and $anonymous means exactly the same.
• If you are logged in, $anonymous won't be part of your groups and $all will match any logged user. A new group $authenticated will be added to your group list.

Please note: $all will match all users, whether logged in or not.

The previous behavior only applies to the default authentication plugin. If you are using a custom plugin and such plugin implements allow_access, allow_publish or allow_unpublish, the resolution of the access depends on the plugin itself. Verdaccio will only set the default groups.

Let's recap:

• logged in: $all and $authenticated + groups added by the plugin.
• logged out (anonymous): $all and $anonymous.

Default htpasswd

In order to simplify the setup, verdaccio ships with the verdaccio-htpasswd plugin enabled by default, so a fresh installation authenticates against an htpasswd file without any extra configuration.

auth:
  htpasswd:
    file: ./htpasswd
    # Maximum amount of users allowed to register, defaults to "+inf".
    # You can set this to -1 to disable registration.
    # max_users: 1000
    # Hash algorithm. The default is "bcrypt"; "md5", "sha1" and "crypt" exist only to
    # keep reading htpasswd files written by other tools.
    algorithm: bcrypt
    # Rounds number for "bcrypt", will be ignored for other algorithms.
    rounds: 10

The default is bcrypt

You do not need to set algorithm to get a secure hash. On both 6.x and 7.x, omitting it means bcrypt with 10 rounds. An unrecognised value also falls back to bcrypt, with a warning in the log.

md5, sha1 and crypt are accepted so that Verdaccio can read htpasswd files produced elsewhere. None of them is suitable for a password you care about, so do not pick them for a new registry. Existing entries hashed with them keep working — they are only rehashed when the user changes their password.

Property	Type	Required	Example	Support	Description
file	string	Yes	./htpasswd	all	file that host the encrypted credentials
max_users	number	No	1000	all	set limit of users
algorithm	string	No	bcrypt/md5/sha1/crypt	all	password hashing algorithm, defaults to bcrypt
rounds	number	No	10	all	Rounds number for "bcrypt", will be ignored for other algorithms

In case you decide to prevent users from signing up themselves, you can set max_users: -1.

Two-factor authentication

Independently of which authentication plugin you use, users can add a time-based one-time password on top of their password. See two-factor authentication.