Auth Providers

Authentication providers allow your Obot installation to authenticate users with the identity provider of your choice. Administrators must configure at least one authentication provider before users can log in. Multiple providers can be configured and available for login at the same time.

note

In order for authentication to be enabled, the Obot server must be run with the environment variable set:

OBOT_SERVER_ENABLE_AUTHENTICATION=true.

Setting up Authentication

Bootstrap Token

When launching Obot for the first time, the server will print a randomly generated bootstrap token to the console.

info

When installing via Helm, this token is saved inside a kubernetes secret <helm install name>-config.

This token can be used to authenticate as an admin user in the UI. You will then be able to configure authentication providers. Once you have configured at least one authentication provider, and have granted admin access to at least one user, the bootstrap token will no longer be valid.

Custom Bootstrap Token

You can use the OBOT_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN environment variable to provide a specific value for the token, rather than having one generated for you. If you do this, the value will not be printed to the console.

Obot will persist the value of the bootstrap token on its first launch (whether randomly generated or supplied by OBOT_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN), and all future server launches will use that same value. OBOT_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN can always be used to override the stored value.

Preconfiguring Owner & Admin Users

If you want to preconfigure owner or admin users, you can set the OBOT_SERVER_AUTH_OWNER_EMAILS or OBOT_SERVER_AUTH_ADMIN_EMAILS environment variable, respectively. This is a comma-separated list of email addresses that will be granted owner or admin access when they log in, regardless of which auth provider they used.

Users can be given the administrator role by other owners or admins in the Users section of the UI. Users whose email addresses are in configured list will automatically have the administrator role, and the role cannot be revoked from them.

Similarly, users can be given the owner role by other owners in the Users section of the UI. Users whose email addresses are in configured list will automatically have the owner role, and the role cannot be revoked from them.

Access Control

Restricting Access by Email Domain

All authentication providers support restricting access to specific email domains, using the "Email Domains" field in the configuration UI.

You can:

• Use * to allow all email domains
• Specify a comma-separated list of domains to restrict access

Example: example.com,example.org would only allow users with email addresses ending in example.com or example.org.

Available Auth Providers

Obot currently supports the following authentication providers (using OAuth2). Before getting started you will need to follow the instructions in the auth provider for setting up a new app. You can get the callback URL from the Obot Admin -> Auth Providers -> <Auth Provider> -> Configure page. The configuration form will also have fields for the data required.

GitHub

You will need to create an OAuth App in GitHub following these instructions.

You can view the source code for GitHub provider in this repo.

Google

Follow the instructions here to create the OAuth app for Obot.

You can view the source code for Google provider in this repo.

Entra (Enterprise Only)

Within the Microsoft Entra admin center, go to App registrations and click New registration.

Under Supported account types, ensure Accounts in this organizational directory only is selected. In the Redirect URI section, set the platform to Web and enter the redirect URI provided in Obot's Auth Provider configuration dialog.

After completing the form, click Register.

Next, go to the API permissions tab and add the following delegated permissions:

• User.Read
• GroupMember.Read.All requires admin approval
• ProfilePhoto.Read.All requires admin approval

After all permissions are approved, your App's Configured permissions section should look something like this:

Head to the Certificates & secrets tab and click New Client secret. Select a desired expiration date and click Add.

Copy the exposed secret from the Value column to a safe location. You will not be able to retrieve the secret value after this point.

Finally, navigate to the Overview tab and copy the values of Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID for reference.

You can now return to Obot and finish configuring Entra. Use the table below to determine the values to use for each field:

Obot	Entra	Entra App Tab
Client ID	Application (client) ID	Overview
Client Secret	Secret Value column	Certificates & secrets
Tenant ID	Directory (tenant) ID	Overview

Okta (Enterprise Only)

Create an OAuth app in Okta following these instructions.

Once your app is created, go to the Sign On tab and scroll to the OpenID Connect ID Token section. Click on Edit. Then, set the Group Claims Type to Filter, and the Groups Claim Filter to groups Matches regex .*. It should look like this:

Next, click on the Okta API Scopes tab. Scroll down and find okta.groups.read, then click the ✓ Grant button.

When configuring the Okta auth provider in Obot, be sure to set the Issuer URL to the Issuer URL for your org-level authorization server. Obot does not work with custom authorization servers in Okta, because they are unable to support the okta.groups.read scope. Typically, the Issuer URL for your org-level authorization server is simply the URL for your Okta workspace itself, with no path.