`vmauth` is a simple auth proxy, router and [load balancer](#load-balancing) for [VictoriaMetrics](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics).
It reads auth credentials from `Authorization` http header ([Basic Auth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_access_authentication) and `Bearer token` is supported),
matches them against configs pointed by [-auth.config](#auth-config) command-line flag and proxies incoming HTTP requests to the configured per-user `url_prefix` on successful match.
Feel free [contacting us](mailto:info@victoriametrics.com) if you need customized auth proxy for VictoriaMetrics with the support of LDAP, SSO, RBAC, SAML,
Each `url_prefix` in the [-auth.config](#auth-config) may contain either a single url or a list of urls. In the latter case `vmauth` balances load among the configured urls in a round-robin manner. This feature is useful for balancing the load among multiple `vmselect` and/or `vminsert` nodes in [VictoriaMetrics cluster](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html).
It is expected that all the backend services protected by `vmauth` are located in an isolated private network, so they can be accessed by external users only via `vmauth`.
Do not transfer Basic Auth headers in plaintext over untrusted networks. Enable https. This can be done by passing the following `-tls*` command-line flags to `vmauth`:
```
-tls
Whether to enable TLS (aka HTTPS) for incoming requests. -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set
-tlsCertFile string
Path to file with TLS certificate. Used only if -tls is set. Prefer ECDSA certs instead of RSA certs, since RSA certs are slow
-tlsKeyFile string
Path to file with TLS key. Used only if -tls is set
```
Alternatively, [https termination proxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TLS_termination_proxy) may be put in front of `vmauth`.
`vmauth` exports various metrics in Prometheus exposition format at `http://vmauth-host:8427/metrics` page. It is recommended setting up regular scraping of this page
`vmauth` exports `vmauth_user_requests_total` metric with `username` label. The `username` label value equals to `username` field value set in the `-auth.config` file. It is possible to override or hide the value in the label by specifying `name` field. For example, the following config will result in `vmauth_user_requests_total{username="foobar"}` instead of `vmauth_user_requests_total{username="secret_user"}`:
It is recommended using [binary releases](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/releases) - `vmauth` is located in `vmutils-*` archives there.
by setting it via `<ROOT_IMAGE>` environment variable. For example, the following command builds the image on top of [scratch](https://hub.docker.com/_/scratch) image:
Path to auth config. It can point either to local file or to http url. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmauth.html for details on the format of this auth config
Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables additionally to command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from command line if this flag isn't set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#environment-variables for more details
Whether to use pread() instead of mmap() for reading data files. By default mmap() is used for 64-bit arches and pread() is used for 32-bit arches, since they cannot read data files bigger than 2^32 bytes in memory. mmap() is usually faster for reading small data chunks than pread()
Incoming http connections are closed after the configured timeout. This may help to spread the incoming load among a cluster of services behind a load balancer. Please note that the real timeout may be bigger by up to 10% as a protection against the thundering herd problem (default 2m0s)
The maximum duration for a graceful shutdown of the HTTP server. A highly loaded server may require increased value for a graceful shutdown (default 7s)
An optional prefix to add to all the paths handled by http server. For example, if '-http.pathPrefix=/foo/bar' is set, then all the http requests will be handled on '/foo/bar/*' paths. This may be useful for proxied requests. See https://www.robustperception.io/using-external-urls-and-proxies-with-prometheus
Optional delay before http server shutdown. During this delay, the server returns non-OK responses from /health page, so load balancers can route new requests to other servers
Whether to log requests with invalid auth tokens. Such requests are always counted at vmauth_http_request_errors_total{reason="invalid_auth_token"} metric, which is exposed at /metrics page
Per-second limit on the number of ERROR messages. If more than the given number of errors are emitted per second, the remaining errors are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
Timezone to use for timestamps in logs. Timezone must be a valid IANA Time Zone. For example: America/New_York, Europe/Berlin, Etc/GMT+3 or Local (default "UTC")
Per-second limit on the number of WARN messages. If more than the given number of warns are emitted per second, then the remaining warns are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
Allowed size of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. This option overrides -memory.allowedPercent if set to a non-zero value. Too low a value may increase the cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
Allowed percent of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. See also -memory.allowedBytes. Too low a value may increase cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
