ipodderx-rs/docs/sso.md

Signing in through Cloudflare Access and Authentik

ipx can take the signed-in identity from whatever sits in front of it, instead of asking for a password itself. The proxy authenticates the person and passes the result to ipx in a header; ipx reads it, finds (or creates) the matching account, and gets on with it.

Read How this is secured before exposing anything. The short version: a header is worth exactly as much as the hop that set it, so ipx only believes one from an address you list.

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How ipodderx.sdf1.net does it

Checked end to end on 2026-09-12. An earlier version of this page had never been tried against a real setup and pointed at the wrong address.

browser ─► Cloudflare Access, app "ipodderx" ─── sign in ───► Authentik (OpenID Connect)
        ─► tunnel "rays-unraid" (the cloudflared container on Tower)
        ─► http://192.168.1.130:8099 ─► ipx

Authentik is not in the request path. It is the identity provider Cloudflare Access asks. Access then adds Cf-Access-Authenticated-User-Email, the email address Authentik gave it, to every request it forwards through the tunnel, and ipx signs that person in.

Piece	Where	Setting
Identity provider	Zero Trust → Settings → Authentication	Authentik, OpenID Connect; scopes openid email profile
Access application	Zero Trust → Access → Applications → ipodderx	Domain ipodderx.sdf1.net; identity providers: Authentik only, with instant auth; session 730h; policy Require Login allows a list of email addresses
Tunnel route	Zero Trust → Networks → Tunnels → rays-unraid → Public hostnames	ipodderx.sdf1.net → HTTP 192.168.1.130:8099
DNS	sdf1.net	ipodderx CNAME to the tunnel, proxied
ipx	/mnt/fast/appdata/ipodderx/config.toml, [web]	below

[web]
enabled = true
bind = "0.0.0.0:8099"
trusted_header = "Cf-Access-Authenticated-User-Email"
trusted_proxies = ["127.0.0.1", "::1", "192.168.16.1"]
auto_create_users = true
session_days = 30

Restart ipx after editing it: docker compose -f /mnt/fast/arcane/projects/content/compose.yaml restart ipodderx.

What was missing

Cloudflare and Authentik were already right. Three things on the ipx side were not:

1. trusted_header was empty, which switches the whole proxy path off. ipx ignored the header and asked for a password.
2. trusted_proxies listed only 127.0.0.1. The tunnel's requests do not come from there; see the next section.
3. The account had the wrong name. It was made by hand as rays, but the header carries rays@sdf1.net. With auto_create_users on, the first visit would have made a second, empty account. ipx user rename rays rays@sdf1.net fixed that without losing anything.

The address to trust, and why it is 192.168.16.1

cloudflared runs in its own container and reaches ipx through the host's published port. Docker (iptables firewall backend) masquerades traffic between its bridge networks, so the tunnel's requests arrive from the gateway of ipx's own network, content_default:

docker network inspect content_default -f '{{range .IPAM.Config}}{{.Gateway}}{{end}}'

That was measured, not assumed. ipx does not log where a request came from, so the addresses were read from the kernel's connection table inside the container while the site was open. (/proc/net/tcp lists them in hex.)

If the content project's network is ever recreated, its gateway can change. Check it again, and update trusted_proxies to match.

Names

The username is the email address, lower-cased: rays@sdf1.net. To sign in at /login with a password from the LAN, use that name too.

To let someone else in, add their address to the Access policy; they need an Authentik account with that email. With auto_create_users = true they get an ipx account on their first visit, as an ordinary user with no feeds. An account made before the proxy can be given the name the proxy will send:

docker exec iPodderX ipx user rename <old name> <email address>

The tile in Authentik's library

Authentik's library lists Authentik's own applications, and ipodderx signs in through the one called Cloudflare Access, so ipodderx needs a bookmark of its own to show up there. It is Applications → Applications → ipodderx: no provider, launch URL https://ipodderx.sdf1.net, and the iPodderX icon. Like Outline's, it has no policy bindings, so everyone in Authentik sees the tile. Who actually gets in is still up to the Access policy.

Check it

# From Tower itself: not a trusted address, so the header is ignored.
curl -s -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Cf-Access-Authenticated-User-Email: rays@sdf1.net' \
  http://192.168.1.130:8099/api/me                                          # -> sign in

# From a container on a Docker bridge, as cloudflared is: believed.
docker run --rm --network bridge mirror.gcr.io/library/busybox wget -qO- \
  --header 'Accept: application/json' --header 'Cf-Access-Authenticated-User-Email: rays@sdf1.net' \
  http://192.168.1.130:8099/api/me                                          # -> {"admin":true,"name":"rays@sdf1.net"}

Then open https://ipodderx.sdf1.net in a private window. Authentik should ask who you are, and ipx should show rays@sdf1.net in the sidebar footer without asking for a password.

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The ipx settings

Key	What it does
trusted_header	The header the proxy sets. Empty, the default, turns the proxy path off.
trusted_proxies	The addresses allowed to set it. Nothing else is believed.
auto_create_users	Make an account the first time the proxy vouches for a name ipx has not seen.
session_days	How long a password sign-in lasts without use.

The first account ever created is an admin. Every later one is an ordinary user, who cannot change global settings, a feed's URL or folder, or how often feeds are scanned: the API refuses those with a 403, not just the UI. Everything else about a feed is theirs alone; see users.md.

Local sign-in at /login keeps working alongside the proxy, which is how you get in from the LAN when the tunnel is down. So does the shared [web] token, which signs in as the admin and is the way back in if you lock yourself out. A brand new database starts with admin / ipodderx; change it.

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Authentik in the request path instead

Not what ipodderx.sdf1.net uses, and not verified. Authentik can also sit in front of ipx itself, with a Proxy Provider and an outpost that adds X-authentik-username:

• Applications → Providers → Create → Proxy Provider; mode Proxy (the outpost talks to ipx) or Forward auth (an existing reverse proxy asks the outpost).
• Applications → Create, bound to that provider, with a policy; add the provider to an outpost.
• In ipx: trusted_header = "X-authentik-username", and the outpost's or reverse proxy's address in trusted_proxies. Measure that address as above rather than guessing it.

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How this is secured

The header is only believed from trusted_proxies. Every other source is ignored, and the request falls through to a session cookie or the shared token. That is the whole security boundary.

With the tunnel reaching ipx through the host's port, 192.168.16.1 means any container on Tower that connects to 192.168.1.130:8099, not only cloudflared. Machines on the LAN, and Tower itself, arrive under their own addresses and cannot set the header; the checks above show both sides. Never list a LAN address or range: anyone there could then send Cf-Access-Authenticated-User-Email: rays@sdf1.net and be you.

What ipx does not do: it does not verify Cloudflare's signed Cf-Access-Jwt-Assertion. It trusts the hop. Verifying the signature would make the containers on Tower irrelevant to the boundary, and is the upgrade if that ever matters.

Turning it off: clear trusted_header and restart. Proxy-made accounts stay, but nobody can sign in with them until they are given a password (ipx user passwd <name>).

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Everyday administration

ipx user list                                  # who exists, how each signs in, and when
echo -n 'secret123' | ipx user add sam         # local account, password on stdin
ipx user add sam@example.com --no-password     # proxy-only account, made ahead of time
ipx user rename sam sam@example.com            # give an account the name the proxy sends
echo -n 'newsecret' | ipx user passwd sam      # change a password
ipx user rm sam                                # remove the account

In the container, put docker exec iPodderX in front, and docker exec -i iPodderX for the ones that read a password.

Set auto_create_users = false once everyone who should have an account has one. After that the proxy vouching for an unknown name is logged and refused. Make people ahead of time instead, with the exact name the header will carry.

See also users.md for what several people share, configuration.md for every [web] key, and cli.md for the ipx user commands.