NATS authentication is multi-level. All of the security mode have an accounts level with users belonging to those accounts. The decentralized JWT Authentication also has an operator to which the accounts belong.
Each account has its own independent subject name space: a message published on subject 'foo' in one account will not be seen by subscribers to 'foo' in other accounts. Accounts can however define exports and imports of subject(s) streams as well as expose request-reply services between accounts. Users within an account will share the same subject name space but can be restricted to only be able to publish-subscribe to specific subjects.
The NATS server provides various ways of authenticating clients:
- Token Authentication
- Username/Password credentials
- TLS Certificate
- NKEY with Challenge
- Decentralized JWT Authentication/Authorization
Authentication deals with allowing a NATS client to connect to the server. Except for JWT authentication, authentication and authorization are configured in the authorization section of the configuration. With JWT authentication the account and user information are stored in the resolver rather than in the server configuration file.
The authorization block provides authentication configuration as well as authorization:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
token |
Specifies a global token that can be used to authenticate to the server (exclusive of user and password) |
user |
Specifies a single global user name for clients to the server (exclusive of token) |
password |
Specifies a single global password for clients to the server (exclusive of token) |
users |
A list of user configuration maps |
timeout |
Maximum number of seconds to wait for client authentication |
For multiple username and password credentials, specify a users list.
A user configuration map specifies credentials and permissions options for a single user:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
user |
username for client authentication. (Can also be a user for tls authentication) |
password |
password for the user entry |
nkey |
public nkey identifying an user |
permissions |
permissions map configuring subjects accessible to the user |