verdaccio/docs/auth.md

---
id: authentification
title: "Authentification"
---

The authentification is tied to the auth [plugin](plugins.md) you are using. The package restrictions also is handled by the [Package Access](packages.md).

The client authentification is handled by `npm` client itself. Once you login to the application:

```bash
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](https://docs.npmjs.com/files/npmrc).

```bash
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 set up correctly your [packages access](packages.md).

Eg:

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

As is described [on issue #212](https://github.com/verdaccio/verdaccio/issues/212#issuecomment-308578500) until `npm@5.3.0` and all minor releases **won't allow you publish without a token**. However `yarn` has not such limitation.

## Default htpasswd

In order to simplify the setup, `verdaccio` use a plugin based on `htpasswd`. As of version v3.0.x an [external plugin](https://github.com/verdaccio/verdaccio-htpasswd) 
is used by default. The v2.x version of this package still contains the built-in version of this plugin.

```yaml
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
```

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

In case to decide do not allow user to login, you can set `max_users: -1`.