verdaccio/website/versioned_docs/version-5.x/packages.md

---
id: packages
title: 'Package Access'
---

This is a series of constraints that allow or restrict access to the local storage based on specific criteria.

The security constraints remain on the shoulders of the plugin being used, by default `verdaccio` uses the [htpasswd plugin](https://github.com/verdaccio/verdaccio-htpasswd). If you use a different plugin the behaviour might be different. The default plugin does not handle `allow_access` and `allow_publish` by itself, it uses an internal fallback in case the plugin is not ready for it.

For more information about permissions visit [the authentification section in the wiki](auth.md).

### Usage {#usage}

```yaml
packages:
  # scoped packages
  '@scope/*':
    access: $all
    publish: $all
    proxy: server2

  'private-*':
    access: $all
    publish: $all
    proxy: uplink1

  '**':
    # allow all users (including non-authenticated users) to read and
    # publish all packages
    access: $all
    publish: $all
    proxy: uplink2
```

if none is specified, the default one remains

```yaml
packages:
  '**':
    access: $all
    publish: $authenticated
```

The list internal groups handled by `verdaccio` are:

```js
'$all', '$anonymous', '@all', '@anonymous', 'all', 'undefined', 'anonymous';
```

All users receive all those set of permissions independently of is anonymous or not plus the groups provided by the plugin, in case of `htpasswd` return the username as a group. For instance, if you are logged as `npmUser` the list of groups will be.

```js
// groups without '$' are going to be deprecated eventually
'$all', '$anonymous', '@all', '@anonymous', 'all', 'undefined', 'anonymous', 'npmUser';
```

If you want to protect specific set packages under your group, you need to do something like this. Let's use a `Regex` that covers all prefixed `npmuser-` packages. We recommend using a prefix for your packages, in that way it will be easier to protect them.

```yaml
packages:
  'npmuser-*':
    access: npmuser
    publish: npmuser
```

Restart `verdaccio` and in your console try to install `npmuser-core`.

```bash
$ npm install npmuser-core
npm install npmuser-core
npm ERR! code E403
npm ERR! 403 Forbidden: npmuser-core@latest

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/user/.npm/_logs/2017-07-02T12_20_14_834Z-debug.log
```

You can change the existing behaviour using a different plugin authentication. `verdaccio` just checks whether the user that tried to access or publish a specific package belongs to the right group.

Please note that if you set the `access` permission of a package to something that requires Verdaccio to check your identity, for example `$authenticated`, npm does not send your access key by default when fetching packages. This means all requests for downloading packages will be rejected as they are made anonymously even if you have logged in. To make npm include you access key with all requests, you should set the [always-auth](https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v7/using-npm/config#always-auth) npm setting to true on any client machines. This can be accomplished by running:

```bash
$ npm config set always-auth=true
```

#### Set multiple groups {#set-multiple-groups}

Defining multiple access groups is fairly easy, just define them with a white space between them.

```yaml
'company-*':
  access: admin internal
  publish: admin
  proxy: server1
'supersecret-*':
  access: secret super-secret-area ultra-secret-area
  publish: secret ultra-secret-area
  proxy: server1
```

#### Blocking access to set of packages {#blocking-access-to-set-of-packages}

If you want to block the access/publish to a specific group of packages. Just do not define `access` and `publish`.

```yaml
packages:
  'old-*':
  '**':
    access: $all
    publish: $authenticated
```

#### Blocking proxying a set of specific packages {#blocking-proxying-a-set-of-specific-packages}

You might want to block one or several packages from fetching from remote repositories., but, at the same time, allow others to access different _uplinks_.

Let's see the following example:

```yaml
packages:
  'jquery':
    access: $all
    publish: $all
  'my-company-*':
    access: $all
    publish: $authenticated
  '@my-local-scope/*':
    access: $all
    publish: $authenticated
  '**':
    access: $all
    publish: $authenticated
    proxy: npmjs
```

Let's describe what we want with the above example:

- I want to host my own `jquery` dependency but I need to avoid proxying it.
- I want all dependencies that match with `my-company-*` but I need to avoid proxying them.
- I want all dependencies that are in the `my-local-scope` scope but I need to avoid proxying them.
- I want proxying for all the rest of the dependencies.

Be **aware that the order of your packages definitions is important and always use double wilcard**. Because if you do not include it `verdaccio` will include it for you and the way that your dependencies are resolved will be affected.

#### Use multiple uplinks {#use-multiple-uplinks}

You may assign multiple uplinks for use as a proxy to use in the case of failover, or where there may be other private registries in use.

```yaml
'**':
  access: $all
  publish: $authenticated
  proxy: npmjs uplink2
```

#### Unpublishing Packages {#unpublishing-packages}

The property `publish` handle permissions for `npm publish` and `npm unpublish`. But, if you want to be more specific, you can use the property
`unpublish` in your package access section, for instance:

```yaml
packages:
  'jquery':
    access: $all
    publish: $all
    unpublish: root
  'my-company-*':
    access: $all
    publish: $authenticated
    unpublish:
  '@my-local-scope/*':
    access: $all
    publish: $authenticated
    # unpublish: property commented out
  '**':
    access: $all
    publish: $authenticated
    proxy: npmjs
```

In the previous example, the behaviour would be described:

- all users can publish the `jquery` package, but only the user `root` would be able to unpublish any version.
- only authenticated users can publish `my-company-*` packages, but **nobody would be allowed to unpublish them**.
- If `unpublish` is commented out, the access will be granted or denied by the `publish` definition.

### Configuration {#configuration}

You can define mutiple `packages` and each of them must have an unique `Regex`. The syntax is based on [minimatch glob expressions](https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch).

| Property | Type   | Required | Example        | Support        | Description                                                               |
| -------- | ------ | -------- | -------------- | -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| access   | string | No       | $all           | all            | define groups allowed to access the package                               |
| publish  | string | No       | $authenticated | all            | define groups allowed to publish                                          |
| proxy    | string | No       | npmjs          | all            | limit look ups for specific uplink                                        |
| storage  | string | No       | string         | `/some-folder` | it creates a subfolder whithin the storage folder for each package access |

> We higlight that we recommend to not use **allow_access**/**allow_publish** and **proxy_access** anymore, those are deprecated and will soon be removed, please use the short version of each of those (**access**/**publish**/**proxy**).

If you want more information about how to use the **storage** property, please refer to this [comment](https://github.com/verdaccio/verdaccio/issues/1383#issuecomment-509933674).