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2. Add authentication & roles
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2. Add authentication & roles10 min read

2. Add authentication and repository roles

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Previous: minimal server · All tutorials · Next: gateway scaling

You will put a shared auth service in front of the existing game repository, switch storage to TLS, and give Alice and Bob real identities and roles. One scribe-ctl add auth does the provisioning; you then add the people and grants. Run the commands from the scribe-demo directory of stage 1.

1. Finish plaintext work before the switch

The cluster should be stopped after stage 1. If you have continued working, first finish or resolve pending submits while it still runs in plaintext, inspect scribe status --scan and scribe lock list in both working copies, and release held locks. Preserve any unsubmitted or untracked files separately. Then stop it with scribe-ctl --config scribe-cluster.toml down.

Take an offline backup into a new destination:

sh
scribe-server backup --data-dir ./data/storage-a --to ./backup-before-auth

Enabling auth preserves accepted history, but existing plaintext workspaces have no authenticated owner: they still sync, but submitting needs a new working copy made after logging in. This stage creates new working copies and keeps work/alice-plain and work/bob-plain intact for comparison and recovery. Do not copy their .scribe/_state directory into the new copies; reapply any preserved local edits explicitly after syncing the new copies.

2. Add auth to the cluster

Look at the plan. It shows how the definition changes and every step:

sh
scribe-ctl --config scribe-cluster.toml add auth --plan
text
Scribe · local · add auth plan · auth variant · native runtime
  ...
  ENDPOINTS
    auth       tls://127.0.0.1:7443
    storage-a  tls://127.0.0.1:7447

  CHECKS
    ok    definition    add auth rewrites scribe-cluster.toml with auth
    ...
  DEFINITION CHANGES
    @ scribe-cluster.toml
      [clusters.local]
      # What setup builds: storage, auth or gateway. Setup refuses services that do not match it.
    - variant = "storage"
    + variant = "auth"
    ...
    + # Accounts, credentials and access decisions. TLS only.
    + [clusters.local.auth]
    + # A fixed port: credentials name this address.
    + listen = "127.0.0.1:7443"
    + data_dir = "data/auth"
    + # Written by setup and needed by every auth start. Back it up apart from the data.
    + pepper_file = "secrets/auth.pepper"
    + # Revision witness: keep it outside the data directory and its backups.
    + revision_file = "secrets/auth.revision"
    + # The bootstrap administrator's credential, written by setup. Keep it private.
    + admin_credential = "secrets/admin.credential"
    ...
    - auth = false
    + auth = true
    + # The auth namespace this server's repositories belong to.
    + namespace = "studio"
    + # This server's own credential, issued by setup. Keep it private.
    + credential = "secrets/storage-a.credential"
    ...

Then apply it and start the cluster:

sh
scribe-ctl --config scribe-cluster.toml add auth
scribe-ctl --config scribe-cluster.toml up
text
Scribe · local · Auth added
  rewrote scribe-cluster.toml; the previous definition is kept as scribe-cluster.toml.bak
  created the storage and gateway CA in pki/ca
  created the auth CA in pki/auth-ca
  issued pki/auth/server.pem
  issued pki/storage-a/server.pem
  initialized data/auth; administrator credential secrets/admin.credential
  storage-a: bound to namespace studio
  server storage-a: registered in studio
  storage-a: credential issued to secrets/storage-a.credential
  scribe-monitor: created with its grants in studio
  scribe-monitor: credential issued to secrets/monitor.credential
  wrote CLUSTER-INFO.txt

  ENDPOINTS
    auth       tls://127.0.0.1:7443
    storage-a  tls://127.0.0.1:7447

  AFTERWARDS
    - Start it with `scribe-ctl --config /home/you/scribe-demo/scribe-cluster.toml up`: auth first, then storage.
    - Clients switch from tcp:// to tls://127.0.0.1:7447 (trusting pki/ca/ca.pem with --tls-ca) and log in through auth at tls://127.0.0.1:7443 (trusting pki/auth-ca/ca.pem with --auth-ca); plaintext connections are refused from now on.
    - Nobody has access yet: add people and grants with scribe-auth and the administrator credential secrets/admin.credential (the Next commands in CLUSTER-INFO.txt).
    - Workspaces created before auth have no signed-in owner: they still sync, but submitting needs a new workspace (scribe workspace create) made after logging in; bring unsubmitted work over by hand.
    - Give clients pki/ca/ca.pem and pki/auth-ca/ca.pem; keep the CA private keys (ca-key.pem beside them) offline.
  ...
Scribe · local · running
  SERVICE    STATE        PID  ENDPOINT
  auth       running    17165  tls://127.0.0.1:7443
  storage-a  running    17166  tls://127.0.0.1:7447

up starts auth first, then storage. The game repository and its history are unchanged; storage now serves only TLS with sign-in.

What scribe-ctl did for you

  • Two certificate authorities. Servers prove who they are with TLS certificates. pki/ca signs the storage (and later gateway) certificates; pki/auth-ca signs only auth's, so no storage or gateway key can ever pass as auth. Clients get the two public ca.pem files; the private ca-key.pem files are needed only to issue and renew server certificates and to rotate a CA: move them offline once you have what you need, and give their directory to scribe-ctl renew --ca-dir (for pki/auth-ca, --auth-ca-dir) when a certificate is due. These are server certificates only: people and servers sign in with credentials auth issues from its own private CAs (see identity).

  • The auth database in data/auth, created by scribe-auth init, with two files kept outside it:

    FileWho reads itWhat to keep in mind
    secrets/auth.pepperAuth, at every startThe password pepper; back it up apart from data/auth: without it no password can be checked
    secrets/auth.revisionAuth, at every startThe revision witness: auth refuses to start from a database older than it, so a restored old copy cannot revive revoked credentials. Keep it out of data/auth's backups
    secrets/admin.credentialYou, for scribe-auth administrationThe nonexpiring bootstrap administrator credential: auth's address, the auth CA, a device key and its certificate. There is no administrator password; never give this file to users

  • The store joined a namespace. scribe-server auth-init bound data/storage-a to the auth namespace studio in place (a bound store no longer starts without auth), and auth registered storage-a as a server of studio.

  • Server credentials. secrets/storage-a.credential is the store's own identity towards auth (valid 365 days); it can check callers but cannot administer anything. secrets/monitor.credential belongs to the scribe-monitor service account, a namespace reader that scribe-ctl df and repo list use to read inventory. Stage 4 renews both before they expire.

On Unix every credential file is written with mode 0600, and auth stores only a digest of each public key: private keys stay with their holders. The same steps by hand are bare metal, stage 2 and Docker Compose, stage 2; the certificates guide shows all four CAs, these two and auth's internal ones.

3. Check the new endpoints

sh
scribe-ctl --config scribe-cluster.toml status
scribe --server tls://127.0.0.1:7447 --tls-ca ./pki/ca/ca.pem repo list

status shows both services with tls:// endpoints. The repo list, made without signing in, prints (no repositories): game is still there, but nobody can see it until you add people and grants. A tcp:// connection is refused.

4. Connect the auth administration CLI and add users

Save this as admin-env.sh in the deployment directory:

sh
export SCRIBE_DEMO="$PWD"
auth() {
  scribe-auth --admin-credential "$SCRIBE_DEMO/secrets/admin.credential" \
    --state-dir "$SCRIBE_DEMO/admin-state" "$@"
}

The credential file names the auth endpoint and its CA, so no other connection options are needed. Load the helper and verify administrator access:

sh
. ./admin-env.sh
auth users list
text
users/admin	fb162b07d0f4ee236b451a917262ec58	admin	true	true	person
users/scribe-monitor	9c4bdb7a5d6ab38a6afeee3ea99741cd	scribe-monitor	true	false	service

This auth function is only a short wrapper around the scribe-auth CLI; it is not scribe login. It can be loaded again in any terminal from the deployment directory. admin-state holds durable pending requests, so an interrupted administrative command can be retried with its original intent.

Create the password files empty and private first, so a password is never written to a file others can read:

sh
mkdir -p passwords
(umask 077 && touch ./passwords/alice ./passwords/bob)
ls -l ./passwords   # -rw------- each

Then open each in a text editor and enter a different password of 12–1024 UTF-8 bytes; a trailing newline is allowed. Most editors keep an existing file's mode; repeat the ls -l afterwards to confirm. Then create the users:

sh
auth users add alice
auth users password alice --password-file ./passwords/alice
auth users add bob
auth users password bob --password-file ./passwords/bob
auth users list

users add creates the identity; users password sets its login password. The same password command later resets it and invalidates the user's existing sessions. Neither user is an auth administrator, and neither receives a credential file: people sign in with scribe login, which creates a device key on their own machine.

5. Assign responsibilities

Authentication answers who someone is; grants decide what they may do. In this exercise Alice manages the studio namespace and Bob starts as a reader of game:

  • An auth administrator uses an administrator credential to manage users, credentials, server identities, and grants. That status alone gives no repository access.
  • A namespace administrator can create repositories and has all repository permissions within that namespace.
  • A repository reader can discover, inspect, and sync its history. A writer can also submit, branch, and take their own locks. A maintainer can additionally force-unlock and change the main branch's lock policy.

See the complete role model for the exact permissions.

sh
auth namespace-admins set alice studio

6. Log in as Alice and give Bob repository access

Save client-env.sh in the deployment directory:

sh
export SCRIBE_DEMO="$PWD"
export SCRIBE_ENDPOINT=tls://127.0.0.1:7447
alice() {
  scribe --config-dir "$SCRIBE_DEMO/clients/alice" \
    --tls-ca "$SCRIBE_DEMO/pki/ca/ca.pem" --server "$SCRIBE_ENDPOINT" "$@"
}
bob() {
  scribe --config-dir "$SCRIBE_DEMO/clients/bob" \
    --tls-ca "$SCRIBE_DEMO/pki/ca/ca.pem" --server "$SCRIBE_ENDPOINT" "$@"
}

Load both helpers and log in:

sh
. ./admin-env.sh
. ./client-env.sh
alice login alice --auth tls://127.0.0.1:7443 --auth-ca ./pki/auth-ca/ca.pem
alice repo info game
text
Logged in as alice; session valid for 90 days.
info: game id=689a965e479c1decf32f3c9ca7e3f913 head=2 main=2403ffcaa1d1 storage-compression=lz4

Enter Alice's password at the hidden prompt (for automation, add --password-file ./passwords/alice). login creates a device key on this machine and sends auth only its public key with the password; auth answers with a certificate for the session (90 days by default). Before talking to storage, the client obtains a short access certificate (one hour) from auth and renews it on its own. The explicit CA files verify both endpoints: --tls-ca the storage CA, --auth-ca the auth CA. An ordinary user can instead approve the administrator-provided fingerprint using remembered trust. Sessions are saved under clients/alice and clients/bob here; normal installations use the per-user configuration root.

Copy the full repository ID from repo info game and substitute it for REPOSITORY_ID below, without angle brackets. Grants use namespace/id, not studio/game:

sh
auth grants set bob studio/REPOSITORY_ID --role reader
bob login bob --auth tls://127.0.0.1:7443 --auth-ca ./pki/auth-ca/ca.pem
alice workspace create game ./work/alice
bob workspace create game ./work/bob
(
  cd work/alice
  alice sync
)
(
  cd work/bob
  bob sync
  cat Assets/Hero.txt
  bob edit Assets/Hero.txt
  printf 'hero mesh v3\n' > Assets/Hero.txt
  bob submit -m "Authenticated hero update"
)

Both authenticated copies contain hero mesh v2. Bob can read, but a reader cannot submit:

text
scribe: permission denied; submit needs the writer role in repository 'game'; ask a repository administrator to grant it (forbidden)

Change his existing grant to writer and submit the same edit again:

sh
auth grants set bob studio/REPOSITORY_ID --role writer
(
  cd work/bob
  bob submit -m "Authenticated hero update"
)
(
  cd work/alice
  alice sync
  alice log
)
text
submitted change 3 (1 file, 1 of 1 chunks sent, 208 object bytes sent for 13 logical bytes, 2 server flushes)
...
change 3  branch main  2026-09-27T12:44:09.034Z  bob  1 entry
    Authenticated hero update
change 2  branch main  2026-09-27T12:43:33.029Z  bob  1 entry
    Hero v2
change 1  branch main  2026-09-27T12:43:32.472Z  alice  1 entry
    Initial hero

The new change is attributed to bob; --author cannot impersonate another authenticated user. A grant update can take up to 30 seconds to affect new admissions on existing connections; retry after that bound if needed.

7. See who can do what

sh
scribe-ctl --config scribe-cluster.toml access
text
Scribe · local · access
  ACCOUNT         KIND     STATE    SCOPE                                               ACCESS          DETAIL
  admin           person   enabled  auth                                                administrator   accounts, grants and credentials
  admin           person   enabled  credential bootstrap                                user            never expires
  alice           person   enabled  namespace studio                                    administrator   every repository; creates repositories
  alice           person   enabled  sessions                                            1 signed in     latest expires 2026-12-26
  bob             person   enabled  repository studio/689a965e479c1decf32f3c9ca7e3f913  writer
  bob             person   enabled  sessions                                            1 signed in     latest expires 2026-12-26
  scribe-monitor  service  enabled  namespace studio                                    reader          every repository, including later ones
  scribe-monitor  service  enabled  credential scribe-ctl                               service-reader  expires 2027-09-27

Each privilege is its own row: admin administers auth (no repository access), alice administers studio, bob writes to one repository, and scribe-monitor only reads. access --user bob narrows it to one account. Server credentials such as storage-a's are not listed there; auth credentials list shows every credential.

You now have a secure single-storage deployment. Keep it running for 3. Scale with a gateway, or stop it with scribe-ctl --config scribe-cluster.toml down.

Source docs/tutorials/02-add-auth.mdSnapshot 2b8dcccb