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Integrate with NetBird

website/integrations/networking/netbird/index.md

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What is NetBird?

NetBird is an open source, zero trust, networking platform that allows you to create secure private networks for your organization or home.

-- https://netbird.io

Preparation

The following placeholders are used in this guide:

  • netbird.company is the FQDN of the NetBird installation.
  • authentik.company is the FQDN of the authentik installation.

:::info This documentation lists only the settings that you need to change from their default values. Be aware that any changes other than those explicitly mentioned in this guide could cause issues accessing your application. :::

authentik configuration

To support the integration of NetBird with authentik, you need to create an application/provider pair in authentik.

Create an application and provider in authentik

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Applications > Applications and click Create with Provider to create an application and provider pair. (Alternatively you can first create a provider separately, then create the application and connect it with the provider.)
  • Application: provide a descriptive name, an optional group for the type of application, the policy engine mode, and optional UI settings.
  • Choose a Provider type: select OAuth2/OpenID Connect as the provider type.
  • Configure the Provider: provide a name (or accept the auto-provided name), the authorization flow to use for this provider, and the following required configurations.
    • Under Protocol Settings:
      • Note the Client ID, and slug values because they will be required later.
      • Set Client type to Public.
      • Add a Strict redirect: http://localhost:53000.
      • Add a Regex redirect: https://<netbird.company>/.*.
      • Select any available signing key.
    • Under Advanced protocol settings:
      • Set Access Code Validity to minutes=10.
      • Set Subject Mode to be Based on the User's ID.
      • Add the authentik default OAuth Mapping: OpenID 'offline_access' and authentik default OAuth Mapping: authentik API access scopes to Selected Scopes.
  • Configure Bindings (optional): you can create a binding (policy, group, or user) to manage the listing and access to applications on a user's My applications page.

:::warning It is important to set a signing key to secure the provider because this is a Public client. :::

:::info If an access group is created for the Netbird application, the Netbird service account must be included in the group. Otherwise you will see a 401 error after login. :::

  1. Click Submit to save the new application and provider.

Set up a service account

  1. Log into authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Directory > Users, and click Create a service account.
  3. Set the Username to NetBird and disable the Create group option. Click Create and take note of the password.

Make the service account an administrator

NetBird requires the service account to have full administrative access to the authentik instance. Follow these steps to make it an administrator.

  1. Log into authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Directory > Groups, and click authentik Admins.
  3. On the top of the group configuration page, switch to the Users tab near the top of the page, then click Add existing user, and select the service account you just created.

Create and apply a device token authentication flow

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Flows and Stages > Flows and click Create.
  3. Set the following required configurations:
    • Name: provide a name (e.g. default-device-code-flow)
    • Title: provide a title (e.g. Device code flow)
    • Slug: provide a slug (e.g default-device-code-flow)
    • Designation: Stage Configuration
    • Authentication: Require authentication
  4. Click Create.
  5. Navigate to System > Brands and click the Edit icon on the default brand.
  6. Set Default code flow to the newly created device code flow and click Update.

NetBird configuration

To configure NetBird to use authentik, add the following environment variables to your NetBird deployment:

yaml
NETBIRD_AUTH_OIDC_CONFIGURATION_ENDPOINT="https://authentik.company/application/o/<application_slug>/.well-known/openid-configuration"
NETBIRD_USE_AUTH0=false
NETBIRD_AUTH_CLIENT_ID="<Your Client ID>"
NETBIRD_AUTH_SUPPORTED_SCOPES="openid profile email offline_access api"
NETBIRD_AUTH_AUDIENCE="<Your Client ID>"
NETBIRD_AUTH_DEVICE_AUTH_CLIENT_ID="<Your Client ID>"
NETBIRD_AUTH_DEVICE_AUTH_AUDIENCE="<Your Client ID>"
NETBIRD_MGMT_IDP="authentik"
NETBIRD_IDP_MGMT_CLIENT_ID="<Your Client ID>"
NETBIRD_IDP_MGMT_EXTRA_USERNAME="Netbird"
NETBIRD_IDP_MGMT_EXTRA_PASSWORD="<Your Service Account password>"
NETBIRD_AUTH_REDIRECT_URI="/auth"
NETBIRD_AUTH_SILENT_REDIRECT_URI="/silent-auth"

# needs disabling due to issue with IdP. Learn more at https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/3654
NETBIRD_AUTH_PKCE_DISABLE_PROMPT_LOGIN=true

Restart the NetBird service for the changes to take effect. If using Docker, redeploy the NetBird container for the changes to take effect.

Configuration verification

To confirm that authentik is properly configured with NetBird, log out and log back in via authentik.

Troubleshooting

When accessing NetBird through a reverse proxy, you might encounter a loop where the /peers URL continuously reloads. To resolve this, set the following variables accordingly:

yaml
NETBIRD_MGMT_API_PORT=443
NETBIRD_SIGNAL_PORT=443

Run the configure.sh script for the change to take effect.