loginsrv
A standalone JWT login microservice with pluggable backends including OAuth2, htpasswd, and OSIAM.
What is loginsrv?
loginsrv is a minimalistic login server that provides JWT-based authentication for various login backends. It enables secure user authentication as a standalone service, Docker container, Go library, or Caddy plugin, simplifying integration across different environments.
Developers and DevOps engineers building microservices or web applications that need a lightweight, standalone authentication layer without heavy dependencies. It's particularly useful for teams using Caddy server or containerized deployments.
Developers choose loginsrv for its simplicity, modularity, and flexibility in deployment options, including direct integration as a Caddy plugin. It supports multiple authentication backends (OAuth2, htpasswd, simple user/password) and provides JWT token management with configurable security controls.
Overview
JWT login microservice with plugable backends such as OAuth2, Google, Github, htpasswd, osiam, ..
Use Cases
Best For
- Adding JWT-based authentication to microservices architectures as a standalone service.
- Integrating authentication into Caddy server deployments via its plugin system.
- Containerized applications needing a lightweight authentication service in Docker.
- Projects requiring support for multiple OAuth2 providers (GitHub, Google, Bitbucket, Facebook, Gitlab).
- Simple authentication scenarios using htpasswd files or basic user/password pairs.
- Customizing login forms and JWT claims with templating and user-specific data files or endpoints.
Not Ideal For
- Projects requiring built-in user registration and management systems, as loginsrv only handles authentication without user lifecycle features.
- Applications needing SAML, LDAP, or other advanced identity protocols not supported by its current OAuth2 and basic backends.
- Teams looking for a fully managed authentication service with GUI administration, as loginsrv is self-hosted and minimalistic.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Supports multiple providers including OAuth2 (GitHub, Google, etc.), htpasswd, and simple user/password, allowing integration with various systems as listed in the Supported Provider Backends section.
Can be run as a standalone microservice, Docker container, Go library, or Caddy plugin, offering flexibility for different environments, as highlighted in the Abstract and Startup Examples.
Provides extensive JWT options like expiry duration, signing algorithms (e.g., HS512, ES256), and refresh mechanisms via config parameters such as -jwt-expiry and -jwt-refreshes, detailed in the Config Options.
Allows custom HTML templates for the login form and user info pages using the -template parameter, enabling branding and layout changes, as explained in the Templating section.
Cons
Since v1.3.0, pure HTTP is not supported by default, requiring the -cookie-secure=false flag for development and testing, which adds an extra step and potential misconfiguration risk.
Lacks built-in support for multi-factor authentication, user management, or protocols like SAML and LDAP, restricting it to basic authentication flows without additional tooling.
With numerous config options and environment variables, setting up loginsrv correctly can be complex and error-prone, especially for intricate multi-provider or custom claim setups.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
casbinApache Casbin: an authorization library that supports access control models like ACL, RBAC, ABAC.
jwt-goGo implementation of JSON Web Tokens (JWT).
spicedbOpen Source, Google Zanzibar-inspired database for scalably storing and querying fine-grained authorization data
gothPackage goth provides a simple, clean, and idiomatic way to write authentication packages for Go web applications.
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