I am currently working on a project that involves user authentication from a Docker (running inside the TrueNAS) container to the user accounts on TrueNAS SCALE. My goal is to have authenticate the users inside the Dockerized application against the existing TrueNAS SCALE users, rather than maintain…

[image] Nikhil123: Best security practices when allowing a container to authenticate users from the host system I don’t believe it’s possible, so the “best security practices” don’t exist. The best arrangement I could think of similar to this would be to join the NAS to an AD domain, and use…

Hey dan, I believe that its possible, From what I understand is that, TrueNAS Scale maintains a database of SQLite3 to maintain the users, hashes and all the configuration of the system. That’s one way to find for the database and authenticate the user by querying with the db. But I think there must…

SCALE doesn’t query the DB for authentication. The DB is used to write the passwd, group, shadow, and sudo configuration files. Containers do not have access to the TrueNAS DB (for good reason) and do not have access to the host’s shadow file (also for good reason). There are no plans to copy local …

That’s what I’m trying to understand, how does TrueNAS Scale authenticate users on the backend, whether it’s for SSH or other services? Since TrueNAS is open-source, there must be a way for developers to implement or customize alternative authentication methods.

[image] Nikhil123: I think there must be other way a straightforward approach to authenticate the users from the docker containerization. As I said above, I believe you’re incorrect. To the best of my knowledge, no version of TrueNAS currently supports, or ever has supported, acting as an id…

Pretty much the standard way to handle authentication in Linux and FreeBSD is through PAM modules. Local user authentication is managed through pam_unix . That said, as Dan mentioned, we are not and have no plans of becoming an identity provider. If you want a single source of truth for containers a…

[image] awalkerix: If you want a single source of truth for containers and host regarding credentials, you should use AD or LDAP (but don’t put the identity provider in a container or VM on TrueNAS). Do I correctly recall that some flavor of SSO (probably OIDC) is on the roadmap for TrueNAS C…

I can’t recall anything like that. Currently UI/API authentication via directory services is one several product differentiators between Community / Enterprise.

This is what I’d remembered: [image] Oauth support for web ui login? TrueNAS General There is no generic oAuth provider for login to the TrueNAS WebUI. Something around that will happen later in '25 though.

That is a different situation. Remember a NAS is different from, for instance, a desktop computer. We have to be able to use the accounts for file sharing protocols. For example, SMB protocol authentication is currently either via NTLMv2 or Kerberos. We can do NTLM for local accounts because at t…

How to Authenticate Docker Containers with TrueNAS SCALE Users?

TrueNAS General

dan March 21, 2025, 8:00pm 10

This is what I’d remembered:

Topic		Replies	Views
How to Authenticate User from Docker Containers with TrueNAS SCALE Users? Apps and Virtualization SCALE , SMB , Security , Docker , API	0	139	March 19, 2025
Any best practices for having TrueNAS and a variety of VMs and containers share the same user database? TrueNAS General SCALE	4	54	September 27, 2025
TrueNAS Scale and Authentik for SMB auth TrueNAS General SCALE , SMB	16	3309	April 21, 2025
Clarifications on TrueNAS Scale and LDAP integration TrueNAS General SCALE , SMB	12	1469	February 19, 2026
AD authentication web GUI TrueNAS General SCALE , AD	7	1685	October 17, 2025

How to Authenticate Docker Containers with TrueNAS SCALE Users?

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