Can't get NativeAuthenticator to work

[kpeeters]

From a default install which worked fine, I did

sudo tljh-config set auth.type nativeauthenticator.NativeAuthenticator
sudo tljh-config reload

That didn't work (could not log in as admin anymore, and there was no difference in the login screen). The log obtained with journalctl -u jupyterhub does not show anything when attempting to log in.

Lacking logs, I also tried

git clone https://github.com/jupyterhub/nativeauthenticator.git
cd nativeauthenticator
pip install -e .

as instructed at https://native-authenticator.readthedocs.io/en/latest/quickstart.html (in the hope that my install did not work because I simply did not have nativeauthenticator yet). That did not work either, unfortunately.

Any pointers? What is the correct procedure, and how can I get some more logging info out of tljh so I can debug things like this in the future myself? Thanks!

[leportella]

Hi @kpeeters, NativeAuth has an option to import the database from the FirstUse database. However, by default when installing NativeAuth eberybody should signup, even admin. The admin listed on the config file will automatically have access to the system.

Could this be the problem?

[kpeeters]

I understand that; the problem is that the login screen is exactly the same as with FirstUse, there is no option to signup. It's probably reading the settings about which authenticator to use from two different places, with the part of the code that produce the login form seeing one setting, and the part that does the actual validation seeing the other. But I can't find it.

[leportella]

This is something I am fixing for the next version (login will have a link for signup). To check if you are using Native Auth you can go to /hub/signup to see if it is working :)

[kpeeters]

Ah, you may want to write that somewhere in the docs ;-) It worked now, in the sense of producing a signup form, but I can't login as my admin account anymore, and journalctl says Config option `import_from_firstuse` not recognized by `NativeAuthenticator`.

[ingoglia]

I also experienced this issue.
It doesn't seem possible to use this feature, unless you can somehow customize the installer to install with the NativeAuthenticator instead? Is that possible? Because it seems as though, the admin account gets created, and then you are automatically locked out when you switch over. I would try the FirstUse database migrator, but the documentation is a bit fuzzy on what config file I am supposed to put the information.

[RobinTTY]

Is there any update on this? Had the exact same problem when trying to switch to NativeAuthenticator and couldn't find a method to get around it. The authenticator works great but I have no more admin user I'm able to login with to approve the users after activating it.

Also as mentioned before setting auth.NativeAuthenticator.import_from_firstuse doesn't work and only results in the error import_from_firstuse not recognized by NativeAuthenticator appearing in the logs.

Is there maybe a method to create a new admin user using the console for NativeAuthenticator? Had no luck with the regular sudo tljh-config add-item users.admin <username> command.

Edit: Actually it seems like I can just register the admin account through the signup page and have access again. The documentation for NativeAuthenticator actually states "It is important to notice that admin must also create a new user through signup.", so if this is expected behavior it is a little confusing to say the least 😛

[t3chbg]

I am having the same problem described by @kpeeters back in March 2019 - After enabling Native Authentication the Login and Signup pages are exactly the same.
@leportella any chance you able to look at issue jupyterhub/nativeauthenticator#98 and advise what the issue is or alternatively assist with a solution?

We conducting a workshop with about 40 students next week Tuesday, 25th and it would be appreciated if my problem can get resolved prior to then.

[leportella]

Sorry for my absence. Will take a look later today

[leportella]

How are the Admins being created on FirstUse? I tested with the admin being configured on jupyterhub_config.py and it works.

[leportella]

@RobinTTY admins must create their accounts if you didn't import it from the FirstUseAuthenticator as you can see here: https://github.com/jupyterhub/nativeauthenticator/blob/2fede2bfc109c9107064eb4a7c48dd4e4d6a79ee/nativeauthenticator/nativeauthenticator.py#L236.

The admin definitions are being absorbed from the jupyter_config.py file, as defined here: https://github.com/jupyterhub/nativeauthenticator/blob/2fede2bfc109c9107064eb4a7c48dd4e4d6a79ee/nativeauthenticator/nativeauthenticator.py#L183.

Also, I would recommend get the last version from the Github not pypi because I didn't updated it yet

[RobinTTY]

@leportella Ah ok, thank you.