Authentication
You can authenticate pixi with a server like prefix.dev, a private quetz instance or anaconda.org. Different servers use different authentication methods. In this documentation page, we detail how you can authenticate against the different servers and where the authentication information is stored.
Usage: pixi auth login [OPTIONS] <HOST>
Arguments:
<HOST> The host to authenticate with (e.g. repo.prefix.dev)
Options:
--token <TOKEN> The token to use (for authentication with prefix.dev)
--username <USERNAME> The username to use (for basic HTTP authentication)
--password <PASSWORD> The password to use (for basic HTTP authentication)
--conda-token <CONDA_TOKEN> The token to use on anaconda.org / quetz authentication
-v, --verbose... More output per occurrence
-q, --quiet... Less output per occurrence
-h, --help Print help
The different options are "token", "conda-token" and "username + password".
The token variant implements a standard "Bearer Token" authentication as is used on the prefix.dev platform.
A Bearer Token is sent with every request as an additional header of the form Authentication: Bearer <TOKEN>.
The conda-token option is used on anaconda.org and can be used with a quetz server. With this option, the token is sent as part of the URL following this scheme: conda.anaconda.org/t/<TOKEN>/conda-forge/linux-64/....
The last option, username & password, are used for "Basic HTTP Authentication". This is the equivalent of adding http://user:password@myserver.com/.... This authentication method can be configured quite easily with a reverse NGinx or Apache server and is thus commonly used in self-hosted systems.
Examples#
Login to prefix.dev:
Login to anaconda.org:
Login to a basic HTTP secured server:
Where does pixi store the authentication information?#
The storage location for the authentication information is system-dependent. By default, pixi tries to use the keychain to store this sensitive information securely on your machine.
On Windows, the credentials are stored in the "credentials manager". Searching for rattler (the underlying library pixi uses) you should find any credentials stored by pixi (or other rattler-based programs).
On macOS, the passwords are stored in the keychain. To access the password, you can use the Keychain Access program that comes pre-installed on macOS. Searching for rattler (the underlying library pixi uses) you should find any credentials stored by pixi (or other rattler-based programs).
On Linux, one can use GNOME Keyring (or just Keyring) to access credentials that are securely stored by libsecret. Searching for rattler should list all the credentials stored by pixi and other rattler-based programs.
Fallback storage#
If you run on a server with none of the aforementioned keychains available, then pixi falls back to store the credentials in an insecure JSON file.
This JSON file is located at ~/.rattler/credentials.json and contains the credentials.
Override the authentication storage#
You can use the RATTLER_AUTH_FILE environment variable to override the default location of the credentials file.
When this environment variable is set, it provides the only source of authentication data that is used by pixi.
E.g.
export RATTLER_AUTH_FILE=$HOME/credentials.json
# You can also specify the file in the command line
pixi global install --auth-file $HOME/credentials.json ...
The JSON should follow the following format:
{
"*.prefix.dev": {
"BearerToken": "your_token"
},
"otherhost.com": {
"BasicHttp": {
"username": "your_username",
"password": "your_password"
}
},
"conda.anaconda.org": {
"CondaToken": "your_token"
}
}
Note: if you use a wildcard in the host, any subdomain will match (e.g. *.prefix.dev also matches repo.prefix.dev).
Lastly you can set the authentication override file in the global configuration file.