A few weeks ago, we explored two approaches to add authentication to our FastAPI applications. In this post we go a different way and integrate a package that does the heavy lifting for us. I decided to go with FastAPI Users, even when it takes a big step to integrate it.
The HTTP basic authentication from last week has been working, but it feels a bit messy. When we search for a more current style of authentication, we end up with OAuth2 and JWT. There is an example in the FastAPI documentation that I changed a bit to use a different library for JWT, store the secret key in a .env file and use BCrypt to hash the passwords.
There are many ways we can secure an endpoint in FastAPI. As a first approach we explore HTTP basic authentication, a not so secure way but it allows us to get a first glimpse into the different parts of FastAPI that we need to protect an endpoint.
When it comes to authentication, we often find some form of username and password as the backbone of the solution. Before we dive into those examples, I like to make a detour and first explain how we can securely hash passwords in Python. While it is possible to just store passwords as plaintext for an example application, such hacks tend to get into production and that would be a disaster waiting to happen. Let us do it the right way directly from the start and always hash our passwords.
Time flies, and with it come new versions of Python and older ones reach the end of their lifespan. Let us use this opportunity to check if we use a Python version that is still supported.
Windows keeps the passwords around that you used to connect to a Wi-Fi network – long after you can remember them. Let us look how we can use Python to list those saved passwords on your machine.
We must renew TLS/SSL certificates before they reach their end of life. Otherwise, our users get an unfriendly message about an unsecure web page. Why not write a Python script that checks our sites and shows how many days are remaining for our certificates?
Sooner or later our Flask application will be on the internet. The earlier we address security issues the better it is. Today we look at a first simple measure to add security headers.