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Integrate with Writefreely

Support level: Community

What is Writefreely

An open source platform for building a writing space on the web.

-- https://writefreely.org/

caution

Currently it is not possible to connect Writefreely to authentik without making an adjustment in the database. See here and Writefreely Setup.

Preparation

The following placeholders are used in this guide:

  • writefreely.company is the FQDN of the Writefreely installation.
  • authentik.company is the FQDN of the authentik installation.
info

This documentation lists only the settings that you need to change from their default values. Be aware that any changes other than those explicitly mentioned in this guide could cause issues accessing your application.

authentik configuration

To support the integration of Writefreely with authentik, you need to create an application/provider pair in authentik.

Create an application and provider in authentik

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Applications > Applications and click Create with Provider to create an application and provider pair. (Alternatively you can first create a provider separately, then create the application and connect it with the provider.)
  • Application: provide a descriptive name, an optional group for the type of application, the policy engine mode, and optional UI settings.
  • Choose a Provider type: select OAuth2/OpenID Connect as the provider type.
  • Configure the Provider: provide a name (or accept the auto-provided name), the authorization flow to use for this provider, and the following required configurations.
    • Note the Client ID, Client Secret, and slug values because they will be required later.
    • Set a Strict redirect URI to https://writefreely.company/oauth/callback/generic.
    • Select any available signing key.
  • Configure Bindings (optional): you can create a binding (policy, group, or user) to manage the listing and access to applications on a user's My applications page.
  1. Click Submit to save the new application and provider.

Writefreely Setup

Database

Currently the access_token column is too small, so it needs to be adjusted.

ALTER TABLE `oauth_users` MODIFY `access_token` varchar(2048);

Configuration

Configure Writefreely settings by editing config.ini and adding the following:

To disable new user registration, set the following variable to false:

open_registration     = false

To disable local login/registration, use the following setting (this is useful because Writefreely attracts a lot of spam):

disable_password_auth = false

The following settings must be made for OAuth:

[oauth.generic]
client_id = <Client ID>
client_secret = <Client Secret>
host = https://authentik.company
display_name = authentik
callback_proxy =
callback_proxy_api =
token_endpoint = /application/o/token/
inspect_endpoint = /application/o/userinfo/
auth_endpoint = /application/o/authorize/
scope = openid profile email
allow_disconnect = false
map_user_id = sub
map_username = nickname
map_display_name = name
map_email = email

Restart writefreely.service.

Account linking

If your usernames in authentik and WriteFreely are different, you might need to link your accounts before you can use SSO.

To link the accounts, first log in to Writefreely with local credentials, and then navigate to Customize --> Account Settings. In the "Linked Accounts" option, click on "authentik".

Resources