Features
********

Flask-Security allows you to quickly add common security mechanisms to
your Flask application. They include:


Session Based Authentication
============================

Session based authentication is fulfilled entirely by the Flask-Login
extension. Flask-Security handles the configuration of Flask-Login
automatically based on a few of its own configuration values and uses
Flask-Login's alternative token feature for remembering users when
their session has expired.


Role/Identity Based Access
==========================

Flask-Security implements very basic role management out of the box.
This means that you can associate a high level role or multiple roles
to any user. For instance, you may assign roles such as *Admin*,
*Editor*, *SuperUser*, or a combination of said roles to a user.
Access control is based on the role name and all roles should be
uniquely named. This feature is implemented using the Flask-Principal
extension. If you'd like to implement more granular access control,
you can refer to the Flask-Principal documentation on this topic.


Password Hashing
================

Password hashing is enabled with passlib. Passwords are hashed with
the bcrypt function by default but you can easily configure the
hashing algorithm. You should **always use an hashing algorithm** in
your production environment. You may also specify to use HMAC with a
configured salt value in addition to the algorithm chosen. Bear in
mind passlib does not assume which algorithm you will choose and may
require additional libraries to be installed.


Basic HTTP Authentication
=========================

Basic HTTP authentication is achievable using a simple view method
decorator. This feature expects the incoming authentication
information to identify a user in the system. This means that the
username must be equal to their email address.


Token Authentication
====================

Token based authentication is enabled by retrieving the user auth
token by performing an HTTP POST with the authentication details as
JSON data against the authentication endpoint. A successful call to
this endpoint will return the user's ID and their authentication
token. This token can be used in subsequent requests to protected
resources. The auth token is supplied in the request through an HTTP
header or query string parameter. By default the HTTP header name is
*Authentication-Token* and the default query string parameter name is
*auth_token*. Authentication tokens are generated using the user's
password. Thus if the user changes his or her password their existing
authentication token will become invalid. A new token will need to be
retrieved using the user's new password.


Email Confirmation
==================

If desired you can require that new users confirm their email address.
Flask-Security will send an email message to any new users with a
confirmation link. Upon navigating to the confirmation link, the user
will be automatically logged in. There is also view for resending a
confirmation link to a given email if the user happens to try to use
an expired token or has lost the previous email. Confirmation links
can be configured to expire after a specified amount of time.


Password Reset/Recovery
=======================

Password reset and recovery is available for when a user forgets his
or her password. Flask-Security sends an email to the user with a link
to a view which they can reset their password. Once the password is
reset they are automatically logged in and can use the new password
from then on. Password reset links  can be configured to expire after
a specified amount of time.


User Registration
=================

Flask-Security comes packaged with a basic user registration view.
This view is very simple and new users need only supply an email
address and their password. This view can be overridden if your
registration process requires more fields.


Login Tracking
==============

Flask-Security can, if configured, keep track of basic login events
and statistics. They include:

* Last login date

* Current login date

* Last login IP address

* Current login IP address

* Total login count


JSON/Ajax Support
=================

Flask-Security supports JSON/Ajax requests where appropriate. Just
remember that all endpoints require a CSRF token just like HTML views.
More specifically JSON is supported for the following operations:

* Login requests

* Registration requests

* Change password requests

* Confirmation requests

* Forgot password requests

* Passwordless login requests


Command Line Interface
======================

Basic Click commands for managing users and roles are automatically
registered. They can be completely disabled or their names can be
changed. Run "flask --help" and look for users and roles.
