Default: no authentication

Out of the box, SilverBullet runs unauthenticated — anyone who can reach the server’s port can read and write your entire space. There are no built-in default credentials. This is intentional: for localhost use it’s the simplest possible setup. As soon as your server is reachable from anywhere else, you need to turn authentication on yourself.

Single-user authentication

SilverBullet’s built-in auth is a single set of credentials, set via the SB_USER environment variable in username:password form. There is intentionally no notion of multiple users or signup flow — a SilverBullet Space is a personal space.

If you need multi-user style access control (different people, SSO, MFA, …), put SilverBullet behind an Authentication Proxy (Authelia, Authentik, Cloudflare Access, etc.) and let that handle identity.

Enabling authentication

Set SB_USER when starting the server. For the Install/Binary:

SB_USER=pete:1234 ./silverbullet my-space

For Install/Docker:

docker run -e SB_USER=pete:1234 ...

This allows pete to log in with password 1234. When authentication is enabled, SilverBullet shows a login page on first access.

Changing the user or password

There’s nothing to “reset” — just restart the server with a different SB_USER. Existing browser sessions get invalidated on the next request and you (or whoever) will be prompted to log in again.

Remember me

The login page has a "Remember me" checkbox. When checked, the session persists across browser restarts. The session duration defaults to 7 days and can be configured:

SB_REMEMBER_ME_HOURS: Sets session duration in hours (default: 168, i.e. 7 days)

Lockout protection

To prevent brute-force attacks, SilverBullet locks out clients after too many failed login attempts:

SB_LOCKOUT_LIMIT: Number of failed attempts before lockout (default: 10)
SB_LOCKOUT_TIME: Duration of lockout in seconds (default: 60)

API authentication

For programmatic access via the HTTP API, you can use bearer token authentication:

SB_AUTH_TOKEN: Sets a token for Authorization: Bearer <token> style authentication

This is useful for scripts, automation, or integrating SilverBullet with other tools.

Authentication proxy

Alternatively, or in addition, you can use an Authentication Proxy to delegate authentication to an external system (like Authelia, Authentik, or a reverse proxy's built-in auth). This is common in more complex self-hosted setups.

For all authentication-related configuration options, see Install/Configuration#Authentication.

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