By default, Authelia uses a local SQLite database for persistent data
(e.g. authenticator keys, TOTP secrets, etc.) and keeps session data in
memory. Together, these have some undesirable side effects. First,
since needing access to the filesystem to store the SQLite database
means that the pod has to be managed by a StatefulSet. Restarting
StatefulSet pods means stopping them all and then starting them back up,
which causes downtime. Additionally, the SQLite database file needs to
be backed up, which I never got around to setting up. Further, any time
the service is restarted, all sessions are invalidated, so users have to
sign back in.
All of these issues can be resolved by configuring Authelia to store all
of its state externally. The persistent data can be stored in a
PostgreSQL database and the session state can be stored in Redis. Using
a database managed by the existing Postgres Operator infrastructure
automaticaly enables high availability and backups as well.
To migrate the contents of the database, I used [pgloader]. With
Authelia shut down, I ran the migration job. Authelia's database schema
is pretty simple, so there were no problems with the conversion.
Authelia started back up with the new database configuration without any
issues.
Session state are still stored only in memory of the Redis process.
This is probably fine, since Redis will not need restarted often, except
for updates. At least restarting Authelia to adjust its configuration
will not log everyone out.
[pgloader]: https://pgloader.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ref/sqlite.html
Dustin