Deployment Scenarios

Passkeys are bound to a specific domain (the Relying Party ID). This chapter explains how to configure the extension across different environments and how to handle common deployment patterns.

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Single environment

The simplest setup: one TYPO3 instance with one domain.

Leave rpId and origin empty (the default). The extension auto-detects both values from the incoming HTTP request. Each passkey is registered against the domain it was created on.

This works for:

A single production instance (e.g. cms.example.com)
A local DDEV site (e.g. mysite.ddev.site)

No additional configuration is needed.

Multi-environment (local / staging / production)

A typical setup has three environments:

Local development: mysite.ddev.site (or mysite.local)
Staging: staging.example.com
Production: www.example.com

Recommended: separate passkeys per environment

Leave rpId empty on all environments. Each environment auto-detects its own domain, so passkeys are environment-specific. Users register a separate passkey on each environment they need access to.

Modern authenticators (iCloud Keychain, Windows Hello, 1Password, YubiKey) make registering on multiple environments trivial -- it takes about 10 seconds per environment.

Tip

This is the recommended approach. It avoids sharing secrets across environments and keeps each environment fully independent.

Environment-specific configuration

Use TYPO3_CONTEXT to apply different settings per environment:

config/system/additional.php

// Production and Staging: enforce passkey-only login
if (str_starts_with((string)getenv('TYPO3_CONTEXT'), 'Production')) {
    $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['EXTENSIONS']['nr_passkeys_be']['disablePasswordLogin'] = '1';
}

// Development: keep password login available for convenience
// (disablePasswordLogin defaults to '0', no override needed)

This lets you enforce passkey-only login on production while keeping password login available locally for new users or quick access.

Important

Before enabling disablePasswordLogin on production:

Verify all regular backend users have registered at least one passkey.
Ensure at least one admin account has multiple passkeys on different authenticators for emergency recovery.
Communicate the change to all backend users in advance.
Consider enabling on staging first to verify the workflow.

Database synchronisation

When syncing the production database to staging or local (a common workflow), the passkey credential table will contain credentials bound to the production domain. These credentials will not work on a different domain.

Exclude the credential table from database syncs:

Example: exclude from mysqldump

mysqldump --ignore-table=mydb.tx_nrpasskeysbe_credential mydb > dump.sql

Example: exclude in DDEV (via mysql-sync-db custom command)

ignore_tables:
  - tx_nrpasskeysbe_credential

After importing a production database dump, users simply register fresh passkeys on the local or staging environment. If disablePasswordLogin is active but environment-specific (see above), password login is available on non-production environments for this initial registration.

Note

You do not need to exclude be_users or any other table. Only tx_nrpasskeysbe_credential is domain-specific. If the credential table is accidentally included in a sync, the imported credentials will not work on the different domain -- users simply register fresh passkeys. No security data is exposed because the public keys are useless without the private keys stored on users' authenticators.

Shared rpId across subdomains

WebAuthn allows the rpId to be set to a registrable domain suffix. For example, setting rpId to example.com allows passkeys registered on staging.example.com to also work on www.example.com.

Warning

Sharing passkeys across environments is not recommended. It requires synchronising:

The TYPO3 encryptionKey ($GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SYS']['encryptionKey']) -- the extension derives user handles from it cryptographically. Different keys produce different handles, making credentials unresolvable.
The credential table (tx_nrpasskeysbe_credential) -- the public key material and metadata must be present on both systems.
The backend user UIDs (be_users.uid) -- user handles are derived from the UID.

Sharing the encryptionKey between environments creates a cross-environment attack vector: if a staging environment is compromised, the attacker can forge CSRF tokens, session tokens, and passkey challenge tokens that are valid on production. Staging environments typically have weaker access controls and debug mode enabled, making them a more attractive target. The encryptionKey must be unique per environment and treated as a production secret.

If you still need shared subdomains (e.g. staging and www), set rpId only on those environments and keep local development on auto-detect:

config/system/additional.php

if (str_starts_with((string)getenv('TYPO3_CONTEXT'), 'Production')) {
    $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['EXTENSIONS']['nr_passkeys_be']['rpId'] = 'example.com';
    // Leave 'origin' empty -- it is auto-detected per subdomain.
    // Setting it explicitly would break verification on other subdomains.
}
// Development: rpId stays empty -> auto-detect -> mysite.ddev.site

Important

Changing the rpId invalidates all existing passkey registrations. Users must register new passkeys after the change.

User onboarding

Onboarding workflow with `disablePasswordLogin`

When disablePasswordLogin is enabled, the extension enforces passkey-only login per user: password login is blocked only for users who have at least one registered passkey. Users without passkeys can still log in with a password.

This enables a smooth onboarding workflow:

Admin creates a new backend user with a password (as usual in TYPO3).
User logs in with their password for the first time.
User registers a passkey in User Settings > Passkeys.
From this point on, the user must use their passkey -- password login is no longer accepted for this account.

Note

An admin cannot register a passkey on behalf of another user. The WebAuthn ceremony requires physical interaction with the user's own authenticator (TouchID, YubiKey, etc.).

Recovery scenarios

If a user loses access to their authenticator:

An admin revokes the user's passkeys via the Admin API. Each revocation is recorded with the admin's UID and timestamp for audit purposes.
Once all passkeys are revoked, password login becomes available again for that user (the per-user enforcement lifts when no active credentials remain).
The user logs in with their password and registers a new passkey.

Tip

Consider requiring users to register at least two passkeys on different authenticators (e.g. laptop + phone) for redundancy.

Containerized and multi-server deployments

When running TYPO3 in Docker containers or behind a load balancer, the file-based cache backends lose state on container restart and are not shared across servers. This affects nonce replay protection and rate limiting.

See Multi-server cache backends for Redis configuration, and Reverse proxy and IP detection for rate limiting behind a load balancer.

Local development with DDEV

DDEV sites (*.ddev.site) use HTTPS by default and are treated as secure contexts by browsers. Passkeys work out of the box.

ddev start
# Open https://mysite.ddev.site/typo3 -- passkeys work immediately

For http://localhost (without HTTPS), most browsers also treat this as a secure context, so passkeys will work. However, custom local domains over plain HTTP (e.g. http://mysite.local) will not work -- WebAuthn requires a secure context.