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Nexus Drop-In User Module

Security-first, framework-agnostic PHP 8.2+ user management module for MariaDB/MySQL.

What this is

A drop-in auth/user module you can mount into an existing PHP app.

• Not a full framework
• Not a standalone IAM server
• Built for embedding and extension

What you get

• Registration + email verification
• Login (username or email) + secure sessions + remember-me
• Password reset + password change
• Role checks (user, admin, super_admin) with permission checks (can())
• TOTP + recovery codes + step-up verification
• Passkeys (WebAuthn) with safe default disabled mode
• Google OIDC login hooks
• Session/device listing and revocation
• Audit logging for security-sensitive actions
• HTML modules and JSON endpoints

Quick start

1. Install dependencies:

2. Configure database (environment mode):

3. Run migrations:

4. Start demo router:

Lightweight host-app demo

If you want a cleaner, app-like example (homepage + register/login + restricted user/admin pages), use:

1. Configure the demo in this file:

• examples/config/module_webapp.config.php

Set at least:

• db_dsn
• db_user
• db_password

2. Run migrations (uses the same config file by default if NEXUS_CONFIG_FILE is not set):

3. Start the demo app:

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8081.

Optional: use a different config file via environment variable:

This example demonstrates the intended drop-in style:

• include the module
• instantiate core services once
• protect host-app routes using session + role checks

Install in a host app

Use Composer to install this module into your application. This is the recommended approach for production usage.

If the package is available on Packagist:

If you want to install directly from GitHub (VCS source):

Then run:

Manual unzip/copy into your app directory is possible for experiments, but not recommended because dependency updates, autoloading, and version pinning are harder to maintain.

Configuration modes

The module now supports both environment-based and file-based configuration.

A) Environment variables

Used by default when no config file is provided.

Primary keys:

• NEXUS_DB_DSN
• NEXUS_DB_USER
• NEXUS_DB_PASS
• NEXUS_TOTP_KEY
• NEXUS_GOOGLE_OIDC_CLIENT_ID
• NEXUS_GOOGLE_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET
• NEXUS_GOOGLE_OIDC_REDIRECT_URI
• NEXUS_PASSKEY_WEBAUTHN_ENABLED

B) Config file (app-local by default)

The demo router and migration runner look for an app-local config file first:

• examples/minimal_router.php defaults to examples/config/module.config.php
• migrations/run.php defaults to examples/config/module.config.php

Override options (in precedence order):

1. NEXUS_CONFIG_FILE_PATH constant in your entrypoint
2. Web-server scoped $_SERVER['NEXUS_CONFIG_FILE']
3. Process environment variable NEXUS_CONFIG_FILE
4. App-local default file path

You can still use NEXUS_CONFIG_FILE when useful, but for multi-app servers prefer app-local files or per-app entrypoint constants.

Migration runner also accepts an explicit config path argument:

See the template in examples/config/module.config.php.

Supported config keys include:

• Core config: db_dsn, db_user, db_password, from_email, from_name
• Security behavior: secure_cookies, same_site, ip_binding_mode, bind_user_agent
• Phase-2 toggles/secrets: totp_key, google_oidc_*, passkey_webauthn_enabled
• Mail transport: mail_transport, smtp_host, smtp_port, smtp_username, smtp_password, smtp_encryption, smtp_timeout_seconds
• Mail template files: email_template_locale, email_template_roots, verification_link_template, admin_registration_notify_to
• Optional mail fallback templates: email_templates
• UI fields: profile_fields

Email text and transport configuration

You can configure both what is sent and how it is sent from the config file.

Transport options:

• mail_transport = null (default; no mail sent)
• mail_transport = php (uses PHP mail())
• mail_transport = smtp (uses SMTP with optional AUTH/STARTTLS)

Example transport config:

Email text is file-based by default. Template file lookup is:

• <root>/<locale>/<template_name>.subject.txt
• <root>/<locale>/<template_name>.body.txt
• fallback to language-only locale (for example de from de-DE)
• fallback to en

Example file-template config:

Default template example:

• templates/email/en/verify_email.subject.txt
• templates/email/en/verify_email.body.txt

Default mail notification templates shipped:

• verify_email
• password_reset_requested
• password_reset_completed
• admin_new_user_registered

Template file contents are preformatted text with placeholders:

Optional array fallback when no file template exists:

Available placeholders for verify_email:

• {{token}}
• {{verify_link}}
• {{username}}
• {{email}}
• {{real_name}}

Available placeholders for admin_new_user_registered:

• {{user_id}}
• {{username}}
• {{email}}
• {{real_name}}
• {{source_ip}}
• {{request_id}}

When admin_registration_notify_to is set (array or comma-separated list), admin notifications are emitted on successful registration using the admin_new_user_registered template.

Host app database reuse (drop-in embedding)

For host-app embedding, the config file can provide a shared PDO instance via pdo.

If pdo is present, the demo router and migration runner reuse it instead of opening a separate DB connection.

This lets the module use the same database/session context as the embedding application.

Host app bootstrap example

For a concrete shared-PDO integration example, see:

• examples/host_app_bootstrap.php

Run it like this:

It exposes sample host-mounted routes:

• POST /host/auth/register
• POST /host/auth/login

Example endpoints (JSON)

• POST /register
• POST /login
• POST /verify-email
• POST /password-reset/request
• POST /password-reset/confirm
• POST /totp/enroll/begin (auth + CSRF)
• POST /totp/enroll/confirm (auth + CSRF)
• POST /recovery-codes/regenerate (auth + CSRF)
• POST /step-up/verify
• POST /passkeys/register/begin (auth + CSRF)
• POST /passkeys/register/finish (auth + CSRF)
• POST /passkeys/authenticate/begin (CSRF)
• POST /passkeys/authenticate/finish (CSRF)
• GET /passkeys/list (auth)
• POST /passkeys/revoke (auth + CSRF)
• GET /sessions (auth)
• POST /sessions/revoke (auth + CSRF)
• GET /oidc/google/start
• GET /oidc/google/callback

HTML modules

• Register/login/verify-email/password-reset
• TOTP enroll + recovery code regeneration
• Step-up verification
• Passkey list + revoke
• Sessions/devices list + revoke
• Profile

All POST /ui/* routes require valid CSRF tokens.

Testing

Fast security suite:

Full DB-backed security suite (ephemeral MariaDB):

Focused WebAuthn-enabled DB path:

Security defaults

• PDO prepared statements
• Argon2id password hashing (preferred)
• random_bytes() token generation
• Hashed tokens at rest
• Session ID regeneration on login
• CSRF enforcement on state-changing routes
• Generic auth failures (no account enumeration)
• Audit events for critical auth/security actions
• Pluggable risk engine with allow, require_step_up, deny

Architecture notes

Key extension interfaces:

• StepUpServiceInterface
• TotpServiceInterface
• RecoveryCodeServiceInterface
• PasskeyServiceInterface
• PasskeyCeremonyValidatorInterface
• OidcProviderInterface
• EventDispatcherInterface

Primary composition roots:

• examples/minimal_router.php
• migrations/run.php

Current status

Phase-1 and planned Phase-2 capabilities are implemented in this repository, with DB-backed security regression coverage and CI workflow validation.