OpenID authentication with XNAT Desktop Client?

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Haroon Chughtai

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Oct 16, 2025, 12:43:12 PM (11 days ago) Oct 16
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Hi XNAT folks,

We're looking into rolling out the OpenID Authentication plugin on a bunch of the XNAT instances that we manage (replacing a mix of LDAP for institutional accounts and database logins for external users).

However a potential sticking point we see with our users that we envision is friction in logging into the XNAT Desktop Client. So a couple of questions around that:
  1. Am I correct in thinking that the only option available at the moment would be for users to create an alias token and use that to login to the Desktop Client?
  2. And if so, are there any plans on integrating OpenID authentication flows with the Desktop Client?
Best wishes,
Haroon

Rick Herrick

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Oct 24, 2025, 10:41:56 AM (3 days ago) Oct 24
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Hi Haroon,

Sorry for the late response, I wrote this email the day after you sent your question but forgot to actually send it!

You are correct about logging in using alias tokens. We've discussed integrating other auth providers into the desktop client but simply haven't had the development resources to integrate the OpenID workflow into the application. It's fairly tricky because the authentication would happen on the desktop client, not XNAT, so that authentication workflow needs to integrate back to the actual XNAT server. Hopefully we'll be able to resume development on the desktop client sometime soon, but have no timetable for that just yet.

Rick Herrick 

Senior Software Developer

ri...@xnatworks.io

https://xnatworks.io | Find us on LinkedIn



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