Persona

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Mozilla Persona is a completely decentralized and secure authentication system for the web based on the open BrowserID protocol. To ensure that Persona works everywhere and for everyone, Mozilla currently operates a small suite of optional, centralized services related to Persona.

Why should you and your site use Persona?

Persona completely eliminates site-specific passwords, freeing users and websites from the burden of creating, managing, and securely storing passwords.
Persona is easy to use. With just two clicks a Persona user can sign into a new site like Voost or The Times Crossword, bypassing the friction associated with account creation.
Persona is easy to implement. Developers can add Persona to a site in a single afternoon.
Best of all, there's no lock-in. Developers get a verified email address for all of their users, and users can use any email address with Persona.
Persona is built on the BrowserID protocol.Once popular browser vendors implement BrowserID, they will no longer need to rely on Mozilla to log in.

Read on to get started!

Note: Persona is in active development. Follow our blog to learn about new features, or join our mailing list and offer your feedback!

Using Persona on your site

Getting started

Why Persona?: Learn about reasons to support Persona on your site, and how it compares to other identity and authentication systems.
Quick setup: A quick walkthrough showing how to add Persona to your website.

Persona API reference

The navigator.id API reference: Reference for the navigator.id object, which web developers can use to integrate Persona into sites.
Verification API reference: Reference for the remote verification API hosted at https://verifier.login.persona.org/verify.

Guides

Security considerations: Practices and techniques to make sure your Persona deployment is secure.
Browser compatibility: Learn exactly which browsers support Persona.
Internationalization: Learn how Persona handles different languages.

Resources

Libraries and plugins: Find a drop-in library for your favorite programming language, web framework, blog, or content management system.
The Persona cookbook: Example source code for Persona sites. Includes snippets in C# (MVC3), PHP, Node.JS, and more.
Branding resources: Sign in buttons and other graphics to help present Persona to your users.

Information for Identity Providers

If you're an email provider or another identity-providing service, check out the links below to learn about becoming a Persona Identity Provider.

IdP Overview: A high level view of Persona Identity Providers.
Implementing an IdP: A detailed guide to the technical details of becoming an IdP.
Development tips: A set of tips and tricks useful while developing a new Identity Provider.
.well-known/browserid: An overview of the structure and purpose of the .well-known/browserid file, which IdPs use to advertise their support for the protocol.

The Persona Project

Glossary: BrowserID and Persona terminology defined.
FAQ: Answers to common questions.
Protocol overview: A mid-level technical overview of the underlying BrowserID protocol.
Crypto: A look at the cryptographic concepts behind Persona and BrowserID.
The Spec: Deep technical details live here.
The Persona Website: To get Persona going, we're hosting three services at https://login.persona.org: a fallback Identity Provider, a portable implementation of the navigator.id APIs, and an identity assertion verification service.
The Persona Source Code: The code behind the Persona website lives in a repository on GitHub. Patches welcome!