---
title: authentik Agent
sidebar_label: authentik Agent
---

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## What is the authentik Agent?

The authentik Agent is a service that can be installed on Linux, macOS, and Windows devices. It provides the following capabilities:

- [Device Compliance](../device-compliance/index.mdx) by reporting information about Endpoint Devices to authentik
- [Local device login](./device-authentication/local-device-login/index.mdx) with authentik credentials
- [Connecting via SSH to Endpoint Devices](./device-authentication/ssh-authentication.mdx) with authentik credentials
- [Authenticating to CLI applications](./device-authentication/cli-app-authentication/index.mdx) such as kubectl and AWS with authentik credentials

## authentik Agent components

The authentik Agent consists of several components:

| Platform                  | Component                           | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          | Dependencies      |
| ------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------- |
| **Linux, macOS, Windows** | `authentik-cli`                     | Provides CLI commands for interacting with `authentik-agent`.                                                                                                                                                                                        | `authentik-agent` |
| **Linux, macOS, Windows** | `authentik-agent`                   | Authentication within a users' context, for CLI tools.                                                                                                                                                                                               | `authentik-sysd`  |
| **Linux, macOS, Windows** | `authentik-sysd`                    | Responsible for handling device-level authentication and compliance checks.                                                                                                                                                                          | None              |
| **Linux only**            | `libpam-authentik`                  | PAM Module for token-based and interactive authentication via authentik. Used for [SSH authentication](./device-authentication/ssh-authentication.mdx) and [local device login](./device-authentication/local-device-login/index.mdx).               | `authentik-sysd`  |
| **Linux only**            | `libnss-authentik`                  | NSS Module that makes Linux aware of authentik users. All authentik users will be visible to Linux - but won't be able to login unless configured via device access groups. Provides a consistent `uid` and `gid` for users on all Endpoint Devices. | `authentik-sysd`  |
| **Windows only**          | `Windows Credential Provider` (WCP) | Enables logging in to Windows devices using authentik credentials.                                                                                                                                                                                   | `authentik-sysd`  |

## Technical information

All authentik Agent components communicate via gRPC and Unix domain sockets/Windows named pipes.

**Linux**: `/var/run/authentik/sys.sock` and `/var/run/authentik/sys-ctrl.sock`
**macOS**: `/var/run/authentik-sysd.sock` and `/var/run/authentik-sysd-ctrl.sock`
**Windows**: `\\.\pipe\authentik\sysd` and `\\.\pipe\authentik\sysd-ctrl`

- `sys.sock`/`*sysd.sock` for general communication
- `*-ctrl.sock` for domain join

## Important considerations

Sentry reporting is currently enabled by default and cannot be disabled. This will be configurable in a future release.

## Reporting issues

Please report issues and bugs via the [authentik Platform GitHub repository](https://github.com/goauthentik/platform).

## More information

For more information, refer to each of the topics below:

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