Sign in
Open Fabrik, sign in with local or LDAP credentials, complete MFA if enabled, and land on your workspace.
Signing in is the shortest step in this guide — usually a username, a password, and occasionally a second-factor code. Where it gets interesting is the branching: Fabrik supports both local accounts and corporate LDAP, and either one can be combined with time-based one-time passwords.
This page walks through every path you might hit, plus the usual first-time snags.
Opening Fabrik
Point your browser at the URL your administrator gave you. You'll land on a split-pane sign-in screen — a brand panel on the left (visible on desktop) and a compact form on the right.
On a phone or a narrow window the brand panel collapses and you see a centred logo above the form. Either way, the form behaves identically.
Signing in with a local account
A local account is one created inside Fabrik itself — username and password are stored (hashed, of course) in Fabrik's database.
Enter your username
Type the username your administrator gave you. Usernames are case-sensitive.
Enter your password
Click the eye icon on the right to reveal what you've typed if you want to double-check. The "Forgot password?" link next to the label opens the reset flow described below.
Click Sign in
On success, Fabrik takes you to the Home page. If it takes you somewhere else, it's because you were sent to the sign-in screen from a protected page — Fabrik remembers where you were trying to go and returns you there.
If the credentials are wrong, a red banner appears above the form with a specific message. The form doesn't clear, so you can just fix the password and try again.
Signing in with LDAP
If your organisation has wired Fabrik up to a corporate directory — Active Directory, OpenLDAP, or similar — you'll see Local and LDAP tabs above the form. Switch to LDAP and sign in with the same username and password you use elsewhere in the company.
A few LDAP-specific details worth knowing:
- The Forgot password? and Create one links disappear in LDAP mode. Those accounts live in the directory, not in Fabrik.
- The first time an LDAP user signs in, Fabrik provisions a local profile for them and applies whatever group mappings the administrator configured. Subsequent sign-ins skip that step.
- If the LDAP tabs aren't showing at all, LDAP simply isn't enabled on this instance. Ask an administrator to turn it on, or use a local account.
Two-factor authentication
If two-factor authentication is enabled on your account, Fabrik interrupts the sign-in flow with a second screen after it verifies your password:
Open your authenticator app
Grab the six-digit code for Fabrik from your authenticator (1Password, Authy, Google Authenticator — anything TOTP-compatible).
Enter the code
The field auto-focuses and is limited to six digits. Paste or type the code and click Verify. If your phone isn't handy, click Use backup code instead and enter one of the eight-character codes you generated when you enabled MFA.
Continue to Fabrik
Once the code is accepted, you land on Home exactly as you would with a password-only login.
The Back link returns you to the password screen — useful if you realise you typed the password into the wrong account.
Enabling, disabling, or regenerating backup codes for MFA is all done later in Settings → Security. This screen only appears if MFA is already set up on your account.
If your authenticator code is rejected repeatedly, your phone and the Fabrik server may have drifted out of time sync. TOTP codes are valid for 30 seconds on each side; a clock off by more than a minute will cause constant failures. Re-sync the phone's clock (or use a backup code) and the problem goes away.
Forgot your password
This flow is for local accounts only — LDAP passwords are managed by your directory, not by Fabrik.
Click "Forgot password?"
The link sits next to the Password label. It takes you to a small form that asks for the email address on your Fabrik account.
Check your email
If the address matches a local account, Fabrik sends a reset code. The email usually arrives in under a minute.
Enter the code and a new password
Open the reset link from the email, enter the code, and set a new password. On submit you're redirected back to the sign-in screen.
If the reset email never arrives, the instance likely has no SMTP server configured, or outbound mail is being filtered by your spam gateway. An administrator can confirm by checking the notification settings and the instance's mail logs.
Creating an account
If your administrator hasn't handed you credentials, the "Don't have an account? Create one" link on the sign-in screen opens a self-registration form.
Whether that link actually produces a working account depends on how the instance is configured:
- Some deployments leave self-registration open, and new accounts become active immediately with the default role.
- Others require an administrator to approve new accounts before they can sign in.
- A locked-down deployment will hide the link entirely.
If registration succeeds but you can't sign in afterward, or the link is missing, the answer is the same: ask an administrator to create the account for you. That's the faster path.
After you sign in
You'll land on Home — the top-level dashboard. Two things are worth noticing on your first visit:
- The top bar carries the Fabrik logo on the left, the global search in the middle, and a user menu on the right. Click your avatar to reach your profile, notification centre, and the sign-out button.
- The sidebar lives on the left. By default it's hidden off-screen; hover over its edge to peek at it, click the pin icon to keep it open. Some items (Administration, MIM Management) are only visible if your account has admin privileges.
The next page — Get your bearings — walks through each module in turn.
Sessions and refresh
Fabrik issues a 15-minute access token when you sign in, paired with a 7-day refresh token. The browser refreshes the access token silently in the background every few minutes, so a long session doesn't interrupt you — and every refresh rotates the refresh token itself, so an older one can never be reused.
Closing the tab doesn't sign you out — reopening Fabrik in the same browser picks up where you left off, as long as the refresh token is still valid. Once seven days pass without activity, or you sign out explicitly from the user menu, the refresh token is revoked and you're sent back to the sign-in screen.
Troubleshooting
A few sign-in failures you're likely to hit early on, and what they usually mean:
- "Invalid credentials." Username or password is wrong. Remember usernames are case-sensitive.
- "Account is temporarily locked." Five failed sign-in attempts in a row lock the account for fifteen minutes. Wait it out, or ask an administrator to unlock you from the user management screen.
- The LDAP tab isn't showing. LDAP isn't enabled on this instance. Use a local account or ask an administrator to turn LDAP on.
- "Verification code invalid." The TOTP code didn't match. Most often a clock-sync issue on your phone; failing that, use a backup code and check your authenticator after.
- The reset email never arrives. SMTP isn't configured, the mail is blocked upstream, or the address you entered doesn't match any account. Administrators can diagnose from the server side.
- A protected page keeps throwing you back to sign-in. Your refresh token expired or was revoked — most often because it went unused for seven days. Signing in again fixes it.