AusweisApp(1)

📦 version 2.6.1, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ AusweisApp ✨ (General Commands Manual) 💖

NAME

okay bestie, meet AusweisApp 🦋 — the official authentication app for German ID cards and residence permits. it's giving trusted, it's giving secure 💅

SYNOPSIS

AusweisApp [-h|--help]
AusweisApp [--help-all]
AusweisApp [-v|--version]
AusweisApp [--show]
AusweisApp [--keep] [--no-logfile] [--no-loghandler] [--show] [--no-proxy] [--ui { qml|websocket }] [--port PORT] [--address ADDRESS]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so AusweisApp lets you log in to websites using your German ID card and residence permits. no cap, it's the main character of German online ID 👑

you'll need:

  • an ID card that's enabled for online identification 🪪
  • a compatible NFC device (most NFC readers should work, and NFC-enabled phones can also be used 📱)
  • AusweisApp itself 💜
  • a browser 🌈
  • a website that supports authentication via German ID card ✨

when you visit one of those sites, AusweisApp gets triggered and asks if you want to authenticate against the website. iconic behaviour, ngl 🙈

also, this program spins up a local webserver so your browser can talk to it. lowkey magic 🧚

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -h, --help — shows a short help message 💖
  • --help-all — shows the help, including the Qt specific options 🎀
  • -v, --version — shows version info 🍓
  • --keep — by default, AusweisApp writes a log to a file matching ${TMP}/AusweisApp.*.log, and it gets deleted when the program quits. this setting stops that deletion, so the log sticks around 🦋
  • --no-logfile — stops writing a log file to ${TMP}/AusweisApp.*.log. logs still show up on STDOUT though 🫶
  • --no-loghandler — turns off the default log handler, which also means no logging to STDOUT 🙈
  • --show — shows the window on startup 🌟
  • --no-proxy — disables the system proxy 🔥
  • --ui { qml|webservice|websocket } — this one takes multiple values 💅
    • qml starts the program with a visible UI 🎨
    • websocket lets it start in the background as an SDK. only really useful when you're plugging AusweisApp into other programs 🧚
    • webservice starts listening on the given port and address 🌐

the default is "qml,webservice,websocket" 💜

  • --port PORT — changes the listening port for the WebSocket. the default is 24727. selecting "0" is the special case: AusweisApp picks a random port and writes the port number to a file at ${TMP}/AusweisApp.<PID>.port 🎲
  • --address ADDRESS — binds the interface to the given addresses. normally AusweisApp is bound to localhost only, because that's a security requirement. only useful for testing, bestie 🔐 this option also takes multiple values 🌸

🎀 RETURN VALUE 🎀

AusweisApp returns 0 when it terminates successfully ✅

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • QT_QPA_PLATFORM={ wayland|X11 } — you can force the session type to wayland or X11. this is only needed for debugging purposes 🐛 XDG_SESSION_TYPE gets ignored on gnome, so keep that in mind 💀

📁 FILES 📁

  • ~/.config/AusweisApp_CE/AusweisApp2.conf — this is where the user config is saved 🗂️

⚠️ CAVEATS ⚠️

bestie, heads up: right now there's no way to terminate the program on gnome, because the TrayIcon is mandatory 😭

💜 AUTHOR 💜

this man page was written by Lee Garrett (debian@rocketjump.eu) for Debian, but others are welcome to use it too 🫶

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

ok that's the whole tea ☕ this manual was tagged AusweisApp(1) in the General Commands Manual, and the page footer is AusweisApp(1) too 💅 periodt, go be a Unix queen 👑🌸

📦 where this page comes from