Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) for browser monitors

Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) adds an essential layer of security to applications login processes, protecting against unauthorized access. A very common use case in Synthetics is testing user journeys involving websites protected by MFA.

Synthetics supports testing websites secured by Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP), a common MFA method that provides short-lived one-time tokens to enhance security.

To test a browser journey that uses TOTP for MFA, first configure the Synthetics authenticator token in the target application. To do this, generate a One-Time Password (OTP) using the Synthetics CLI; refer to @elastic/synthetics totp <secret>.

npx @elastic/synthetics totp <secret>

// prints
OTP Token: 123456

Once the Synthetics TOTP Authentication is configured in your application, you can now use the OTP token in the synthetics browser journeys using the mfa object imported from @elastic/synthetics.

import { journey, step, mfa } from "@elastic/synthetics";

journey("MFA Test", ({ page, params }) => {
  step("Login using TOTP token", async () => {
    // login using username and pass and go to 2FA in next page
    const token = mfa.totp(params.MFA_SECRET);
    await page.getByPlaceholder("token-input").fill(token);
  });
});

For monitors created in the Synthetics UI using the Script editor, the mfa object can be accessed as shown below:

step("Login using 2FA", async () => {
  const token = mfa.totp(params.MFA_SECRET);
  await page.getByPlaceholder("token-input").fill(token);
});