How to disable password request for a Jupyter notebook session?

Salvatore Cosentino picture Salvatore Cosentino · Dec 15, 2016 · Viewed 59.2k times · Source

I have been launching Jupyter Notebook for years using the following command:

jupyter-notebook --port=7000 --no-browser --no-mathjax

When I try to open the jupyter on the browser it ask me for a password, even though I have never set any before. It is important to note that If I do set the port to a value different than 7000 (eg., the default 8888) the interface will open with no problem

I am running jupyter locally, and on the following setup:

Python 3.5.2

With the following modules installed:

jupyter (1.0.0), jupyter-client (4.4.0), jupyter-console (5.0.0), jupyter-core (4.2.1), ipykernel (4.5.2), ipython (5.1.0), ipython-genutils (0.1.0), nbconvert (4.3.0), nbformat (4.2.0), notebook (4.3.0)

NOTE: I have no jupyter configurations file

Following are some of the output lines from the server:

[I 19:16:24.358 NotebookApp] Serving notebooks from local directory: /Users/my_user_name
[I 19:16:24.358 NotebookApp] 0 active kernels
[I 19:16:24.358 NotebookApp] The Jupyter Notebook is running at: http://localhost:7000/?token=aa0dab6e2d85766f3e2e4f0f6633e4473db56a56c94cac76
[I 19:16:24.358 NotebookApp] Use Control-C to stop this server and shut down all kernels (twice to skip confirmation).

And follwing are messages after I try to open it on the browser (using port 7000)

[I 19:21:56.848 NotebookApp] 302 GET /tree (::1) 8.46ms
[D 19:21:56.857 NotebookApp] Using contents: services/contents
[D 19:21:56.919 NotebookApp] Path base/images/favicon.ico served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/base/images/favicon.ico
[D 19:21:56.920 NotebookApp] Path components/jquery-ui/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.min.css served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/components/jquery-ui/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.min.css
[D 19:21:56.922 NotebookApp] Path components/jquery-typeahead/dist/jquery.typeahead.min.css served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/components/jquery-typeahead/dist/jquery.typeahead.min.css
[D 19:21:56.923 NotebookApp] Path style/style.min.css served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/style/style.min.css
[D 19:21:56.925 NotebookApp] Path auth/css/override.css served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/auth/css/override.css
[D 19:21:56.926 NotebookApp] Path components/es6-promise/promise.min.js served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/components/es6-promise/promise.min.js
[D 19:21:56.926 NotebookApp] Path components/requirejs/require.js served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/components/requirejs/require.js
[D 19:21:56.933 NotebookApp] Path base/images/logo.png served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/base/images/logo.png
[D 19:21:56.934 NotebookApp] 200 GET /login?next=%2Ftree (::1) 80.86ms
[D 19:21:57.001 NotebookApp] Path custom.css served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/custom/custom.css
[D 19:21:57.003 NotebookApp] 304 GET /custom/custom.css (::1) 3.11ms
[D 19:21:57.341 NotebookApp] Path auth/js/main.min.js served from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/notebook/static/auth/js/main.min.js
[D 19:21:57.344 NotebookApp] 200 GET /static/auth/js/main.min.js?v=20161219191623 (::1) 3.57ms

At this point there is a page from jupyter asking me to insert a password I have never set before.

SOLVED!

With latest update of notebook module (4.3.1) the problem has been solved.

Once the jupyter notebook is launched the user is prompted to paste a URL into the browser at the first connection:

Copy/paste this URL into your browser when you connect for the first time,
to login with a token:
    http://localhost:7000/?token=32be0f5ee74cfe521187bc479855ce8b9fbab9e8021701c9

This solved the problem!

Answer

The following is very unsafe, but you can remove the password completely with:

jupyter notebook --ip='*' --NotebookApp.token='' --NotebookApp.password=''

Without --NotebookApp.password='', when connecting from a remote computer to a local Jupyter launched simply with:

jupyter notebook --ip='*'

it still asks for a password for security reasons, since users with access can run arbitrary Python code on the server machine!

Note that on my machine, running just:

jupyter notebook

already opens a logged-in window on my browser, and stdout contains:

    To access the notebook, open this file in a browser:
        file:///home/ciro/.local/share/jupyter/runtime/nbserver-3286-open.html
    Or copy and paste one of these URLs:
        http://localhost:8888/?token=7c9265bf9df5f57cf5da88f410a71b097e2548ae375826b7
     or http://127.0.0.1:8888/?token=7c9265bf9df5f57cf5da88f410a71b097e2548ae375826b7

so if your browser is not opening automatically, you can try one of those links, which seem to have a login token on them, and then investigate why your browser is not opening automatically.

Tested on Jupyter 4.4.x, Ubuntu 18.04.