What is needed just to require a login to access the dashboard/ui?

Looking at the user guide its not too clear on what steps I need to take so when I access the ip I get asked for a login to be able to get into the interface? looks like editing the admin/auth in the settings file?

Does this help?
https://nodered.org/docs/user-guide/runtime/securing-node-red

That is what I was referring too, but not sure what parts I need and don't need to make it work for just a login?

Are you going to be logging in across the Internet or just in an internal network?

Is the login to stop those without authorization from accessing the system, or just for auditing?

You can set the http-node-security
https://nodered.org/docs/user-guide/runtime/securing-node-red#http-node-security

this line in the config:

httpNodeAuth: {user:"user",pass:"$2a$08$zZWtXTja0fB1pzD4sHCMyOCMYz2Z6dNbM6tl8sJogENOMcxWV9DN."},

create a hash with this command

node-red admin hash-pw

A more fancy auth you can achieve with a reverse proxy and GitHub - authelia/authelia: The Single Sign-On Multi-Factor portal for web apps