I have an Asp.NET Web Api v2 setup where I use OAuth (v2) authentication and JSON Web Tokens (JWT). If a user wants access to an endpoint they need to provide the bearer token in the Authorization header. Users need to submit a username and password and if validated they are given an access token (JWT format) that they can then present in the Authorization header. As long as the JWT contains the role accepted by the endpoint all works well.
Now I would like an automated service (another API from another developer) to access one of my endpoints. How do I go about manually generating an access token that has a long expiration date and they can use to access my endpoint without having to submit a username/password. I would like to make it as simple as possible for the outside API to access my API so I just want to be able to hand them a JWT token that they can place in their code.
Related
I'm developing a set of microservices exposed as REST through WSO2 API manager.
Now, I'd like to call these services in Angular front end. What is the best way to handle user authentication and authorization?
I found it can be done through OAuth2 Password Grant as described here?
When user logs in, user credentials will be sent to specific WSO2 APIM endpoint (/token), it validates, generates the token and this token will be sent in header for subsequent calls.
Is this the best approach to this case?
Thanks in advance,
As mentioned in your question, https://apim.docs.wso2.com/en/next/learn/api-security/oauth2/grant-types/password-grant/
This method will only work when you have the resource owner's username and password.
Take an example, suppose you have published the APIs and created a user (resource owner) in the WSO2 store. this user is subscribed to the API using the application. the application will have a client id and secret, which will be used to generate the OAuth2.0 token. this token will be used to invoke the APIs.
Now in your angular project, one way is to hardcode the base64(clientid:clientsecret) and call the token API to generate the OAuth2.0 bearer token. use the generated token to call the APIs onboarded on WSO2. To protect your APIs from the attack, use rate limiting based on IP
Now take another situation, if you want the user to authenticate first, then generate the JWT token for that user using the password grant type (using actual user's username and password), and using that JWT generate the OAuth2.0 Bearer token which will be used to call the APIs.
Steps to be performed for the second situation:
during registration (from Angular), internally onboard the user in the WSO2 Identity Server. (There is a WSO2 API for the same)
After registration, generate the JWT token from the identity server by authenticating username and password. (Again for this, WSO2 API is there)
now using this JWT token, Generate the OAuth2.0 token from WSO2 APIM
use this token to call the APIs
The second approach is the ideal approach for user to service authentication and authorization using WSO2 as the gateway while the first approach mainly focuses on service to service authentication and authorization
Hope this answers your question
Reference Link: https://medium.com/wso2-learning/how-to-protect-your-apis-with-self-contained-access-token-jwt-using-wso2-api-manager-and-wso2-75673d8a4686
I`m new to OAuth 2.0 and am trying to develop a application using a third party OAuth provider with Authorization Code grant flow as ny Authorization Server and Spring Security.
This provider gives me two endpoints /authorize and /token and those two, after the user authorizes its access, will return a access token.
So far, I have secured the "/" endpoint, so the application redirect the user to the authorization page and then, in the callback endpoint, store the token so it can be validated by a filter in each request.
But, as the application is mainly a set of REST API's, we want to be able to test it using Postman, with that said, on Postman, I am getting the token by setting the Authorization as OAuth 2.0 and requesting the token directly from the third party endpoints but, as Postman have its own callback URI, my application doesn`t store the token generated.
So, my two questions on this are:
Using /callback endpoint to store the token and validating it before each request by a filter is the common way of doing it?
To use Postman, should I create an endpoint for storing the token generated outside the application context or should I create an Authorization Server of my own as an additional layer on top of this third party AS?
Since your application is a set of REST API's, you need to make it as a Resource Server (in terms of OAuth2).
Resource Server doesn't perform authentication itself, it only validates a token from Authorization header (Resource Server in a nutshell).
You can find an example in Spring Security samples: oauth2resourceserver
I eventually come to the conclusion that I was using Postman wrong the whole time.
So, by the end, we got the Token saved on the database when the user logs in and, then, return it to the caller, whether it is the Front-end application, or Postman itself.
Then, in every call to the API's, the caller should include the token as Authorization on the header and a Filter on Spring will check the token against the Database.
While starting to integrate auth0, I came across this article
So its clear that to secure apis, all we need is the access_token and that is sent with each http request in the request Authorization header(Bearer scheme).
But then auth0(and possibly other providers) also send an Id_token that contains information about the user. My confusion is that how do I use this id_token to pass user information to my api. ( I have a spa running front end that authenticates to auth0 and gets these 2 tokens).
I can ofc call the userInfo end point in my api to get user info. But then wouldn't this defeat the purpose of the Id tokens?
The ID Token is consumed by the application and the claims included,
are typically used for UI display. It was added to the OIDC
specification as an optimization so the application can know the
identity of the user, without having to make an additional network
requests.
So my question is how do I access user profile in my api using id tokens?
"My confusion is that how do I use this id_token to pass user information to my api"
for that confusion, you just pass your JWT token. while generating JWT token, you need to add user information in payload part in JWT token. When your api get the JWT token, just check your JWT token is correct or not by the use of secret key and if correct, you can get data. How to get is just go from that JWT Authentication for Asp.Net Web Api
ID token is sent from the authorization server as a part of OIDC protocol. The purpose of this is to authenticate the user to your client application (SPA in this case). i.e. to let your API or the application know which particular user authorized the client to access a certain resource on its behalf.
Best way to use the ID token is by decoding and verifying it using a library. This will allow you to verify the signature of the token and any other claim that is included in the token (you can add custom claims to the tokens). Validation of those claims can be used to determine identity of the user and match with the user profile in your API. You will have to check the documentation related to your IdP(auth0) to figure out how to add new claims that are used by the user profile in your API.
I'm building a system with OIDC and OAuth 2.0 (using Auth0), and I'm unsure how to properly use the id_token and access_token. Or rather, I'm confused about which roles to assign to the various services in my setup.
I have a fully static frontend-application (single-page app, HTML + JS, no backend) that ensures that the user is authenticated using the implicit flow against Auth0. The frontend-application then fetches data from an API that I am also building.
Now, which is right?
The frontend SPA is the OAuth client application
My API service is an OAuth resource server
...or:
The frontend and my API service are both the client application
If both my frontend and backend API can be considered to be the client, I see no real harm in using the id_token as the bearer token on requests from my frontend to my backend - this is appealing because then I can simply verify the signed token on the backend, and I have all the information about the user that I need. However, if my API is considered a resource server, I should probably use the access_token, but then I have to connect to Auth0's servers on every API request to both verify the token, and get basic user info, won't I?
I've read this which seems to suggest that the access_token is the only valid token for use with my API. But like I said, I'm not sure about the roles of the individual services. And using the id_token is tempting, because it requires no network connections on the backend, and contains information I need to extract the right data.
What is the right way to go about this?
I like this Medium post about the difference, all cred to this author.
https://medium.com/#nilasini/id-token-vs-access-token-17e7dd622084
If you are using Azure AD B2C like I am you can read more here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-b2c/openid-connect
ID Token
You will get id token if you are using scope as openid. Id token is specific to openid scope. With openid scope you can get both id token and access token.
The primary extension that OpenID Connect makes to OAuth 2.0 to enable End-Users to be Authenticated is the ID Token data structure. The ID Token is a security token that contains Claims(claims are name/value pairs that contain information about a user) about the Authentication of an End-User by an Authorization Server when using a Client, and potentially other requested Claims. The ID Token is represented as a JSON Web Token (JWT)
{
"iss": "https://server.example.com",
"sub": "24400320",
"aud": "s6BhdRkqt3",
"nonce": "n-0S6_WzA2Mj",
"exp": 1311281970,
"iat": 1311280970,
"auth_time": 1311280969,
"acr": "urn:mace:incommon:iap:silver"
}
The above is default JWT claims, in addition to that, if you requested claims from service provider then you will get those as well.
An id_token is a JWT, per the OIDC Specification. This means that:
identity information about the user is encoded right into the token
and
the token can be definitively verified to prove that it hasn't been
tampered with.
There's a set of rules in the specification for validating an id_token. Among the claims encoded in the id_token is an expiration (exp), which must be honored as part of the validation process. Additionally, the signature section of JWT is used in concert with a key to validate that the entire JWT has not been tampered with in any way.
Access Tokens
Access tokens are used as bearer tokens. A bearer token means that the bearer (who hold the access token) can access authorized resources without further identification. Because of this, it's important that bearer tokens are protected. If I can somehow get ahold of and "bear" your access token, I can pretend as you.
These tokens usually have a short lifespan (dictated by its expiration) for improved security. That is, when the access token expires, the user must authenticate again to get a new access token limiting the exposure of the fact that it's a bearer token.
Although not mandated by the OIDC spec, Okta uses JWTs for access tokens as (among other things) the expiration is built right into the token.
OIDC specifies a /userinfo endpoint that returns identity information and must be protected. Presenting the access token makes the endpoint accessible.
http://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html
https://connect2id.com/learn/openid-connect#cool-id-token-uses
https://developer.okta.com/blog/2017/07/25/oidc-primer-part-1
Your frontent is your OAuth client application, once it stores the token it can take actions on the OAuth flow. And your API service is resource server, because it accepts the access_token issued by your identity server.
Also I would say that your id_token stands for the identification of the logged user and may contain sensitive data for your app. The access_token is standing as your credential to access a resource.
At the end you will use an access_token to request a resource, and then if you need specific data from the logged in user (resource owner), you may request the ID token from the token endpoint.
In my opinion, the first approach is correct. Your SPA is the client application and your APIs are resource servers.
I would suggest you limit the use of id_token till your SPA only. You can use the basic information present in the id token (like username and email) to display user information within your UI. If you can generate access tokens as JWTs too then your API can validate the access tokens without going to the Identity provider. You can include roles (or similar) in your access token to get authorization information in your access token.
I was also wondering if I need to talk to the IdP on every request if I'm using the tokens received from the IdP. I ended up with the following setup:
Only the backend talks to the IdP, the frontend does not.
Upon the IdP callback the backend issues a JWT for the frontend.
User session and frontend-backend communication is managed entirely by my app using the JWT token.
Check this article: OAuth2 in NestJS for Social Login (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc)
and this repo: https://github.com/thisismydesign/nestjs-starter
and this question: OAuth2 flow in full-stack NestJS application
The id_token is an cryptographically encoded token for authentication. The OP (the auth provider) is the one that generates it and the RP (relying party or the resource) will eventually re-present the token to the OP to counter validate when handed over by the client. In short the id_token is tied to authn workflow.
The access_token enables resource access. It does subsume the userinfo i.e., the id_token or any other principal on whose behalf the access is being requested. So this token includes both user claims plus claims to groups that are authorized. In short the access_token is tied to your authz workflow.
I am following this tutorial about OAuth2.0 https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/guides/authentication
It looks quite clear how OAuth2.0 works. But I have a bit confusion at the access token part.
After obtaining an access token for a user, your application can use
that token to submit authorized API requests on that user's behalf.
The API supports two ways to specify an access token: Specify the
access token as the value of the access_token query parameter:
www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN
if someone acquired this access token during the url transferring they can access this protected resource right?
How the server know if the request is coming from the client initially requested the access token?
UPDATE:
after reading this post Are HTTPS headers encrypted? my confusion is cleared. I thought query string is not encrypted during transmission in the network.
Generally I think the consensus is that OAuth 2.0 is a server side technology and all access tokens and communication should be transmitted using SSL as the bearer tokens need to be kept as secure as possible.
Also, you need to know that there are 2 types of flows in OAuth 2.0
i) Implicit grant flow - This is the flow where the user logs in to the service provider and his browser gets the access token. Say you have X.com and Log in via Facebook. Once the user keys in his FB credentials, the access token is sent to his browser.
ii) Authorization Code flow - In this flow (consider the above situation again), facebook will pass an authorization code to the user's browser. If anyone, somehow, intercepts the authorization code there is nothing he can do. An authorization code can be exchanged for an access when passed with valid client credentials. So, when the user logs in, his browser gets an authorization code which is passed to your server at X.com. from there you would hit the code-token exchange endpoint provided by FB and get the access token returned to your server!
Authorization code flow adds another layer of security, where the access token is visible only to the client + server and not to the user agent. And as you figured out yourself, the token is passed via HTTPS.