So, I'm just starting to use omniauth and have gotten it working with facebook. I have set it up so that it automatically redirects back to facebook for a new token when the current token expires. Based upon that, is there any reason why I should be storing the token to the db? I currently log user accesses but don't really see any value in logging the token. Would appreciate any ideas on why I should.
thx
Depends on your business logic. For example, do you need to access the user's Facebook details at a later time, even when he is logged out? Or if you are queuing tasks (i.e. running this in the background), do you need to post to his wall a few hours later, instead of this very instant?
Another reason I can think of, is. Do you require your app to obtain a new token via Facebook all the time when the user needs to interact to Facebook via your app? Or would you like to store these tokens in your app, so the user does not need to go through the same process over and over?
It all depends on the kind of user experience you are trying to deliver.
Related
I'm writing an offline application that uses the Dropbox API. When a user comes to the application, I'm using the https://api.dropbox.com/oauth2/token (docs) to get a refresh_token, which I store for later use.
I am calling the same endpoint every time the user logs in (unless I've already got the user's data in a cookie). I'm not sure that this is the best way to go about it: I at least need to get the user's account_id, so that I can look up their refresh_token in the database if I already have it. But every time I call https://api.dropbox.com/oauth2/token, the user is redirected to the Dropbox app authorization interface, as if they've never approved the app before.
So I would either like to know how to stop Dropbox from forcing the user to re-authorize an app every time. Or, if that is just how https://api.dropbox.com/oauth2/token is supposed to work, I'd instead like to be able to get their account_id somehow when they visit my page.
(In case it's relevant, the app is still in development mode at this point.)
The https://api.dropbox.com/oauth2/token endpoint is an OAuth endpoint that the app can call to get an access token/refresh token. Being an API endpoint, it does not itself redirect the user to the Dropbox app authorization page.
The Dropbox app authorization page is at https://www.dropbox.com/oauth2/authorize (documented here), and the app decides if/when to direct the user there to authorize the app.
You generally only need to send the user through the app authorization flow (sending them to https://www.dropbox.com/oauth2/authorize and then calling https://api.dropbox.com/oauth2/token) once per user for an "offline" application. Once you do so, you should store the resulting refresh token for that user. You'll typically store the refresh token for that user tied to their user account in your own app.
Exactly how you manage the user accounts in your own app will depend on how it's built, but, as it sounds like this is a web app, typically you would use the user's browser cookies to identify the user when they return to your page so that you can look them up in your database and retrieve their details, such as their corresponding refresh token. (Or, if they're not already signed in to your web app, you would have them do so first.)
Greg's answer is very helpful, and very politely addresses my misunderstanding of the auth flow. (I was revisiting old code I'd written years previously—obviously I should have documented it better than I had!)
In the end I believe that Dropbox was forcing me to reauthorize because my application was in development mode, and had a small user base. When I used the identical code in an app set to production mode, it stopped forcing me to reauthorize. So the “problem” is really a Dropbox security feature, and the solution was just to use production mode.
*Apologies in advance for the long background but I think it is necessary and helpful to other devs once this is answered.
Background
I am building a very social web-application in which there are several events that trigger social actions such as updating the user's Twitter status.
Currently, I use a library called "TweetMoaSharp" (.NET) to handle the Oauth workflows and events that trigger a status update or follow action work brilliantly as long as the user is briefly redirected to the Twitter authentication page.
To clarify, the user is not asked to re-authorize my app each time, but there is an unsightly flicker that lasts for 1-2 seconds while the user is directed to Twitter and then back to my app. This will annoy the end user as there are frequent Twitter interactions.
So--to relieve the situation, I use TweetMoaSharp to obtain an OAuth Access Token via the server and then store that token along with the user id returned from Twitter in my database. I then set a cookie on the client that contains the user's Twitter Id so that for future requests I can simply pass that ID to the server, grab the OAuth token form the database and do my business. No redirect required!
Problem Solved, Right?
Well, no. Stupidly, I overlooked the fact that this can cause a collision with multiple Twitter Accounts being used on the same page and ended up tweeting test-tweets to a second twitter account I own because I had changed Twitter sessions. This could happen to any user(s) who access multiple Twitter accounts from the same browser; a husband and wife for example.
Back to the Drawing Board
I thought to myself, "The Facebook JavaScript API" makes it super easy to get the id of the currently logged in user without going through a bunch of server-side token steps so I am sure Twitter offers the same approach." Ha! I haven't found one yet.
Bottom Line / Question
How do I get the ID of the currently authenticated Twitter user without redirecting them to Twitter (even for just a second)? If I can do this, then I can compare the returned ID to the one in my cookie and know if it is valid for my application's current session or if I need to have that (new) user authenticate as well so that I avoid "Tweeting" under the wrong account.
Thanks in advance.
Use your app tokens to do a verify credentials call
https://api.twitter.com/1.1/account/verify_credentials.json
The returned info is the logged in user.
Unfortunately limited to 15 calls per 15 minute window!
I am using tweepy api for oauth: http://packages.python.org/tweepy/html/auth_tutorial.html#oauth-authentication
The first time, user is ask to authorize my app. But from the second time, I dont want the user to be asked to authorize my app again.
The tutorial says
It is a good idea to save the access token for later use. You do not need to re-fetch it each time. Twitter currently does not expire the tokens, so the only time it would ever go invalid is if the user revokes our application access. To store the access token depends on your application. Basically you need to store 2 string values: key and secret:
auth.access_token.key
auth.access_token.secret
I plan to store access_token key and secret to a session. When user use my app the second time, I will just use the access_token, so user will not be forced to authorize my app again.
However, THE PROBLEM IS that what happen when many twitter users use my app, how can I know which access_token belong to which user.
I hope my question is clear.
Stop twitter to force user to authorize my app from second time.
if I need to store access_token to solve (1), how can I know which access_token belong to which user.
You need to implement session management in your web app and associate session IDs with your user model which stores the auth information. You don't say what language you are using but if you use the Ruby on Rails framework then session management is easily done. I recommend the Devise gem with omniauth-twitter (https://github.com/arunagw/omniauth-twitter).
I'm currently implementing an Oauth consumer service which is going to use Soundcloud as an Oauth service provider as well. But I'm having the following issue with it: Taking Facebook or Twitter example, you go there, you sign in, you fill up the permission form, and you are redirected back to your app. If you go there a second time, and given you are already sign in, you basically skip all steps and are redirected back instantly. That means, Facebook recognized that you already gave permission to that 3rd party service, so it doesn't ask your permission constantly.
And that's what's happening when I use Soundcloud. Basically everytime I redirected the user to the Soundcloud Oauth connect endpoint, the permission form always shows up, even though I already gave permission to that 3rd party service previously. I'm forced to press "connect" every single time, which is a drag from the user perspective (how many times can you give permission to the same entity). My question is: is there a parameter I can use to make soundcloud recognize/validate the previous permission from the user account to that specific 3rd party service? Or is this Soundcloud Oauth design implementation and we have to live with it?
Edit:
Maybe this wasn't clear, but each time I press "connect" in soundcloud, a new access token is being generated and delivered. Since my app uses this access token to identify its users, it doesn't work very well for me that the access token is getting updated everytime I want to log in, making me effectively "sign up" everytime. To sum it up, I want to get the previously attributed token to my account, so I can look up in my database, identify it and log him in.
I'm also looking for a solution which doesn't involve storing state in the client that might get cleaned up.
What you can do is store the user's oauth token in local storage and reuse it in future sessions. That's what happens on soundcloud.com.
A longer explanation:
When you use the Connect flow, the user is authenticated by SoundCloud (either by using username/password, Facebook Connect, or an already-existing session on soundcloud.com), and then when it is successful, your app is given an oauth token for that user. This is passed to the callback page which is registered for your app.
That token is the only piece of information needed to have the user be "logged in". Unless the token expires (by time, or by the user manually revoking it), then you can reuse that in future sessions.
I think I'm a bit confused about your application's design: where and how is the oauth token being used? I think that instead of using the token as an identifier, perhaps the user's permalink might be better? If you have the oauth token, you can find out the permalink by querying api.soundcloud.com/me.
as I started to work with Twitterizer in order to publish on someone's wall I am in confusing time.
There is a page, my case, DefaultTwitter.aspx where is link to authenticate on twitter with token provided. Goes on Twitter and comes back to CallbackTwitter.aspx with outh_token and secret. And so the user is identified. On twitterizer example says:
Step 5 - Store the results
You should now store the access token and the user details. Keep in mind that the
only way an access token will become invalid is if the user revokes access by logging
into Twitter. Otherwise, those values will grant you access to that user's data
forever.
My questions are: - should I store any data in SQL datatable and what exactly(however I hope that is not the case to do so)
somebody said that I should save in a cookie(I thought in session); however then if another user comes then how should I create a button to logout or something like that?
-how will user revoke application access if he would like so?
A live example will be much appreciated as I could not found any on internet how exactly twitter api works.
When your application finishes getting authorization to access the user's data, the result is the access token (represented by 2 values, a key and a secret). Those values are, in effect, the username/password you can use in requests to the API on behalf of that user.* Save those values in your SQL database. You'll also be given the user id and screen name. It's probably a good idea to keep those handy, too.
The user can revoke access to an application by going to http://twitter.com/settings/applications, finding the application and clicking the revoke access button next to it. Your application cannot revoke access for the user.
You asked for an example, but you're citing the example application. Just look at the source code in that sample.
* - That's a simplification for explanation sake. Please don't crucify me, OAuth experts.