I established a authentication flow with Facebook Login and AWS Cognito on the client site. Works fine. But now I need a reference of the user with its facebook id in a dynambodb table. Of course I could just call a AWS lambda function exposed via AWS API gateway, but how can I verify that the API call actually has a valid facebook id and that this facebook id matches the AWS Cognito Id. Maybe I am missing something here, I hope you guys can point me in the right direction ;) thanks!
If you can key your ddb table by cognito id instead of facebook id, you can invoke api gateway with cognito credentials. If you use callee credentials when calling lambda you can access the cognito id via the token $context.identity.cognitoIdentityId. This ensures the call was made by the owner of this id. You can further check that $context.identity.cognitoAuthenticationProvider is graph.facebook.com to ensure they authed via Facebook. Unfortunately, the facebook id is not passed in the credentials, so if you need it you will need a lookup table mapping cognito id to facebook id. For more details on the available tokens see here.
I would suggest to do the following (I'm new to AWS as well, Let me know if you have any suggestions):
Create a API Gateway /fblogin endpoint where you will POST the Facebook Access Token (You will authenticate with Facebook on the client side to get this token). That endpoint is linked to a Lambda function say fb_login.
In fb_login function you will authenticate with Amazon Cognito to get its credentials. You should have created a Federated Identity user pool in Cognito and assign appropriate roles to assume for this user pool. This helps if you want to restrict your API only to those who are authenticated and authorized. So, the result from Cognito will have IdentityId and Credentials. You can return them as a result of your request to /fblogin.
Using the above result you can sign the requests you send to your API on API Gateway (Or you can use AWS custom generated SDK for your API to handle the signing). On the API Gateway endpoints, enable CORS and authentication as AWS_IAM. This way, API Gateway verifies the user automatically by checking the signature in the request. You can get the User Id from $context.identity.cognitoIdentityId as others suggested. This way, you can be sure that the user is authorized and authenticated.
Note: Make sure you implement /fblogin endpoint on HTTPS, then the FB Access token will be secure. If not, it will be visible as plain text over HTTP.
Also, use a Dynamo DB table as a log for CognitoID - FacebookID. You can incorporate this in the Step 2 Lambda function ifself or anything you think is appropriate.
I want to create an app that will authenticate with my server using oauth.
My question is how will this work?
My client side will communicate using HTTPS with Facebook and get an Access Token. Then it should send it to my server side to authenticate? My server should save the token in the db? How it can validate the token?
how will this work. ?
When the client needs authorization to access some information about the user, the browser (user agent) redirects the resource owner to the OAuth authorization server. There, the user is faced with an authentication dialog (this dialog is not shown if the user is already authenticated), after which he or she is presented an authorization dialog explaining the permissions that the client is requesting, the information that it needs to access or the actions that it needs to do on his or her behalf.
Access Token should send it to my server side to authenticate? or server should save the token in the db?
From what you describe I'd suggest to use a server-side login flow.
-so that the token is already on your server, and doesn't need to be passed from the client. If you're using non-encrypted connections, this could be a security risk.
(after a user successfully signs in, send the user's ID token to your server using HTTPS. Then, on the server, verify the integrity of the ID token and retrieve the user's ID from the sub claim of the ID token. You can use user IDs transmitted in this way to safely identity the currently signed-in user on the backend.)
-See
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/manually-build-a-login-flow/v2.2#login
How to validate token ?
you can follow this link , you will get your step by step solution for an app.
Facebook access token server-side validation for iPhone app
I'm developing an Android app that consumes a REST service that uses OAuth protocol. In the first activity, app shows a login screen. This is the flow:
1) User puts her username and password.
2) App makes a request to REST service, providing username and password.
3) REST service check the credentials and if are correct, ask for an access_token to my OAuth2 provider server.
4) REST service answers to the app providing the access_token and the refresh_token
5) In the next requests to the REST server (to get data like people, articles...) app will provide the access_token and the refresh_token.
6) When REST service process a request, will validate the access_token (using an token info endpoint of my OAuth server).
7) If the access_token is correct and has not expired, REST service will return the data that the app were asking for.
When REST service detects that access_token has expired, asks for another with using the refresh_roken.
Now, my questions:
When REST service retrieve a new access_token after the old one expires, has the REST service send it to the app in that response?
If so, has the app check, in each request/response, if new a new access_token has been sent from the REST service?
I don't know if I'm in the right way, I'm trying to understand the flow.
Thanks.
Assuming there's no browser involved and the app (aka. Client) uses what is called the Resource Owner Password Credentials grant, the flow is:
the User (aka. Resource Owner) provides his/her username and password to the Client
the Client makes a Token Request to the Authorization Server, providing username and password
the Authorization Server checks the credentials and if they are correct, it provides an access token and optionally a refresh token to the Client in the response
in the requests to the REST server (to get data like people, articles...) the Client will provide the access token
when the REST service process a request, it will validate the access token calling the token validation endpoint of the Authorization Server or by validating the token locally (e.g. if the access token is a JWT).
if the access token is correct, has not expired and has the right permissions (aka. "scopes"), the REST service will return the data that the Client was asking for
when the Client detects that access_token has expired (e.g. because the REST server returns an error), it asks the Authorization Server for another access token using the refresh token using the so-called Refresh Token grant/flow
OAuth 2.0 flows:
An application registers with the auth provider e.g. Facebook, Google, etc with app name, website and callback/postback URL
The application receives the client id and secret from the auth provider
The application user accesses the auth provider for authentication and user approves the resource permissions
The auth provider returns the auth token with respect to the user permissions to the application
The application accesses the resource provider using the auth tokens
The resource provider returns the protected resources after validating the auth tokens to the application
Do comment if you need more understanding!
Why do you need both a "code" and a "token" in the Facebook OAuth2 authentication flow as described here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/ ?
If you look at the OAuth dialog reference (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/dialogs/oauth/), it seems like you only ever use the token to fetch information about the user, and if you specify the response_type parameter as token or code,token, then you get the token on the first time.
Why do you need to get a "code" and then use the code to get a "token" as opposed to getting the token directly?
I guess I'm misunderstanding something basic about how OAuth works, but it seems you avoid the request to https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token entirely if you get the token the first time with the dialog.
Let us take a simple example to differentiate authentication code vs access token.
You as a user want to try a new Facebook app called Highjack.
So you click on the application and the Highjack app asks you to log into your Facebook account. When you are done, Facebook generates an authentication code for you.
This code is then passed to the Highjack server which uses its own FB client id, FB secret and your authentication code to get an access token.
In the above example the authentication code is confirming you as a user is a valid FB user. But the second steps says "you as a FB user is giving access to the Highjack app for certain resources".
If the Highjack app wanted implicit grant (i.e direct access token), then the access token would be visible to you also since it is being exchanged with the browser. This means you can now call all Facebook APIs on behalf of Highjack using the access token. (You can only use the access token to get your personal information but Facebook has no way of knowing who is calling their APIs.)
Since we have 2 parties (You and Highjack) authenticating with Facebook we have this 2 fold mechanism.
Borrowed shamelessly from Salesforce Documentation:
Authorization Code
An authorization code is a short-lived token representing the user's access grant, created by the authorization server and passed to the client application via the browser. The client application sends the authorization code to the authorization server to obtain an access token and, optionally, a refresh token.
Access Token
The access token is used by the client to make authenticated requests on behalf of the end user. It has a longer lifetime than the authorization code, typically on the order of minutes or hours. When the access token expires, attempts to use it will fail, and a new access token must be obtained via a refresh token.
From the OAuth 2.0 Spec:
The authorization code provides a few important security benefits
such as the ability to authenticate the client, and the transmission
of the access token directly to the client without passing it through
the resource owner's user-agent, potentially exposing it to others,
including the resource owner.
So, basically - the main reason is to limit the # of actors getting the access token.
"token" response is intended primarily for clients that live in the browser (e.g.: JavaScript client).
Answer) You need/want both the code and token for extra security.
According to Nate Barbettini we want the extra step of exchanging the authentication code for the access token, because the authentication code can be used in the front channel (less secure), and the access token can be used in the back channel (more secure).
Thus, the security benefit is that the access token isn't exposed to the browser, and thus cannot be intercepted/grabbed from a browser. We trust the web server more, which communicates via back channels. The access token, which is secret, can then remain on the web server, and not be exposed to the browser (i.e. front channels).
For more information, watch this fantastic video:
OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect (in plain English)
https://youtu.be/996OiexHze0?t=26m30s (Start 26 mins)
If you look at the flow of Authorization Code OAuth type, yes, there are actuary two steps:
<user_session_id, client_id> => authorization_code
<client_id, redirect_uri, authorization_code, client_secret> => access_token, refresh_token
In step1: the user tells the OAuth Server that "I want to auth this client (client_id) to access my resource. Here is my authentication (user_session_id or what else)"
In step2: the client (client_id) tells the OAuth server that "I've got the user the authorization (authorization_code), please give me an access token for later access. And this is my authentication (client_id & client_secret)"
You see, if we omit step 2, then there is no guarantee for client authentication. Any client can invoke step1 with a different client_id and get an access token for that client_id instead of its own. That's why we need step2.
If you really want to combine step1 and step2, you can do something like this:
<client_id, redirect_uri, client_secret> => access_token, refresh_token
We use this approach in our Open API Platform, and we haven't find any security problem yet.
BTW, there is actually an Implicit Grant type, that is:
<client_id, redirect_uri> => access_token, refresh_token
It is generally applicable to client only application which have no server backend. In that case, the OAuth server must ensure that the redirect URI belongs to that client (same with the register redirect_uri, for example).
The mix-up came because the user on behalf of himself and not the client app authenticate against the authorization server (i.e. facebook).
Its much simple to secure the client app (with https) then the user-agent (browser).
Here is the original formulation from IETF-oauth (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-oauth-v2-threatmodel-08#section-3.4):
3.4. Authorization Code
An authorization code represents the intermediate result of a
successful end-user authorization process and is used by the client
to obtain access and refresh token. Authorization codes are sent to
the client's redirection URI instead of tokens for two purposes.
Browser-based flows expose protocol parameters to potential
attackers via URI query parameters (HTTP referrer), the browser
cache, or log file entries and could be replayed. In order to
reduce this threat, short-lived authorization codes are passed
instead of tokens and exchanged for tokens over a more secure
direct connection between client and authorization server.
It is much simpler to authenticate clients during the direct
request between client and authorization server than in the
context of the indirect authorization request. The latter would
require digital signatures.
Theoretically,
Access Tokens cannot tell us if the user has authenticated but auth code does.
Auth code should not be used to gain access to an API but access token should be.
If you have a single page application or mobile application with no or minimum backend, your application may want to access user's FB data directly at frontend. Hence the access token is provided.
In another case, you may want a user to register/login to your app using some external auth service provider like Facebook, Google etc. In this case, your frontend will send the auth code to the backend that can be used to get access token from Facebook at serverside. Now your server becomes enabled to access user's FB data from the server.
Basically, as an extension of Lix's answer, the access code route allows a Resource Owner (i.e. the Facebook User) to revoke authorization for their User Agent (i.e. their browser), e.g. by logging off, without revoking authorization for an offline Client (i.e. Your Application).
If this is not important, then there is no need to use the access code route.
Furthermore, the access code is provided to ensure that the Token provided to a server is actually registered to the Resource Owner (i.e. the Facebook User), and not the User Agent (or a Man-in-the-Middle).
This seems similar to the question of either choosing the implicit vs authorization code grant flow. In fact, here is what looks like an opposite view point?!.
Also, as Drew mentioned,
When the access token expires, attempts to use it will fail, and a new access token must be obtained via a refresh token.
another piece is the refresh token, but I don't see that being explained too well in the FB Docs. If I'm correct, the implicit grant (the direct token) should be really short lived, but that is to-be-enforced and FB.js seems to hide a lot of that (this one I have not looked as deep into).
If I'm correct, the code%20token is an optimization allowing both the User Agent to have a token and allowing for the server to initiate the token exchange process in a single request (as anything over Network IO is considered expensive, especially to a User Agent).
In OAuth 2.0 with facebook, the overall concept is simple as follows.
Step 1. Obtain "Authorization Code" by a GET request
request URI: https://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth
Params:
response_type=code
client_id={add your "App id" got by registering app}
redirect_uri={add redirect uri defined at the registration of app}
scope={add the scope needed in your app}
Headers: None
Step 2. Obtain the "Access Token" by sending the authorization code as a POST request
URI: https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token
Params:
grant_type=authorization_code
client_id=<add your "App id" got by registering app>
redirect_uri=<add redirect uri defined at the registration of app>
code=<obtained authorization code from previous step>
Headers:
Authorization:Basic encode <App Id:App Secret> with base64
Content-Type:application/json
Step 3. Use the access token got from above step and retrieve user resources
It’s because the access token is given to an AUTHENTICATED client (third-party app) using a shared secret that only FB and the client knows. The only way that the user could directly request the access token is by knowing the shared secret, which would make the secret public and could lead to a man-in-the-middle attack. Further, while FB can guarantee a secure connection to the user, FB can’t guarantee the handoff of the token to the client is secure. However, FB (and OAuth2) does require a secure connection between the client and FB. The access token is tied to the client public ID (usually hashed), which means only the original client application can use it to request the token because the secret is sent along with the authorization code to get the access token.
You recieve a token when the user logs in. But you might want to change the token when you are performing other actions. EG posting as your app/page or posting as a user with offline_access.