I'm using Vapor to handle http requests. I've implemented a registration and login, as well as other functioning code. On registration, a Bearer Token is generated, so I can return that to or write it into the page I'm about to render.
The page contains two forms, one of which generates a request that requires authorization, so I need to associate that request with the bearer token. How do I do this? Through explicitly setting headers for the form request that will be sent to the server? Via a cookie?
If you're writing a traditional web app using HTML then bearer authentication is not suitable as you can't attach custom headers with requests. You should use session based authentication as described in the docs
I am building an oauth login flow and I am not sure if I have done it wrong because I will need to send the bearer token back via redirect URL, like /oauth2/redirect?token=[TOKEN]. But isn't it not recommended to have token passed along through URL? As it is pointed out in this thread:
Don't pass bearer tokens in page URLs: Bearer tokens SHOULD NOT be passed in page URLs (for example, as query string parameters).Instead, bearer tokens SHOULD be passed in HTTP message headers or message bodies for which confidentiality measures are taken. Browsers, web servers, and other software may not adequately secure URLs in the browser history, web server logs, and other data structures. If bearer tokens are passed in page URLs, attackers might be able to steal them from the history data, logs, or other unsecured locations.
I must have missed something in the whole flow and would like to understand more about this matter. Any input is appreciated!
UPDATE
Might not be correct but this is my understanding after some digging. The three means to pass token:
URL (not preferable)
Auth header
Request body
But under the oauth redirect use case, option 2 and 3 not feasible. So option 1 is the only option available. If really needed, token can be encrypted to ensure security.
I think this only means, that you should not use a GET request when the server requires the token, instead you should use POST or whatever is appropriate. In a GET request the parameters are included in the URL and those can end up in logs or other histories, other request types will send the paramters separat from the request URL.
P.S. BTW if you are not implementing the OAuth server yourself, you won't have to send a redirect url containing the token.
The basic auth header which provides a little extra security as it's required to be through TLS:
In the case of a "Basic" authentication like shown in the figure, the exchange must happen over an HTTPS (TLS) connection to be secure.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Authentication
Also, the headers aren't logged in easy places like browser history.
From the spec,
it SHOULD NOT be used
unless it is impossible to transport the access token in the
"Authorization" request header field or the HTTP request entity-body.
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6750#section-2.3
I have a react app that uses Keycloak endpoint token_endpoint to authenticate the user. The problem I'm facing now is how to update/refresh this token. I know I could use a refresh token but that's a bad practice since has security issue when it comes to a web application. It seems to me that the best approach would be to use Silent Authentication.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any example or documentation that allows me to achieve this. In case you guys have another approach I'm open to suggestions.
Tks
It would consist just of providing the prompt=none parameter on the authentication request as stated in the OpenID Connect 1.0 Core spec:
https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#AuthRequest
prompt OPTIONAL.
Space delimited, case sensitive list of ASCII string
values that specifies whether the Authorization Server prompts the
End-User for reauthentication and consent. The defined values are:
none
The Authorization Server MUST NOT display any authentication or
consent user interface pages. An error is returned if an End-User is
not already authenticated or the Client does not have pre-configured
consent for the requested Claims or does not fulfill other conditions
for processing the request. The error code will typically be
login_required, interaction_required, or another code defined in
Section 3.1.2.6. This can be used as a method to check for existing
authentication and/or consent.
Authenticate to obtain an access_token with /auth (prompt=login).
Just call OIDC /token with grant_type=refresh_token to refresh token with the access_token. the new response include access_token, refresh_token and so.
After that you must update them for the new api calls.
Is there a standard HTTP Authentication scheme which is appropriate to use with OpenID Connect? The scenario I have in mind is as follows:
An HTTP Service requires authentication of users. One of the possible authentication methods is to use a federated identity from a 3rd party OpenID Provider. The Service is registered with the 3rd party OpenID Provider as a confidential client, and possesses a client_id and a client secret.
When a user tries to access the HTTP Service, the server responds with a 401 Unauthorized and a WWW-Authenticate header containing information about how to initiate an authentication request with the OpenID Provider:
WWW-Authenticate: OpenIDConnect realm="MyService", client_id="1234-5678", authorization_url="https://provider/authorize"
The client contacts the authorization endpoint, authenticates, and then obtains an authorization code. The code is then specified in a subsequent request to the Service via the Authorization header, e.g.:
GET / HTTP/1.1
Authorization: OpenIDConnect client_id="1234-5678", code="AAABAAA..."
The Service will use the code to obtain an ID Token from the OpenID Provider and establish an authenticated session with the client, e.g. by setting a cookie or returning a new set of credentials to use for subsequent requests.
The OpenIDConnect scheme is something I made up for this example. I have tried searching for a standard way to do something similar, and the absence of results has left me with the following possible answers:
I have not searched hard enough.
What I am trying to do is misguided and wrong.
Everybody implements their own custom authentication schemes for this purpose
I think you did not know where to look for in the first place. Since RFC 7353, authentication schemes in HTTP are subject to the IANA HTTP Authentication Scheme Registry. In said registry, you are going to find the OAuth scheme which is subject to RFC 5849, section 3.5.1 and is looking a lot like what you are looking for. That being said, however, this is for OAuth 1.0. OAUth 2.0 is resorting to the Basic (RFC 6749) and Bearer (RFC 6750) schemes.
This in its entirety is concernig authorization (via OAuth). OpenID's realm is authentication, though. You may want to look at What's the difference between OpenID and OAuth?
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.