Auth0.com, how does it really work? - jwt

I would like to ask, who generates JTW tokens when user has logged himself?
If user has logged on via facebook, it means that facebook ganerates token?
What role does Auth0.com play?
Thanks

I'm going to guess that you are using Auth0 for authentication, but that you have configured Auth0 so that users can log in with other authentication providers (e.g. Facebook). In that case its always Auth0 that generates the tokens that you receive from Auth0 - this is so that the method through which you validate the tokens is always the same (use the Auth0 public key) regardless of how they authenticated the user.
However, its up to Auth0 to authenticate the user - totally legitimate ways of doing this include:
Username + password
One time password
Using another open-id provider (e.g. Facebook)
And in case #3 the process recursively starts again, instead this time Auth0 takes the role of the client app and Facebook is generating the JWT. Auth0 validates the token generated by Facebook, and then uses that as proof that the logged in user is who they say they are, and that its safe to issue its own JWT to your app.

Related

How should my api handle login via auth0?

I'm trying to learn how to utilize auth0 to handle user authentication for an api I am currently creating.
My api has two endpoints:
Login endpoint: /api/login
Request access token endpoint: /api/auth?code={code}
Here the authentication flow is:
User goes to the login endpoint of my api.
User is redirected to auth0 ui.
User inputs their login credentials.
Auth0 redirects back to /api/auth where a request for an access_token is made using the login code.
Firstly, is my understanding the Oauth authentication flow correct? If so, how best should my api handle the initial login redirect to auth0?
Because at the moment when I hit up /api/login from the front-end ui it just returns the html of the login page at auth0. Should I instead return a 302 with the redirect url or is it possible to create an endpoint where the user inputs the username & password via my api and avoids the redirect?
---update---
After a user has authenticated via auth0 they receive a access_token and id_token which should my api use to verify the user is who they say they are?
Not sure if my understanding is correct but I belive that my frontend ui is the OAuth client application and my API service is an OAuth resource server. As such does my api need to call out to auth0 /userinfo to verify the user?
Assuming you are trying to protect an end-user application (your question wasn't clear on that), my understanding is if you are using Auth0, you likely won't need an /api/login and api/auth API. If you are using Auth0 you can get those things during your authentication via Auth0.
I would say your APPLICATION (not API) would redirect the user to the Auth0 login endpoint. You would do that by incorporating the Auth0 SDK of choice, depending on what you're building. For example, if you're building a web app, you may choose to incorporate auth0.js and call webAuth.authorize() to trigger the login. During that login, if you have configured an API within Auth0, and you provide the proper Scope and Audience during your login, your response will return an API token.
Then your user is in a state on the client side where you are logged in, and you have a token. You can then provide that token to your API, and your API can validate that token as needed. Auth0 also has various libraries for token validation (like this spring security one, for example).
Lastly, the question on which oAuth flow to use, that also depends on what type of app you're protecting. There are again Auth0 docs to help. The flow depends on if you're building a server-side web app, a SPA, a native app, etc. Your question was a little confusing, and it sounded a bit like you are building an API and want to protect that. If there is no client-side app (only machine-to-machine API calls), then you wouldn't be dealing with HTML and login pages. You'd likely be getting into the Client Credentials flow, which last I checked was only included for Enterprise Auth0 users.

Implement Single SignOn with Identity Server 4

Given an Identity Server 4, can we implement a Single SignOn being used by different applications with a single user authentication server?
If so, how can we do that? Any reference material available for the same?
In fact, there is nothing special you have to do to enable single sign-on. It's available by default, but not for all scenarios.
In order to make SSO work there is only one rule:
The user has to login on the IdentityServer website, because that's where the SSO cookie has to be placed.
SSO is not available for grant types that do not require the user to login on the IdentityServer website.
How it works:
A user visits webapp1, hits the login button and is redirected to the IdentityServer website in order to login. IdentityServer will scan for the SSO cookie but will not find it since this is the first time and the user isn't authenticated yet.
After succesful login, the SSO cookie is stored (on the IdentityServer website) and an authenticated user is returned to webapp1.
The user then visits webapp2. As long as the user is not required to authenticate the user will be an anonymous visitor.
Authentication is required when the user clicks on the login button or visits a secured page (e.g. secured by the [Authorize] attribute). That triggers the authentication flow which redirects the user to the IdentityServer website.
Again IdentityServer will scan for the SSO cookie, but this time it's found. Being already authenticated, the user isn't required to login again but is instead returned to the website as authenticated user.
Please note that the client can overrule the SSO cookie by setting the prompt=login parameter.
Also note that cookies are not cross-browser. Visiting webapp2 using a different browser will require the user to login again because the SSO cookie isn't available for this browser.
Yes you can, that is what IdentityServer4 is used for (SSO & Authentication).
There is documentation and some samples.

uderstanding the mechanism of Keycloak

I'm using keycloak, but I don't understand how the verification of authentication is made after the user authenticate in the app.
For example I have an app secured with keycloak, when a user try to access it, he/she will be redirected to authentication page, then (I guess, and correct me If I'm wrong) the user will have a token that need to be send with every request.
On a complete system secured with Keycloak:
A user clicks from a public page to navigate to a protected area within the application. The link to this protected area is in your application settings in keycloak admin console.
The user will be redirected indeed to the Keycloak authentication page. After providing Username and password, Keycloak redirects the user back to your application again with a code that is valid to a very short period of time.
The application communicates this code to Keycloak along with the Application ID and the Application secret, then Keycloak replies with the Access token, ID token, and a Refresh token. your Application will need only one of these tokens to see which claims the user has, and according to the claims, the user will be granted or denied access to protected URL(s)
Authorization code/standard flow:
From your app you're redirected to Keycloak's login page.
You give your username and password to Keycloak, and if these are correct, you will get a redirection to your app, and get an authorization code.
Your app send this auth_code and its id and secret to keycloak, and keycloak give you a token.
There are two more flows: resource owner credentials, and client credentials.

How to secure REST service that login from third parties

I have a REST service that my mobile app uses to authenticate when the users click on the Facebook or Google icons.
The service accepts the user's id from the provider and checks if it exists on the database and then issues the access_token to be used for the other methods.
The problem is that I just thought that it could be pretty easy for someone to intercept the calls and discover which service authenticates and what the user id is and then call it with to get a token.
How can I avoid this?
I think you just need to separate the authentication and authorization functions. You can let Google (Google Sign-In) handle authentication. If you follow the API they will securely authenticate the user and send you the token which you can validate.
Once you know who they are for sure, your site can safely authorize that user approriately. For example, they might be an existing user, need to make an account, be an administrator. You can make those authorizations on your site based on the user authenticated by Google (in my example).
Twitter, Facebook and others do the same. Also see OpenID Connect.

xamarin Auth for facebook authentication scenarios

I am developing an application using xamarin.Here I am using xamarin auth component for facebook authentication.I am able to login and get users info and able to save them in local DB.Xamarin auth component has provided option for storing account object so that when user relaunch app ,we can use that account object to login.
Here comes my question: If user changes password on facebook account from site then what should be done when app is relaunching,as stored account is local we can't use that info to login again.
Thanks.
Any suggestions are appreciated.
Actually you are supposed to use the access_token for subsequent queries towards Facebook after the first successful authentication. With OAuth, you won't store password in your app. I would expect that when a user changes the password within Facebook, the old access_token might expire. In this case, you'll have to make the user manually re-login. This is the case anyhow when your access_token expires for any reason; keep in mind that all access_tokens expire after some time.
You can easily verify if the access_token is still valid by sending some basic request in the background. If you get an autherror response, just prompt the user to login again when it makes sense in the flow of your app.