We're using reference tokens and need to have claims and other info available on every request. For example, I need to be able to use Authorize or ResourceAuthorize to make sure a user has a role to protect access to certain controllers. How can I actually make it so the claims are available?
If you are using the IdentityServer3.AccessTokenValidation middleware, then the reference token will automatically be de-referenced against IdentityServer and the claims will be made available in the User of your Web API controller code (or from the User on the AuthenticationManager in the OwinContext).
The claims will be the user claims produced at the time the reference token was created, and they are not updated from the user service each time you de-reference the token.
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I'm building a REST API and using AWS Cognito's user pools for authentication. I've got a "get_token" endpoint that returns the JWT access and refresh tokens to the user, which they use to authenticate access to the other REST endpoints provided by the API.
The access token has an expiration timeout. If the user of my API is an application program, what are the best practices for the application to handle when the access token expires? Does the application have to remember the username/password and re-authenticate to continue? Is using the refresh token to get a new access token and use that going forward the best approach?
Is there any documentation, suggestions anyone can point out that might help me out?
Cognito provides 3 types of tokens, id, access and refresh tokens when you login. The way this usually works is that you send either of the first two (depends on whether you want to be sending user payload information to your backend) to your backend via an Authorization header and verify the token there.
Your id and access tokens usually have a shorter expiration time compared to the refresh token. What you should do is, when the id (or access) token expire, you should use the refresh token to generate a new id (or access) token. When the refresh token expires that means that you can no longer generate new id/access tokens from it. In this case, the user (or app) must login again.
I've been developing my first REST API to serve as the back-end for a mobile application. I'm pulling info from different resources, and am a little confused when it comes to the token implementation (I'm using JWT).
The access token is used to ensure that the requester has access to the resource that is being called. My understanding is that I will then encode the user details in the ID Token, such that the relevant information can be returned. The refresh token is used as a security mechanism, to keep the user authenticated after the short-lived ID and access tokens expire.
The access token seems a little redundant, and maybe it is an interchangeable term for ID token? Can I just remove that part from my authentication scheme?
In the proposed scheme access and ID tokens are used interchangeably and do not provide any value over the other. All information provided in the access token can be stored in the ID token, or vice versa. The entire authentication scheme will then simply consist of an access token (containing both info on access permissions, and user info), and a refresh token (ensuring that users don't need to login again every t minutes).
Is there a way I can persist my application specific claims added to the identity after it gets authenticated by Identity Server. I don't want to load the claims from database for the user and add everytime I want to access my API.
The best practice for these cases is Claims transformation.
You can add more claims to token after user authenticated with IdentityServer and redirected to you client.
I am using a REST in Java and also I am using a token system for that. I need to know that, how we need to maintain the user session? Since REST is stateless we can not maintain user session, then how we need to find the active user in server side?
After user is authorized and given access to the REST API a kind of a token or cookie should be returned with authorization response. The obtained token should be added all subsequent requests that need authorization. Using this token and assuming it's in one-to-one relationship with user you can easily identify the user.
I am building a messaging application using BackboneJS which naturally persists using a REST interface.
The issue I'm having is that I don't know how to restrict what data a user can pull back from the API. For instance a call to /messages would, at the moment, return messages for ALL users. I would like that resource to only return messages belonging to the current user.
Searching online seems to indicate that oAuth2 is the best way to solve this issue but all the tutorials talk about been redirected to another place to confirm access and retrieve an access token.
Given that my users will have already logged into the message application and that the REST API is actually part of the same application I don't like the idea of asking the users to confirm that my own app can access my own API.
Is there a better way?
oAuth2 is probably your best bet -- you definitely don't want to roll your own security. However, the flavor of oAuth2 you are thinking of is probably not what you want.
oAuth2 has four different flavors, known as authorization grant types:
Authorization code: This is the type you are thinking about. It is often called three-legged oAuth, because there are three actors in the token granting process (app, resource owner, and user). The app asks the user whether it is ok for the resource owner to give specific type(s) of access to the resource. It is a rather complex process that allows the validation of user credentials without allowing the app access to them. This is not necessary in your case, since you are both the app and resource owner.
Client credentials: This is a method for authorizing a client application with the server. It does not use user credentials at all. If you completely trust your client application (all client applications) to correctly protect user data and not expose other user's data to the user using the app, or you are providing only non-user data via the API (for example, map data or catalog data), you might be able to use this fairly simple type of oAuth2. However, if you want to be vigilant in protecting user data (and not allow apps to get to the data without the user providing credentials), you might not use this one.
Resource owner password credentials: The username and password of the user is passed via https to your backend server, which authenticates and authorizes access by providing an access token. The access token can then be passed with each call, and it remains valid for accessing the backend until a configurable time period has elapsed. This means that someone intercepting the token could only use it successfully for a limited amount of time (some number of minutes, generally). The interceptor would not know the username and password of the user. In addition, you can supply the app with a refresh token, which can be used to get a new access token once it has expired (until the refresh token expires -- usually with a significantly longer expiration date). Since the credentials are not passed across the wire often (and must only be passed encrypted), this is often the best solution for protecting user credentials and not requiring the user to pass them in often (good user experience). Implementation is much simpler than for the authorization code grant type.
Implicit: This is the least secure method -- no credentials are validated server side at all. This is usually used for client side scripting languages where credentials cannot be stored safely. If you are worried about security at all, avoid this type if possible.
So, check out OAuth 2.0, and look for the resource owner password credentials grant type.