Using OpenID Connect to share data - content-management-system

I am an OpenID neophyte, so please correct me if I'm using the wrong terminology, but here's the problem I'm trying to solve:
I have a web site, let's call it "LB" which has a database. I've also created my own OpenID Connect identity server "IDS", and configured LB to use it for logging in. IDS doesn't have its own database, it's using LB's database.
Now, I want to introduce a CMS (like WordPress or Umbraco or whatever) into the mix. I want the CMS to use IDS, so that a single sign-on can be shared between LB and CMS. That seems relatively straightforward to do with a plugin like this one.
So now, suppose there is some bit of data in LB that I want to integrate with the CMS. Maybe while on the CMS site, the user can go to a profile page or something, and I want to show some interesting bits from LB on that profile page. Could be something dynamic that is affected by the user's activity in LB, maybe a HTML snippet, an image, or just some raw JSON to put into a template. Is the UserInfo endpoint what I should be using for this? (E.g. CMS asks IDS for the info) Or should CMS talk directly to LB somehow (and if so, how)?

The question is a bit abstract so I may be off, but if you want to return an arbitrary data, then it probably is better to create a new endpoint representing that "protected resource" such as https://LB.example.com/activities. You get an access token with OpenID Connect login, so you can use that to access this oauth protected resource.

Related

Should I use keycloak or not?

I'm just starting a new project. The result will be an API server and a progressive web app. The API server is implemented with TypeScript and the NestJS framework, the client with Angular 6.
I've been flirting with keycloak for some time. Still, I'm not quite sure it's right for me yet. But I don't want to worry about things like token renewal anymore and find it sexy that Keycloak tells me how to create user roles.
What bothers me, is the following - integration. For my use case it is necessary that the login and all features like password reset and so on are part of my application. That means I want to create forms myself in order to be able to do this perfectly in my own design and not have a second translation process, etc. Keycloak themes are not an option. So is it possible to hide keycloak in such a way, or is it so complex that I shouldn't use Keyloak in the first place? Afaik there is already an issue with password resets - I can't request it from the user side but have to make an REST call to the admin endpoint - which is okay but not ideal since it requires me to do more server side logic ( and that is not why I want to use Keycloak).
In addition, Keycloak is too much about the GUI - which makes it difficult for me, especially during development. Because I also want to provide my team with a local instance of keycloak during development. But what is the concept to import the initial data into realms, apps and also users into Keycloak? I found some JSON imports - but so far only for realms and apps. Is there also a function to import a whole dumb?
So that my team builds on a pre-built setup and has a user for each role. A reproducible setup with Vagrant or Docker which contains the import of initial data - that would be the goal.
So in short my questions:
Is it still worth the effort using Keycloak if I want to use everything via the API or should I simply use Passport and JWT?
Can I have a reproducible setup during my development that includes realms, apps, users, user roles, etc?
So, the question asked few months ago, but I also faces with that question, and I want to answer on it.
I think that you don't need Keycloak, it is fairly enough for you to use OAuth2 and JWT.
Let's justify my answer:
You have just one client - Angular application. Keycloak useful, when you have many clients (web-js, mobile platforms) and you want to create and manage them dynamically. But, I think that, in your case, you create your client once without modification in the future.
Also, Keycloak very useful, when you have a lot of integration with third part systems (Google, Fb, Twitter and etc) because Keycloak has them out-of-box. Or you need to integrate with some SAML or LDAP provider.
You may use Keycloak, if you need some Identity and User management platform, and when you have complicated user access flow.
In the end, you could consider Keycloak, if you need SSO (Single Sign On) feature. Once logged-in to Keycloak, users don't have to login again to access a different application. But, by your description, you have just one application.
Keycloak offers features such as Single-Sign-On (SSO), Identity Brokering and Social Login, User Federation, Client Adapters, an Admin Console, and an Account Management Console.
It's an out of box solution for rapid security layer development of application.You could have single common security layer for multiple application .
You can implement you security mechanism without using keycloak.

Secure a REST interface without login

I recently succeeded in building a page that loads data via an ajax get call to a REST interface (that runs on my server) and then uses the data to construct a map overlay for Google maps via JS.
I managed to do this but now I have concerns about the security of my data. Obviously everybody could just use curl to load the overlay data from my REST interface. However, I do not want to make my data so easily available, since they are kind of the business value of my page...
Is saw many solutions on the web that all require a login of the user.
However, this should not be required on my page.
Is there an easy solution to this problem, without the user having to use a log in or something? Basically I only want to allow my web application to query data from my REST interface, but not anyone else.
One solution that came to my head is to pass the data directly from php into JS, when the page is loaded. However this looks like a real ugly solution to me...
On a RESTful interface, I suppose you want to avoid login into a session. You have basically 2 more ways :
use IP address filtering if the web application run on a private network with known IP addresses
pass an identification token in the request headers or as a request parameter. The token has to be passed along in all the requests.

Host my own user authentication service on my own server?

I have tried Google with queries similar to the title of this question, but haven't found anything useful.
Background: I am building a web app and would like to add a user authentication level to it. I cannot imagine anything worse than building a user authentication system from the ground up, so I want a quick solution.
I'm looking for open source software I can host on my server that provides an auth layer I can connect to, with multiple user accounts
Criteria:
I want to host the software on my own server
Provide a log in screen that works with multiple sign in strategies - twitter, facebook, vanilla email, etc.
Persists users to a database (preferably postgres) and persists session data
Preferably lets me store a minimal amount of data per user, like key value store
Has a client-side (Javascript) API, like Facebook's JS, so I can use this auth service on multiple sites. Namely, I want to use it on localhost or my own file system (when allowing file cookies). Client side JS API exposes methods like log in / log out
Has a server side API (such as exposes local RESTful endpoints) so that when I do build out my server side app for other data storage outside of the user, my app can query the auth service for log in status.
I want to run this stack completely independently of my own app - in fact I want to run this auth service and purely communicate to it from my local dev environment without building any server side app of my own.
I have used Firebase and they do many of the things that I want, including log in strategies and the client / server side APIs, but I want to be able to host my own version of this.
I can't imagine anyone takes pleasure out of building user authentication of any kind, so I'm surprised I haven't found anything in research.
I also know this is an open-ended question, but as far as I can tell I haven't found anything satisfying my requirements.
I like Devise (https://github.com/plataformatec/devise), which is for Rails. It has an active community with a boatloads of plugins available that can fulfill many of your requirements.
I didn't see a language specified; most languages and frameworks have their own implementations. Can you provide more information?
Example: I use the Flask framework on python. In addition, I use the Authomatic library which provides Oauth access for twitter, google, facebook, etc.
What I was looking for is something called a Single Sign On solution. According to this list there is nothing currently that meets my criteria.
Instead I have chosen to just run a local webserver and implement a regular auth flow.

How to use the same facebook application for different websites

I'm developing a small CMS in PHP and we're putting on social integration.
The content is changed by a single administrator who as right for publishing news, events and so on...
I'd to add this feature, when the admin publishes something it's already posted on facebook wall. I'm not very familiar with facebook php SDK, and i'm a little bit confused about it.
If (make it an example) 10 different sites are using my CMS, do I have to create 10 different facebook application? (let's assume the 10 websites are all in different domains and servers)
2nd, is there a way for authenticating with just PHP (something like sending username&password directly) so that the user does not need to be logged on facebook?
thanks
You might want to break up your question in to smaller understandable units. Its very difficult to understand what you are driving at.
My understanding of your problem could be minimal, but here goes...
1_ No you do not create 10 different facebook application. Create a single facebook application and make it a service entry point. So that all your cms sites could talk to this one site to interact with facebook. ( A REST service layer).
2_ Facebook api does not support username and password authentication. They only support oauth2.0. Although Oauth is not trivial, but since they have provided library for that, implementing authentication is pretty trivial.
Please read up on http://developers.facebook.com/docs/.
Its really easy and straight forward and well explained.
Your question is so vague and extensive that it cannot be answered well here.
If you experience any specific implementation problems, this is the right place.
However to answer atleast a part of your question:
The most powerful tool when working with facebook applications is the Graph API.
Its principle is very simple. You can do almonst any action on behalf of any user or application. You have to generate a token first that identifies the user and the proper permissions. Those tokens can be made "permanent" so you can do background tasks. Usually they are only active a very short time so you can perform actions while interacting with the user. The process of generating tokens involves the user so that he/she has to confirm the privileges you are asking for.
For websites that publish something automatically you would probably generate a permanent token one time that is active as long as you remove the app in your privacy settings.
Basically yuo can work with any application on any website. There is no limitation. However there are two ways of generating tokens. One involves on an additional request and one is done client side, which is bound to one domain oyu specifiedin your apps settings.
Addendum:
#ArtoAle
you are right about every app beeing assighend to exactly one domain. however once you obtained a valid token it doesnt matter from where or who you use it within the graph api.
let me expalin this a little bit:
it would make no sense since it is you doing the request. there is no such thing as "where the request is coming from". of course there is the "referer" header information, but it can be freely specified and is not used in any context of this.
the domain you enter in your apps settings only restricts where facebook redirects the user to.
why?
this ensures that some bad guy cannot set up a website on any domain and let the user authorize an app and get an access token with YOUR application.
so this setting ensures that the user and the access token are redirected back to YOUR site and not to another bad site.
but there is an alternative. if you use the control flow for desktop applications you don't get an access token right after the user has been redirected back. you get a temporary SESSION-TOKEN that you can EXCCHANGE for an access token. this exchange is done server side over the REST api and requires your application secret. So at this point it is ensured that it is YOU who gets the token.
This method can be done on any domain or in case of desktop applications on no domain at all.
This is a quote from the faceboo docs:
To convert sessions, send a POST
request to
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/exchange_sessions
with a comma-separated list of
sessions you want to convert:
curl client_id=your_app_id \
-F client_secret=your_app_secret \
-F sessions=2.DbavCpzL6Yc_XGEI0Ip9GA__.3600.1271649600-12345,2.aBdC...
\
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/exchange_sessions
The response from the request is a
JSON array of OAuth access tokens in
the same order as the sessions given:
[ {
"access_token": "...",
"expires": 1271649600, }, ... ]
However you don't need this method as its a bit more complex. For your use case i would suggest using a central point of authorization.
So you would specify your ONE domain as a redirect url. This domain is than SHARED between your websites. there you can obtain the fully valid access token and seamlessly redirect the user back to your specific project website and pass along the access token.
This way you can use the traditional easy authentication flow that is probably also more future proof.
The fact remains. Once the access token is generated you can perform any action from any domain, there is no difference as ther is literally no "domain" where the request is coming from (see above).
apart from that, if you want some nice javascript features to work - like the comments box or like button, you need to setup up open graph tags correctly.
if you have some implementation problems or as you said "domain errors" please describe them more clearly, include the steps you made and if possible an error message.

How to map facebook authenticate users to roles using the asp.net RoleProvider?

I'm trying to switch my site from the asp.net membership sql provider to using facebook connect to do OAuth single signon. I'd like to keep using the role provider as it makes it pretty easy secure sections of my site by flagging the controller class or controller methods with the Authorize(Roles="...") attribute. The site isn't live yet so I'll be completely ditching the Asp.net membership provider if I can. (keeping the roles and profile provider)
I've got the facebook connect logging the user in and I can get his info. But how do I associate that with a role?
I'd like the system to automatically add a new user to the "SuperHero" role after he authenticates and authorizes my app.
Am I on track here? Is there a better way to handle roles when using OAuth2? I'd like to add other OAuth providers later.
An alternate approach would be to keep the asp membership, then when I user logs in through facebook connect, I could find his record and sign him in with aspmembership. But that seems sloppy.
Some sample code would be great and I'd think others would find it helpful too.
thx,
Dan
The easiest way to do this ime is to actually implement a FacebookMembershipProvider for yourself. That way it ties in to all the other providers naturally. The main downsides are a) a lot of code b/c Membership is a fat interface, and b) some cruft b/c it assumes you'll be doing passwords, etc, which obviously you don't need for OAuth.