:REST spring security - Manually authenticating a new user and getting access token - rest

I am writing a RESTful webservice on grails, using rest spring security api. All good... now I want to login a user on registration, there is a registration action, and up on registration completion, i would like to login that user. I found:
springSecurityService.reauthenticate(username) method
but that only login the user, but doesnt create access token in authentication_token table.
Is there other possible way to login and get the access token for that user?

The plugin is designed for applications where the frontend (a pure HTML/JS client using, for example, AngularJS) is separated from the backend (your Grails app). In such scenario, the backend has to send back the frontend the access token, and the frontend has to store it somehow (usually using local storage or cookies), to pass it as an HTTP on every subsequent request.
You can do something like this in your controller:
class RegisterController {
def springSecurityService
def tokenGenerator
def tokenStorageService
def register() {
//do stuff
springSecurityService.reauthenticate(username)
String tokenValue = tokenGenerator.generateToken()
tokenStorageService.storeToken(tokenValue, springSecurityService.principal)
redirect url: "http://example.org/?access_token=${tokenValue}"
}
}
Then, the frontend can grab the token from the URL and pass it on every subsequent API request.

Related

Persisting user state in sveltekit

I'm trying to hook up a Strapi backend to a SvelteKit frontend, and stuck on how to persist user login state so that everything doesn't just reset on refresh, or when navigating to a new page. I've tried:
Storing the jwt and user object issued by Strapi in localStorage and initializing the Svelte store with it. Seemed like I was getting close, but a) I couldn't do export const user = writable(localStorage.user) because that code was running in the browser, and I couldn't wrap it in an if (browser) {...} because import and export can only appear at the top level. Also tried a function in hooks.js to read the contents of localStorage and update the store, but it seems that functions getting called from there run on the server, even if it's the same function that works to access localStorage on login... and plus b) from what I gather, storing jwt's in localStorage is insecure.
Storing the jwt and user object in an http only cookie. Cookies and http headers seem really confusing, and I had a hard time manipulating them to store the jwt and put it in each header. But I think what really stumped me was essentially the same SSR issue of never knowing essentially how to successfully interface between the client and server. I.e. if (browser) {...} never seemed to work, or I couldn't get it to, anyway. (Happy to provide more code details on what I tried here if needed. It's a mess, but it's saved in git.)
I know this is a thing every app that has users needs to do, so I'm sure there's a way to do it in SvelteKit. But I can't find anything online that explains it, and I can't figure it out from the official docs either.
So am I missing something easy? (Probably.) Or is there a tricky way to do this?
For a SvelteKit SPA authenticating to Strapi, here's the happy path flow I would use:
SvelteKit page /routes/login.svelte collects the username (identifier) and password and a button's on:click handler posts those values via fetch to your own /routes/auth.js:post() endpoint. Why? Because now your server's endpoint is handling the login on behalf of the user so you can set an httpOnly cookie in the response.
In your auth.js endpoint post() method, you will want to do a few things:
Use fetch to post identifier and password to Strapi authentication (http://localhost:1337/auth/local) to get the JWT (response.body.jwt)
Use fetch to get user info from Strapi (http://localhost:1337/users/me). In the get, add a header called 'Authentication' with a value of 'Bearer ' + the JWT you just received from Strapi in the previous step
Return the user info from the response from Strapi and pass it back to your client in the response.body
Set a header httpOnly cookie with the value of the JWT.
Back on the client in the last part of the login button's on:click handler, take the user info from res.json() and put it in a writeable store called user or in the SvelteKit session store...
import { session } from '$app/stores'
...
const loginClickHandler = async () => {
...
const fromEndpoint = await res.json()
session.set({ user: fromEndpoint.user })
}
At this point, you have the user information persisted client-side and the JWT as an httpOnly cookie that can't be read or modified by client-side JavaScript code. Each request you make to your own server's pages or endpoints will send the JWT cookie along.
If you want to logout, call an endpoint on your server (/auth/logout) that sets the existing jwt cookie to have an Expires based on the current date/time:
response.headers['Set-Cookie'] = `jwt=; Path=/; HttpOnly; Expires=${new Date().toUTCString()}`
You would also want to clear the user object in your store (or the session store).
The main takeaway for the above example is that your client would never directly talk to Strapi. Strapi's API would be called only by your SvelteKit server's endpoints. The httpOnly jwt cookie representing your session with Strapi would be included in every request to your server's endpoints to use/validate with Strapi's API (or delete if expired or the user logged out).
There are lots of other approaches but I prefer this one for security reasons.

SpringBoot Admin custom authentication flow when accessing client

I have a number of applications reporting to a SpringBoot Admin application using SpringBoot Admin Client. One of our recent projects that's under construction is using a custom JWT/refresh token authentication flow and I want SpringBoot Admin to use that before hitting the actuator endpoints so I can secure those as well.
The flow works by sending credentials to /v1/auth/login, which will give the user a JWT token with expiration date and refresh token. The JWT is only valid for a short time after which it needs to be refreshed and is submitted with the request as a Bearer-token.
I found this this thread which is somewhat related, but I need to be able to see which endpoint it's trying to access since not all of the applications use the same kind of authentication.
Is there some way I can configure it to add the Authorization header with the correct headers given a URL or client name that matches a certain pattern? Preferably as part of some component that could keep JWT/expiry/refresh token as part of it's state, so I could refresh it when necessary.
Wouldn't it be enough to have some identifier of application (e.g. app name) and based on that differentiate the auth?
#Bean
public HttpHeadersProvider customHttpHeadersProvider(YourCustomProperties properties) {
return instance -> {
if (properties.getAppNames().contains(instance.getRegistration().getName())) {
// do jwt stuff here
return new HttpHeaders();
}else {
HttpHeaders httpHeaders = new HttpHeaders();
httpHeaders.add("X-CUSTOM", "My Custom Value");
return httpHeaders;
}
};
}
Not sure what would be the best identifier to get from instance but this could work.

Getting a "Login Untried" Error in Play Framework

I am getting a login untried when trying to access a Rest API with authentication. I am using WS Play within Lagom. The login request looks something like:
val reqLogin = ws.url(loginURL)
.withAuth(userName, password, WSAuthScheme.BASIC)
.execute()
The message from the follow-up query is a 401 unauthorized error. Here is how I attempt the query after the above login attempt:
val loginResponse = Await.result(reqLogin, Duration(60, "seconds"))
val cookies = loginResponse.cookies
val queryResponse = ws.url(queryURL)
.withCookies(cookies.toSeq :_*)
.execute()
val queryResponseOutput = Await.result(queryResponse, Duration(60, "seconds"))
In the first request, you are logging in using HTTP Basic authentication. Does the site that you're using support HTTP basic authentication? Typically when a site does support it, it won't send you a cookie, rather, it will expect the login credentials to be sent with every request. So, when using HTTP basic authentication, there should be no need to login at the login URL, instead, add the username and password to the request to queryUrl. If that doesn't work, then that could mean the site you are making requests on doesn't support HTTP Basic authentication.
The other type of login is to submit the username and password in a login form, and then site you are logging into will send you back a cookie which you can use for subsequent requests. That appears to be what you're trying to do, but to do that, you can't use the withAuth method, rather, you have to find out what the username/password parameters are in the sites login form, and send a form with those parameters set. I can't tell you what those parameters are, that is entirely dependent on the site you're logging into, you'll have to look at the documentation for that site, or at the HTML it outputs on the login page. When you get back the response to the login request, you should check the response code to see if it was successful. The documentation for how to submit form parameters using Play WS can be found here, here's an example of what it might look like:
val reqLogin = ws.url(loginURL)
.post(Map(
"yourusernameparameter" -> Seq(userName),
"yourpasswordparameter" -> Seq(password)
))
To make clear, the yourusernameparameter and yourpasswordparameter fields above need to be replaced with whatever the site you're logging into requires. You may also need to enter CSRF tokens.

OAuth2 with SPA + REST API

Lets say we have SPA written in Angular 2 and have REST API using Spring Boot.
Both of them deployed in different servers. And now I have to protect this API via Facebook's OAuth2, but I don't know which grant type suits to my problem.
I don't want to be an auth server, I don't want facebook to be my resource server, instead my own REST API is supposed to be a resource server.
From FB I just want username or email or some identifier.
If I understood correctly I have to use implicit grant flow, because it's not a web application, correct me please, if I'm wrong.
Does "authorization code" grant also could be a choice ?
I really read almost all the threads related to oauth, spring security..
But I didn't find any info related to exactly SPA and REST API for separate servers.
Any link/resource related to above problem is appreciated.
Thanks in advance and sorry if I did something wrong, it's my very first post here.
You need to implement Implicit Grant flow https://oauth2.thephpleague.com/authorization-server/implicit-grant/
you need HTTPS for safety.
example:
OAuth Server: https://myoauthserver.com
restapi: https://myrestapi.com
client: https://myclient.com
send a get request to oauthserver "authorize" url with params
response_type = token (sometimes 'code')
redirect_uri = myclient.com or myclient.com/something (the one u assign while making an oauth client )
client id = dfuvhiurehvher (whatever id)
some providers require additional parameters like "scope".
when you send a request if everything works. you will be redirected to your client with the token in the url.
your request:
GET: https://myoauthserver.com/oauth/authorize?response_type=token&redirect_uri=https://myclient.com&client_id=yourClientIdHere
if successful you'll be redirected to
https://myclient.com?token=yourTokenValueIsHere
you can now use javascript to retrieve and store token value maybe to localStorage and attach it when sending requests to restapi (https://myrestapi.com)
heres an example request from auth0.com
$.ajax({
cache: false,
url: "http://localhost:7001/api/appointments",
headers: { "Authorization": "Bearer " + ATTACH_YOUR_TOKEN_VALUE_HERE }
});
for more details check this
https://auth0.com/docs/api-auth/tutorials/implicit-grant

How to secure a Jersey REST call in this case

The problem i am facing is that clicking on F12 on Chrome Browser , i could see all the Rest Calls which are made to fetch the data
For example , one of the REST API call is
(When clicked on the above link , it fetches the data )
This is my front code consists of Jquery
function displaymarketupdates() {
var updatedon = "";
var html = '';
var t = "",
$.ajax({
type: "GET",
url: e,
crossDomain: !0,
dataType: "json",
timeout: 17e3,
async: !0,
cacheResults: !1,
cache: !1,
contentType: "application/json",
charset: "utf-8",
beforeSend: function() {
$(".loadingWrapformarketupdates").show()
},
complete: function() {
$(".loadingWrapformarketupdates").hide()
},
success: function(response) {
},
error: function(t, e, a) {
$(".loadingWrapformarketupdates").hide()
}
}).done(function() {
})
}
And this is my service
#Path("/fetchallvalues")
public class FetchAllValues {
public FetchAllValues() {}
private final static Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(FetchAllValues.class);
#GET#Produces("text/plain")
public Response Fetch_all_values() {
PreparedStatement fetch_all_pstmt = null;
ResultSet fetch_all_Rset = null;
Connection dbConnection = null;
ResponseBuilder builder = Response.status(Status.NOT_FOUND);
final JSONArray fetch_array = new JSONArray();
final String inputsql = "select * from all_values";
try {
dbConnection = DBConnection.getDBConnection();
fetch_all_pstmt = dbConnection.prepareStatement(inputsql);
fetch_all_Rset = fetch_all_pstmt.executeQuery();
while (fetch_all_Rset.next()) {
====
}
Response.status(Status.OK);
builder = Response.ok(fetch_array.toString());
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
logger.error("Error description", e);
} finally {
try {
DBConnection.close(fetch_all_pstmt, fetch_all_Rset);
} catch (Exception e) {
logger.error("Error description", e);
}
try {
DBConnection.close(dbConnection);
} catch (Exception e) {
logger.error("Error description", e);
}
}
return builder.build();
}
}
Could you please let me know how to secure the REST CALL in this case
You cannot hide an URL from a Browser's network monitoring. It is meant to be displayed so that it can be inferred that what is happening when you hit a button or click something.
Securing a REST Jersey call is a totally different thing. That means you do not want people to see your data that you are going to pass. As correctly mentioned by Martingreber that if you call this URL on HTTPS that may help you encrypt data that you send across the servers. Or securing a REST call actually means you provide some kind of authentication to it . Like Basic , Hashing like MD5, Token based Authentication like JWT.
The only thing that you can do to hide explicit details from your browser that runs your JavaScript is minify your script . But still your URL remains exposed as many times as it is called by someone who fiddles with the F12 key on Chrome to see what's going on. One more thing can be if you are concerned about your main service call, and don't want to expose that , then just PROXY it using some service, which you are already doing . But by no means, you can avoid your URL being getting displayed, when someone calls it.
In your case fetchAllValues service is fetching the data and exposing it to anybody on the web who clicks it, but that can be prevented if you authenticate the service, like the minute i click that URL, it asks me for a password! Then i cannot access it. A very simple way to authenticate this service would to call a Filter or an Interceptor just before the request to ask for username and password like credentials.
I hope you got the point. Hope this helps :)
You will always be able to see the URL that is being processed. Still, you could obfuscate the Service Endpoint to hide the purpose of the service itself, e.g. #Path("/XYZ")instead of #Path("fetchallvalues")
If you want to hide the data that is being transmitted between the client and the server, so noone can read it, simply use https. Depending on your webserver (Jetty, Tomcat) you will have to configure it differently, still you will need a ssl certificate for your domain, which you can get here for example: https://letsencrypt.org
If you want to secure your webservice, so it can't be used by anyone, but only by specific users, you might want to give Spring Security a try: User authentication on a Jersey REST service
This is a problem that needs some smart hacks to fix it.
In the hyperlinked stackoverflow page, you will get an example of how to make a SOAP request from client side JavaScript.
SOAP request from JavaScript
Now here's the plan:
In the server side, we have a random number generator, which generates a random number in short intervals, say 5 minutes.
The random number generator will be exposed as a SOAP service and it will produce the random number generated.
From the client side, we will invoke the SOAP random generator service (refering to the stackoverflow page mentioned above) and get the generated random number as the response. We will invoke the service from a JS function which will be fired when your page is loaded (onLoad). So, now we have the random number at the client side.
Then, we pass the random number as a path param in the GET request URL of the REST call and fire the GET request.
In the server side, once the Rest GET request is received, we check if the number received as path param is the same number that is generated in the server side.
If the numbers match, then we give the required response, else do not send the response.
Here we are trying to introduce an unique key, which is the random number generated at the server side. This unique key, when passed as the path param of the Rest GET request URL, serves as an identity of the origin of the Rest GET call. For someone who wants to invoke the Rest Api by referring to the Network Tab of the Chrome Dev console, will not get the unique key for a long time ( as it is refreshed/regenerated after every 5 minutes). Thus the hacker will not be able to use the Rest Api for a long duration. Also, since we are transporting the unique key (the random number) from the server to client side using SOAP, it is not possible for the hacker to get it from the Chrome's developer console.
Hope this approach helps!
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to prevent the client from inspecting the requested URL. But you always can require credentials to access your API endpoints.
Authentication in REST APIs
In REST applications, each request from the client to the server must contain all the necessary information to be understood by the server. With it, you are not depending on any session context stored on the server and you do not break the REST stateless constraint, defined by Roy Thomas Fielding in his dissertation:
5.1.3 Stateless
[...] communication must be stateless in nature [...], such that each request from client to server must contain all of the information necessary to understand the request, and cannot take advantage of any stored context on the server. Session state is therefore kept entirely on the client. [...]
When accessing protected resources (endpoints that require authentication), every request must contain all necessary data to be properly authenticated/authorized. And authentication data should belong to the standard HTTP Authorization header. From the RFC 7235:
4.2. Authorization
The Authorization header field allows a user agent to authenticate
itself with an origin server -- usually, but not necessarily, after
receiving a 401 (Unauthorized) response. Its value consists of
credentials containing the authentication information of the user
agent for the realm of the resource being requested. [...]
In other words, the authentication will be performed for each request.
Basic authentication
The Basic Authentication scheme, defined in the RFC 7617, is a good start for securing a REST API:
2. The 'Basic' Authentication Scheme
The Basic authentication scheme is based on the model that the client
needs to authenticate itself with a user-id and a password for each
protection space ("realm"). [...] The server will service the request only if it can validate
the user-id and password for the protection space applying to the
requested resource.
[...]
To receive authorization, the client
obtains the user-id and password from the user,
constructs the user-pass by concatenating the user-id, a single
colon (":") character, and the password,
encodes the user-pass into an octet sequence,
and obtains the basic-credentials by encoding this octet sequence
using Base64 into a sequence of US-ASCII
characters.
[...]
If the user agent wishes to send the user-id "Aladdin" and password
"open sesame", it would use the following header field:
Authorization: Basic QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==
[...]
Token-based authentication
If you don't want to send the username and the password over the wire for every request, you could consider using a token-based authentication. In this approach, you exchange your hard credentials (username and password) for a token which the client must send to the server in each request:
The client sends their credentials (username and password) to the server.
The server authenticates the credentials and generates a token.
The server stores the previously generated token in some storage along with the user identifier and an expiration date.
The server sends the generated token to the client.
In every request, the client sends the token to the server.
The server, in each request, extracts the token from the incoming request. With the token, the server looks up the user details to perform authentication and authorization.
If the token is valid, the server accepts the request.
If the token is invalid, the server refuses the request.
The server can provide an endpoint to refresh tokens.
Again, the authentication must be performed for every request.
The token can be opaque (which reveals no details other than the value itself, like a random string) or can be self-contained (like JSON Web Token).
Random String: A token can be issued by generating a random string and persisting it to a database with an expiration date and with a user identifier associated to it.
JSON Web Token (JWT): Defined by the RFC 7519, it's a standard method for representing claims securely between two parties. JWT is a self-contained token and enables you to store a user identifier, an expiration date and whatever you want (but don't store passwords) in a payload, which is a JSON encoded as Base64. The payload can be read by the client and the integrity of the token can be easily checked by verifying its signature on the server. You won't need to persist JWT tokens if you don't need to track them. Althought, by persisting the tokens, you will have the possibility of invalidating and revoking the access of them. To find some great resources to work with JWT, have a look at http://jwt.io.
In a token-based authentication, tokens are your credentials. So the tokens should be sent to the server in the standard HTTP Authorization header as described above.
Once you are using Jersey, you could have a look at this answer for more details on how to implement a token-based authentication in Jersey.
HTTPS
When sending sensitive data over the wire, your best friend is HTTPS and it protects your application against the man-in-the-middle attack.
To use HTTPS, you need a certificate issued by a certificate authority such as Let’s Encrypt, that claims to be a free, automated, and open certificate authority.