I've been reading documentation and Stack Overflow link all morning, but I'm just not understanding the correct process to authorize a web server to post to a Facebook page wall.
What I'm not clear on is why I have to post to Facebook as a Facebook User, using an access_token, meaning that this user has to log into Facebook manually to authorize my app.
I'm not trying to authorize a User, nor any of my visitors to do anything with their accounts, so I don't need any permissions from them. Instead, I'm trying to authorize my Web Server to post updates to its wall as a specific Page.
Why do I have to use a user access_token to do this? I'm not attempting to impersonate the user, I'm trying to post to the page as the page...
Is it possible to authorize a user and get their access token without having to create a login page on the Web Server? I don't want to have to require the user to login to make this work, I thought that was the point of having an app ID and Secret?
I guess my question is this: Is it not possible to allow a web server to post to a Facebook page wall as that page, without having to present a login dialog to a specific user? If it is possible, what is the correct workflow to set this up?
In order to post to a Page as a Page, you have to use a Page Access Token. You get that with a User Access Token, and you can extend it so it will stay valid forever.
Steps:
Request a User Access Token with the manage_pages permission (valid for up to 2 hours)
Extend the User Access Token (valid for up to 60 days)
Get the Extended Page Access Token for your Page with the User Session
Store and User The Page Access Token in the publish call
It may sound a bit complicated, but there are many tutorials for this and you don´t actually need to program it, you can just use the Graph API Explorer.
Here are some Links about the Access Tokens:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/access-tokens/
http://www.devils-heaven.com/facebook-access-tokens/ (see "Extended Page Access Token" for a step by step tutorial)
Related
I am pulling my hair out trying to understand what Facebook wants me to do to post to a FaceBook Page as a System User that has Admin and Page Privileges to and Owned by our business (We have Facebook Business Manager).
In a nut shell all I want to do is make this call:
https://graph.facebook.com/v2.5/${MyPageID}/feed
What I don't get is the access_token part.
I can generate access tokes for Apps, for Pages but all result in 403 returned from FaceBook. I have gone as far and checking every box available on the generate access token popup on the graph api and still I get 403 "Forbidden" so I am detailing the little I understand of the insanity that is FaceBook Auth in the hope that someone can explain where I am going wrong.
1) To Post as a System User to a Page I have to Create a FB App (I Would prefer just to post direct to the pages and skip the App part, My System User has Admin Access on All pages)
2) To Access the App I need an App Token.
3) To Create an App token I need a User Token.
4) To Create a user token I need to log in to Facebook and have all sorts of permissions on the App. (I can't log in as the System User! FB asks me to login as myself. I am not sure if this breaks the Auth Token generated?)
5) Then there are all sorts of swapping tokens to get a Permanent App token, Another point of potential failure!
6) IF the stars and moon align and you stand on your head the permanent App key can be passed to the above call as the access_token
I don't understand how to link the Pages I want to post to with the App created. Do I have to have 1 App for Each Page?
I have got one page to work, We initially used that App to Auth against the Instant Article Graph API:
https://graph.facebook.com/v2.5/${MyPageID}/instant_articles
I could not use the above token for the /feed url, I had to generate a new token with extra publish permissions and the page published with no problems, however when I change the ${MyPageID} to another page using the same access_token I get the 403.
I tried Creating a new App, I have no clue how they link to a specific page So the App to me seems sort of redundant.
Any help with what I am doing wrong or how I can go about simply posting to various FB Pages with a System User using the /feed api ?
The calls are made form a Spring Boot Java APP using HTTP Posts.
How to get a System User Auth and Page Auth:
1) Generate a User Token for an App (Button above the System User):
https://business.facebook.com/settings/system-users/${System User ID}?business_id=${your_business_manager_id}
System user has Page Admin on each page you need to post to.
App is just an FB app, not sure what it does other that it is a grouping I generate a token against.
I chose: (manage_pages, publish_pages, publish_actions, pages_manage_instant_articles, pages_show_list)
2) Check your access token:
https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/accesstoken/?access_token=${The access token you got from the step above}&version=v2.12
This will provide you with the App ID the Token is for and how long it lasts (we need a Permanent token)
3) Using Graph API Explorer gets the Accounts this token has access to:
https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer/${Your FB APP ID}/?method=GET&path=me%2Faccounts&version=v2.12
4) Using the output above find Page Auth for each page you wan to publish to
5) Post to each page in turn:
https://graph.facebook.com/v2.5/${MyPageID}/feed
I have a Node.js server running a social network site and I also have a facebook page for that site. For certain actions performed by users on my site, I want to post details on the facebook page of my app.
I referred to Thuzi facebook node sdk here on how to post to facebook wall. However, it requires app id, app secret and a temporary access token. App id and app secret are constant so I can put them somewhere in my config file and use from there. But how do I get the access token without any interaction from front-end ? All posts will be published by our app only and that too on our own page. I just want this to be triggered by the end user's actions. Any help ?
I am using Sails.js framework btw.
You would need to use an Extended Page Token for that, you only need to create it once and it will stay valid forever. And you will post "as Page" with a Page Token. How to get an Extended Page Token:
Create an App
Use the Graph API Explorer to generate a User Access Token (by authorizing the App with the manage_pages and publish_actions permission)
Extend the User Access Token (valid for 60 days)
Request an Extended Page Token by calling /me/accounts
Store that Extended Page Token on your server and use it for posting on the Page wall.
Here are some additional resources, explaining everything in detail:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/access-tokens/
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference/v2.1/page/feed
http://www.devils-heaven.com/facebook-access-tokens/
http://www.devils-heaven.com/extended-page-access-tokens-curl/
I am also digging more in to this nowdays As I am working on a node module for this.
Till now I got to know that we can create a temporary access_token and we can than extend that token upto max 60 days.
For this after getting temporary token you need to make a call to this url to get a access token with 60 days validity.
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id=&client_secret=&grant_type=fb_exchange_token&fb_exchange_token=
I have created an App on facebook and I am using this app to authorize an user via dotnetopenauth.
Here I would pass APPID and APPSECRET and get the token which would be used to call Facebook Graph to get facebook user details.
If I'm doing this for the first time, user would be asked to enter username/passowrd on the Facebook website and then the session is created in the browser and it will redirect to my website as a Facebook user. This means that if I open a new tab in the current window and open facebook, user will see his/her page directly without asking for username/password. - this is obvious and understandable.
// code
request = WebRequest.Create("https://graph.facebook.com/me?access_token=" + Uri.EscapeDataString(strAccessToken));
response = request.GetResponse();
My query is:
After the scenario above, if user logs out from Facebook website OR I close the browser window, the facebook session is lost. However, I still have the access token (string in the above code) that I got while authenticating.
So, As of this moment I am not storing any user information from Facebook (not even cookies or anything else). I am just requesting user to authorize my application as a Facebook user. When user does that, I get the access token which I can use it to make calls to Graph and REST APIs. This access token usually remains same, so I really dont need to pass the applicaition id and secret to get the token next time onwards. Actually I can request the graph APIs and REST APIs with the stored token and request user details. I have tested this and works fine.
What I am looking for is, if user opens www.facebook.com, user should see his/her personal facebook page which obviosuly is possible only if I have a session in the current browser. Hence, my question was: how do I use my access token OR what call should I make with my access token so that I can set the browser session for the facebook user? Is it possible technically?
Regards,
AG
No. Your access token is used by your web server to call facebook. It's impossible (and undesirable) for this to impact the user's browser in a way that would set a facebook.com cookie so that the user would be implicitly logged into Facebook by your use of the access token.
I want to connect my web application with the facebook business page. Each time I add a new product to the page I want to post it on facebook wall. I have a facebook application and the page owner username and password. Can I automatically authenticate with the user, pass to facebook and send the post request from server side only? Usually I am logged in with another facebook account when I add products. Also I would like to post when another page user add a product.
You can post to Facebook as a facebook page using the manage_pages permission. You'd need to obtain this permission from a user who is an administrator of the page. There are a few steps to the process, here is a basic summary:
Get an access token from a user who is an administrator of the page
and has granted "manage_pages" to your app. read about authentication
here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/
using that access token, make a graph request to
https://graph.facebook.com/me/accounts?access_token=USER_AUTH_TOKEN
You'll get a json response containing all the pages the user administrates, containing their name, category, facebook id, and an auth token - this is what you'll need to post to that page
you can then use this access token to post to the specific page using
https://graph.facebook.com/PAGE_ID/feed?message=POST_MESSAGE&access_token=AUTH_TOKEN&method=post
I just found this blog post which gives you a pretty good explanation
http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/465/
It sounds like you need the 'offline_access' extended permission.
It is scheduled to be deprecated. Take a look at the following link for more details:
Deprecation of Offline Access Permission
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this, but I do NOT recommend trying to login through Facebook's user interface and perform POST requests/HTML scraping on behalf of the user. That procedure would grant you far more functionality than is possible through the Graph API; I don't think Facebook would approve of this.
Is it possible to somehow get an access token to use the facebook api like a user that clicked "use facebook as "?
What I'm trying to do is to allow my website to post messages to the facebook page's wall. I already have an app which I use to allow my users to login with their FB account. However, I'd prefer not to require a page admin to authorize full manage_pages to my app. I already added the app to my FB page, but there are no options to give that app some permissions for my page.
Of course it's possible.
In the official documentation page about Permissions it's written:
Page access_token
An access_token used to manage a page. This is used
when you want to perform an operation acting as a Page. This access
token is retrieved by issuing an HTTP GET to /USER_ID/accounts or to
/PAGE_ID?fields=access_token with the manage_pages permission. Getting
/USER_ID/accounts will return a list of Pages (including app profile
pages) to which the user has administrative access in addition to an
access_token for each Page. Alternatively, you can get a page access
token for a single, specific, page by issuing an HTTP GET to
/PAGE_ID?fields=access_token with the manage_pages permission (you
must ask for the access_token field specifically via the fields=
parameter). See the documentation for the Page object for more
information. NOTE: After November 1, 2011, manage_pages permission
will be required for all access to a user's pages via this connection,
i.e. for both reading the user's pages and also retrieving
access_tokens for those pages. See the documentation for the User
object for more information.