I'm looking for some deep down detailed information on google's use of oauth scopes
My Drive app is working, so I get the simple use of scopes. However I have the following detailed questions/issues..
I specify scopes twice. Once in my app and then also in the API
Console. What is the respective significance of these two scope
declarations?
If I remove scopes, must my user re-authorise my app, or is this
only required for adding additional scopes?
If the answer to 2, is 'I can't silently remove scopes', will the
Google libraries deal gracefully with re-authorising the user, or
will I just get 403 failures? I've read How should an application add/remove scopes to an existing grant? but the accepted answer specifically references adding scopes, whereas my question is about removing scopes.
Can different modules within my app request different scopes within
the superset specified in the API console? To explain, my app has 3
components: a chrome extension accessing Drive, a web client using
JS to access Drive and YouTube (in online mode), and a server
component which accesses Drive (in offline mode)..
Can my app. enquire what scopes it has been granted?
A general question, I'm sure I face the same dilemma as many app authors. If I increase functionality (a good thing since it attracts users), I also need to increase permissions/trust a user places in my app (a bad thing since it repels users). Are there any recommendations on how apps should best handle this conflict of interests?
List of scopes in your client code - this is what a user authorizes your app to do
When you request authorization from a user, you need to specify what you would like the user to consent to. This is what the list of scopes is used for - it controls the text the user sees when they authorize your application, and the refresh / access tokens granted by that authorization are limited to making API calls that are allowed by those scopes.
List of enabled services in the API Console - this is what your app authorizes users to do
To my knowledge there is no list of scopes specified in the API Console. There is however a list of Google services that can enabled. Enabling/disabling a service here is more about turning on/off ability to make API calls and managing quota and/or accepting terms of service related to that API, than it is authorization.
When an API call is made - you send along an access token
The access token encapsulates the user making the request, the scopes the user authorized you for, and the client ID used for the authorization (which in turn belongs to your project). At this point you need to have the service that the API call is sent to enabled on the project, and the correct scope for the API request - or you will get a 403.
When your list of required scopes changes - you should expect users to need to re-authorize
At the point you request an access token (typically by sending a refresh token) you need to be prepared for that request not to succeed. Maybe it's because you've added scopes - but maybe a user has chosen to visit https://accounts.google.com/IssuedAuthSubTokens and has revoked your applications access. I'm not sure whether if you request less scopes than was granted by the user initially will trigger this, I would experiment to test - but the point is that regardless your code needs to be able to handle this scenario. I believe the OAuth2DecoratorFromClientSecrets (from the linked question) will handle this gracefully for you but am not certain - it should be easy enough to verify.
Using the same authorization across multiple clients - suggest reading through this doc and see if it covers all of your scenarios: https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/CrossClientAuth
To see scopes granted to an access token - use the OAuth2 API: https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/tokeninfo?access_token=yaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Related
Here is my scenario. Imagine there is a Yoga studio that uses a professional booking and reservation system that exposes an API. Through this API an application can make a reservation for a client. The API takes the client's userid and password to make the reservation. The booking API doesn't use OAuth or any social media sign-ins.
My desire is to create an Assistant Action that would retrieve the list of classes and allow the client to make a booking.
My puzzle is what design/architecture to look towards to supply the userid/password pair required by the booking API.
How have others solved this puzzle?
Should I store the userid/password as "user state" associated with the action?
First, you should have a conversation with the API provider about why they don't provide an OAuth-based solution. This is a security vulnerability waiting to happen, if it hasn't already.
Second, you need to think very carefully about your own risk profile in this case:
Google does not allow you to collect credential information (ie - passwords) through your Action.
Because of this, you must use Account Linking to authenticate them.
This means that you will need something (ie - a database or data store) to manage their account on your side.
This database would be a good place to keep the username/password you need to use for them for the API...
...but it now means that you need to take extreme care about protecting this database.
You don't really say how this API allows for accounts to be created and managed. If these accounts are just used for you (ie - the user doesn't necessarily see them), then you can mitigate some of that risk by treating the username/password as an opaque token that you manage and generate and that the user never sees.
If this is something that the user is aware of, then you'll need to approach the account linking in one of two ways:
Have them log into your service via an app or webapp using this credential info that you will need to save (ack!) and then link to the Assistant using OAuth.
Have them log into your service via an app or webapp using Google Sign-In, which will carry over to your Action. Then have them provide the credential info for the API, which you will need to save (ack!).
The Problem
MS Azure provides an extensive REST API. However, there is a significant amount of complexity when trying to get that API to work. From outdated and incomplete documentation to simple examples not working, performing what should be an easy task is instead nightmarish.
The Task
What are the exact, precise, detailed steps necessary to list the available VMs for someone who has logged in using Oauth2? For instance, this can be done using the azure-cli.
azure vm list
What are the steps to accomplish the same thing using REST and Oauth2?
The Requirements
The answer must not use Visual Studio, PowerShell, C#, an SDK, or any other such tool to accomplish this task. Only the portal is allowed for setup, and only Oauth2 is allowed for authorization, and only the REST API is allowed for actual information retrieval.
The answer must not simply link to external sources, although external references are encouraged for completeness.
The answer may assume the user has an Azure account. It must include information about creating the Oauth2 client, credentials, and any step necessary to get the appropriate token.
The answer must be detailed.
The answer must provide examples. Images, too are strongly encouraged.
The answer should include information about possible errors, their meanings, and what too look for to fix them.
First, we can find this rest API in azure resource portal. It is the same with Azure CLI command azure vm list.
I have tested it on my local with http request. here is my tested screenshot:
Request URL: https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<subscription ID>/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines?api-version=2016-03-30
Header:Authorization: bearer eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJSUzI.....
So It is very import if we get the access token. The following demonstrate us how to get the access token.
Get Token(POST):
Request URL: https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant id>/oauth2/token
Body: grant_type=client_credentials&client_id=<client id>&resource=https%3A%2F%2Fmanagement.core.windows.net%2F&client_secret=<client secret>
Here is my screenshot in fildder:
We need to get client id and client secret in azure ad application. For how to regist an application in Azure AD. Please have a look at this article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-create-service-principal-portal.
Please note:
1) we need to add "Windows Azure Service Management API" in portal "Required permissions" like the following screenshot:
2) We need assign "Contributor" for this service principal. click subscription-> Access Control-> click Add -> click "Select a Role" -> click Contributor->click Add User-> Find the application you created above-> click OK.
Overview
Making requests against the Azure Rest API is a bit more complicated than perhaps you would think at first glance. In particular, there are a number of esoteric and not-so-helpful error messages you may run into while getting the nobs tweaked just right.
Introduction and Terms
Setting up The Application
Getting the access_token
Making the API request
Common errors thus far
Introduction and Terms
One of the pieces of this process that can make it so confusing and difficult is the terminology. Until you understand that, knowing how to deal with errors is very difficult. We'll go over some of the more common ones here.
Subscription - This is basically what you'd expect. It refers to the Microsoft Azure Services subscription. It basically acts as the top-level umbrella for the organization.
Tenant - This is like a sub-organization, maybe a department or group. There can be multiple tenants under a single subscription.
User - As expected, a user is a single individual. Users are scoped to tenants.
Application - The Application is the software program trying to use the API. It must be registered and configured to do so.
Service Principal - This is essentially The Application. It is the entity making API Service requests.
Setting Up the Application
Although you might not guess it, this is probably the most complicated part of the process. Let's start by creating The Application in the portal.
Create The Application
Follow this click path: Azure Active Directory -> App Registrations -> New
There should be a form for application creation, with the following fields:
Name
This is simple the name of The Application. When authenticating, it will be shown to users. For the purposes of this "tutorial", we'll call it API Tutorial. This can be edited after creation.
Application Type
The type of The Application. For our purposes, we should choose "Web app/API". This cannot be edited after creation.
Sign-on URL
The is the redirect that will be used if we go the "authorization_code" route for sign on. This can be useful as the response will include an "id_token". We'll get into that a bit later. For now, let's make this http://123AzureApiTutorial.com/code. This can be edited after creation.
Once the Application has been created, you should see a property, Application ID. This is the client_id used in the OAuth2 flow. Take a note of its value.
Create the Client Secret
The OAuth2 flow requires a client secret value for authentication.
To generate it, follow this click path: Azure Active Directory -> App Registrations -> API Tutorial -> All Settings -> Keys
Enter the key description: API Tutorial Key, and the Duration: In 1 year.
Click Save. This will generate the Key Value. You must copy the value here and save it somewhere. You will not have another opportunity to do so.
This value is the client_secret in the OAuth2 flow.
Add the correct permissions
To get to the permissions, follow this click path: Azure Active Directory -> App Registrations -> API Tutorial -> All Settings -> Required Permissions -> Add
Here you will see the list of possible APIs. The one we care about for Azure is Windows Azure Service Management API. There is currently only one permission: Access Azure Service Management as organization users (preview). Select it, click Select, and then Done.
Getting the access_token
The access_token is what allows us to make requests against the API. There are two primary ways to do this. I suggest reading about both before trying to implement them.
Authorization Code
The authorization code is a two-step process. First we obtain the authorization code, and then we use that to get the access_token. A benefit of this route is that we get back an id_token as well, with a variety of useful claims like the user's name, email address, etc.
The request format is as follows: (GET) https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant-id>/oauth2/authorize?client_id=<client-id>&scope=api&redirect_uri=<redirect-uri>&response_type=code&prompt=consent. Let's go over the parameters here really quick.
Tenant ID
This can be obtained be using the click path Azure Active Directory -> Properties and copy the Directory ID. This is, in fact the Tenant ID value. It just has a different name to help with the overall confusion.
Client ID
This is the Application ID we retrieved previously.
Scope
This is the scope of the code. We just want to use the API.
Redirect URI
This is the sign-on URL you specified when creating API Tutorial. After the user logs in, they will be redirected to this URL with a "code" parameter in the query string.
Response Type
This is what we want the response to be. We want an authorization code, so we just use the value code.
Prompt
This specifies whether or not to prompt the user to consent to the permissions. If we did not have this, and changed permissions, the request would just unexpectedly fail. Very frustrating. But it can be removed once permission has been granted as long as you don't change the permissions. If the application is accessing an API that requires admin permission, this value should be admin_consent.
Alright, so once we shoot off this request we will be redirected to the login page. We login, accept the permissions, and then we should be redirected to here: http://123AzureApiTutorial.com/code?code=SOME_REALLY_LONG_STRING_OF_CHARACTERS. That string of characters is the code.
Getting the Access Token
Next, we take the code and use it to get the access_token. To do so, we need to make another request.
(POST) https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant-id>/oauth2/token
In addition to the url, we need to add parameters. These should be consistent with the content type application/x-www-form-urlencoded. This means they are submitted as form parameters. They are as follows:
client_id
This is again the client id (Application ID) we already have.
client_secret
This is the Application Key we generated earlier. I hope you saved it! If not, go back to that step and generate another one.
code
This is the value of the code we just received: SOME_REALLY_LONG_STRING_OF_CHARACTERS.
`grant_type
Because we're going the authorization code route, this value should be authorization_code
redirect_uri
This is the redirect uri we specified for the API Tutorial. The value from our example should be http://123AzureApiTutorial.com/code.
resource
This is very important. It is the resource API we want to access. For the Azure API, this value is https://management.azure.com.
Our response will be a json object with a variety of fields. Of these, the one we care about is access_token. Yay!
Client Credentials
This methodology skips getting the code (and thus needing the redirect_uri) at the expense of not getting an id_token.
The request is the same as in the Getting the Access Token section, with a few small differences.
We do not need to specify redirect_uri.
The value of grant_type should change to client_credentials.
Alright, we have an access_token! Now we're cooking!
Making the API request
With all the prep work thus far, this is the easiest part of the process.
The API URL we are requesting against is:
https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<subscription-id>/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines?api-version=2016-03-30
Add the following header to the request:
Authorization: Bearer <access-token>. Yes, the access_token value must be prefaced with the word "Bearer" in the header value.
"But wait!" You exclaim. "How do I get the subscription id?"
Excellent question! To find it through the portal, click Subscriptions -> -> Overview and copy the Subscription Id value.
Use that value, and run the request. You should see all the vms listed!
Common errors thus far
InvalidAuthenticationToken
When making the API request, you get an error response that says something like this: InvalidAuthenticationToken: The access token is invalid. This means you haven't added the API permissions to the API Tutorial. Go back to the Add the correct permissions step and double-check you have the right permissions. Also, when requesting the token make sure you use the prompt=consent, otherwise the you will not be prompted with the new permissions and the token will fail.
InvalidAuthenticationTokenTenant
Make sure that the tenant-id used when requesting the token belongs to the subscriber used when making the API call.
I have seen many different posts regarding different solutions for authenticating a RESTful API and I have some questions, given this current scenario.
I've built a REST API that will allow clients of my software service (we are a B2B company) to access resources programmatically. Now that I've got the API working properly, I'd like to secure it in the most standardized way possible. I need to allow access to certain resources based on the caller of the API. That is to say, not all users of the API can access all resources.
I have URLS available in the following formats:
https://mydomain/api/students
https://mydomain/api/students/s123
https://mydomain/api/students/s123/classes
https://mydomain/api/students/s123/classes/c456
So far I've come up with these possible solutions:
Provide a unique key to each client that they can use to ultimately generate an encrypted token that will be passed as a GET parameter at the end of each REST call to (re)-authenticate every single request. Is this approach too expensive
https://mydomain.com/api/students/s123?token=abc123
Provide a value in the HTTP Authorization Header as seen here. Is this almost the same as #1? (Except I can't paste a URL into the browser) Do people use these headers anymore?
Use OAuth 2 (which I'm still a bit unclear on). Does OAuth 2 actually authenticate the client as a logged in user? And doesn't that go against the spirit of a REST API being stateless? I was hoping OAuth was the proper solution for me (since it's a public standard), but after reading up on it a little bit, I'm not so sure. Is it overkill and/or improper for REST API calls?
My goal is to provide an API that will not have to be changed for each client that wants to consume the API, but rather that I can provide a standard documentation made available to all of our clients.
I'll be happy to post additional details if I've been unclear.
There are 2 type of clients you probably want to prepare your API:
trusted clients - Which are written by you. They can have the username and password of the actual user, and they can send that data to your server with every request, possibly in a HTTP auth header. All you need is an encrypted connection by them.
3rd party clients - Which are written by some random developer. You can register them in your service and add a unique API key to each of them. After that if an user wants to use their services, you have to show her a prompt in which she can allow access to the 3rd party client. After that the 3rd party client will be assigned to the user's account with the given permissions and it will get an user specific access token. So when the client sends its API key and the user specific token along with the request, then it sends the requests in the name of the user.
OAuth can help you to control the second situation.
Your URLs do not have a meaning to the clients. By REST you have to decouple the clients from the URL structure by sending links annotated with semantics (e.g. link relations). So your documentation does not have to contain anything about the URL structure (maybe it can be useful for server side debug, but nothing more). You have to talk about different types of links. By generating these links on server side, you can check the permissions of the actual user (or 3rd party client) and skip the links which she does not have permission to follow.
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.
Right now when I use Facebook's new OAuth2 system, it tells the user that my app is requesting to "Publish content to your Wall". How do I disable this (for fear of scaring off users), as I don't need this enabled. Possible?
Getting the user to authorize one of the extended permissions for your app is kind of the point behind authenticating. You may want to see if the data you need is exposed without authenticating (if you in fact need data). If you can get the uid you can see what is exposed to everyone, and per the privacy changes, I mean everyone. Until the privacy "fire", there was quite a bit exposed to everyone, now 'everyone' means the least restrictive tier among multiple privacy tiers rather than the happy-go-lucky default.
So really the question is, what permission are you trying to get?
There are a few unknown variables here such as what type of app you are making etc.
Check your code for one of the extended permissions, you are probably sending one of them such as offline_access in your auth call.