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'm an admin for a Facebook page I want to handle a server side job scheduler which post every specific time into that Page using Facebook Graph API.
I'm using this code to do that job: $facebook->api("/$page_id/feed","post",$args); and it is working fine for me.
But I have a problem related to Page Access Token. I need to have a permanent Page Access Token to work forever not to update the access token every specific time because it will be server side job scheduler, no GUI for it.
Any suggestion about how to get Permanent Page Access token?
Note: I followed the steps in Facebook documentation
but I have 3 wanderings about it :
Shall I have Facebook app to get Long-Lived Page Authentication ??
I don't have that option on my Facebook app advanced setting
"deprecate offline_access" ??
Is the 60 days is the max valid duration which I can give it to Page
Access Token .. can't it become permanent for ever ??
Earlier people could use offline_access permission to obtain a permanent token. But it looks like Facebook is deprecating this particular permission. Instead, you first need to obtain a short-lived token, then exchange it for a long-lived token, which remains valid for 60 days. Same goes for page tokens.
When a user grants an app the manage_pages permission, the app is able
to obtain page access tokens for pages that the user administers by
querying the [User ID]/accounts Graph API endpoint. With the migration
enabled, when using a short-lived user access token to query this
endpoint, the page access tokens obtained are short-lived as well.
Exchange the short-lived user access token for a long-lived access
token using the endpoint and steps explained earlier. By using a
long-lived user access token, querying the [User ID]/accounts endpoint
will now provide page access tokens that do not expire for pages that
a user manages. This will also apply when querying with a non-expiring
user access token obtained through the deprecated offline_access
permission.
https://developers.facebook.com/roadmap/offline-access-removal/
I want my application to post to a single, pre-defined user's wall something like "We just posted a new blog at [URL]" with no client-side interaction.
But every answer I can find on this topic seems to hinge on getting an access token through
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token
Which gives you some redirect url through which a user has to log in manually.
I've got near zero experience with Facebook. Is it possible to automatically get an access token for a predefined user? Am I doing it wrong? ;)
You can't.
Facebook doesn't give you a way to automatically get an access token for a user. That user needs to log into Facebook and explicitly give your app permission. The best you can get is a long-lived access token that remains valid for up to 60 days.
Getting that token requires a two step process:
1) Logging into Facebook using either the JavaScript API or redirecting the user to a valid Facebook login URL.
2) Retrieving the short-lived access token you got in step 1 for a long-lived access token.
Once you've got that access token, should your post fail, you know you need to re-authenticate the user and get a new long-lived access token. Your user needs to be online and logged into Facebook for this to work, though it can happen without their interaction.
I am looking for a way to publish stuff on my facebook wall from a java-webservice.
I was looking around and found that there WAS offline_access that is now deprecated.
So...
How can it be done?
You have two options I can think of:
Get a long lived user access token (using server-side authentication, or client-side and then extending the token) when the user interacts with you app, then you have a valid token for 60 days.
When the 60 days are over you'll need the user to re-engage your app to get a new token.
You can ask for the publish_stream permission and then using an app token you can post on the users' behalf:
App access tokens can also be used to publish content to Facebook on
behalf of a user who has granted a publishing permission to your
application.
App Access Tokens generally do not expire. Once generated, they are
valid indefinitely.
I am playing around with the Oauth 2.0 authorization in Facebook and was wondering if the access tokens Facebook passes out ever expire. If so, is there a way to request a long-life access token?
After digging around a bit, i found this. It seems to be the answer:
Updated (11/April/2018)
The token will expire after about 60 days.
The token will be refreshed once per day, for up to 90 days, when the person using your app makes a request to Facebook's servers.
All access tokens need to be renewed every 90 days with the consent of the person using your app.
Facebook change announce (10/04/2018)
Facebook updated token expiration page (10/04/2018)
offline_access:
Enables your application to perform authorized requests on behalf of the user at any time. By default, most access tokens expire after a short time period to ensure applications only make requests on behalf of the user when the are actively using the application. This permission makes the access token returned by our OAuth endpoint long-lived.
Its a permission value requested.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/permissions
UPDATE
offline_access permission has been removed a while ago.
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/roadmap/completed-changes/offline-access-removal/
Try this may be it will help full for you
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/authorize?
client_id=127605460617602&
scope=offline_access,read_stream,user_photos,user_videos,publish_stream&
redirect_uri=http://www.example.com/
To get lifetime Access Token you have to use scope=offline_access
Meaning of scope=offline_access is that :-
Enables your application to perform authorized requests on behalf of
the user at any time. By default, most access tokens expire after a
short time period to ensure applications only make requests on behalf
of the user when the are actively using the application. This
permission makes the access token returned by our OAuth endpoint
long-lived.
But according to facebook future upgradation the offline_acees functionality will be deprecated for forever from the 3rd October, 2012.
and the user will be given 60 days long-lived access token and before expiration of the access token Facebook will notify or you can get your custom notification functionality fetching the expiration value from the Facebook Api..
Note that Facebook is now deprecating the offline_access permission in favor of tokens for which you can request an "upgrade" to the expiry. I'm just now dealing with this, myself, so I don't have much more to say, but this doc may help:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/offline-access-deprecation/
I came here with the same question as the OP, but the answers suggesting the use of offline_access are raising red flags for me.
Security-wise, getting offline access to a user's Facebook account is qualitatively different and far more powerful than just using Facebook for single sign on, and should not be used lightly (unless you really need it). When a user grants this permission, "the application" can examine the user's account from anywhere at any time. I put "the application" in quotes because it's actually any tool that has the credentials -- you could script up a whole suite of tools that have nothing to do with the web server that can access whatever info the user has agreed to share to those credentials.
I would not use this feature to work around a short token lifetime; that's not its intended purpose. Indeed, token lifetime itself is a security feature. I'm still looking for details about the proper usage of these tokens (Can I persist them? How do/should I secure them? Does Facebook embed the OAuth 2.0 "refresh token" inside the main one? If not, where is it and/or how do I refresh?), but I'm pretty sure offline_access isn't the right way.
Yes, they do expire. There is an 'expires' value that is passed along with the 'access_token', and from what I can tell it's about 2 hours. I've been searching, but I don't see a way to request a longer expiration time.
since i had the same problem - see the excellent post on this topic from ben biddington, who clarified all this issues with the wrong token and the right type to send for the requests.
http://benbiddington.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/facebook-graph-api-getting-access-tokens/
You can always refresh the user's access token every time the user logs into your site through facebook.
The offline access can't guarantee you get a life-long time access token, the access token changes whenever the user revoke you application access or the user changes his/her password.
Quoted from facebook http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/
Note: If the application has not requested offline_access permission, the access token is time-bounded. Time-bounded access token also get invalidated when the user logs out of Facebook. If the application has obtained offline_access permission from the user, the access token does not have an expiry. However it gets invalidated whenever the user changes his/her password.
Assume you store the user's facebook uid and access token in a users table in your database,every time the user clicks on the "Login with facebook" button, you check the login statususing facebook Javascript API, and then examine the connection status from the response,if the user has connected to your site, you can then update the access token in the table.
Hit this to exchange a short living access token for a long living/non expiring(pages) one:
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?
client_id=APP_ID&
client_secret=APP_SECRET&
grant_type=fb_exchange_token&
fb_exchange_token=EXISTING_ACCESS_TOKEN
log into facebook account and edit your application settings(account -> application setting ->additional permission of the application which use your account). uncheck the permission (Access my data when I'm not using the application(offline_access)). Then face will book issue a new token when you log in to the application.
Basic the facebook token expires about in a hour. But you can using 'exchange' token to get a long-lived token
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/access-tokens
GET /oauth/access_token?
grant_type=fb_exchange_token&
client_id={app-id}&
client_secret={app-secret}&
fb_exchange_token={short-lived-token}
This is a fair few years later, but the Facebook Graph API Explorer now has a little info symbol next to the access token that allows you to access the access token tool app, and extend the API token for a couple of months. Might be helpful during development.
check the following things when you interact with facebook graph api.
1) Application connect URL should be the base of your "redirect_uri"
connect URL:- www.x-minds.org/fb/connect/
redirect_uri - www.x-minds.org/fb/connect/redirect
2) Your "redirect_uri" should be same in the both case (when you request for a verification code and request for an access_token)
redirect_uri - www.x-minds.org/fb/connect/redirect
3) you should encode the the argument when you request for an access_token
4) shouldn't pass the argument (type=client_cred) when you request for an access_token. the authorization server will issue a token without session part. we can't use this token with "me" alias in graph api. This token will have length of (40) but a token with session part will have a length of(81).
An access token without session part will work with some cases
eg: -https://graph.facebook.com/?access_token=116122545078207|EyWJJYqrdgQgV1bfueck320z7MM.
But Graph API with "me" alias will work with only token with session part.
I don't know when exactly the tokens expire, but they do, otherwise there wouldn't be an option to give offline permissions.
Anyway, sometimes requiring the user to give offline permissions is an overkill. Depending on your needs, maybe it's enough that the token remains valid as long as the website is opened in the user's browser. For this there may be a simpler solution - relogging the user in periodically using an iframe: facebook auto re-login from cookie php
Worked for me...