Question about OAuth/XAuth Authentication - iphone

When I develop a App Project on iPhone, it's need to authenticate.
My basic requirement is to have custom login screen. But the Service providers currently provide OAuth protocal only, not XAuth protocal. Does this mean that if I use OAuth protocol, it will can not be achieved what I need (custom login screen), and I must be loaded the service provider's interface by UIWebView to enter user name and password?
Best Regards!

For OAuth v1, yes that is the only option.
For OAuth v2 there are more "flows" which can be used. See this article for a intro to OAuth v2.
So it all depends on who you are connecting to as to what version of OAuth they support. You may like to connect whoever you are connecting to to see if they provide other options. I know people that are working with a vendor so that the vendor are supporting some of the OAuth v2 extendations for them to make it nicer for there mobile applications as the "web" view looks shit on mobile devices.
On the other side, once you have the token it's yours until revoked. This means you can save it and use it from then onwards. This means you may only have to display the login only when the token fails.

Related

Flutter with Native Webview using OpenID Connect and Okta

I am currently trying to implement OpenID Connect using Okta as my identity provider.
The only plugin I found that was capable of handling OpenID Connect was the Flutter AppAuth Plugin .
Unfortunately I was not able to use it with a Native Webview in order to have a seamless experience for the end user or more especially to not have any navbar cf. image below:
Anyone was able to implement this flow as a native Webview ?
I don't believe you'll be able to do this in a native Webview. OAuth and OIDC are designed so the application never knows about the user's credentials - the application just receives an ID token and access token. If you tried to embed Okta (or any OAuth flow) in a native login, the application could get at the user's credentials, and possibly harvest them. Popping a browser is a more secure way of doing things.
To add to Matt's answer, AppAuth is the standard pattern here, which involves use of special InApp / system browsers:
Chrome Custom Tabs
ASWebAuthenticationSession
My blog has some details on this. I always recommend people to start with AppAuth samples. A couple of posts:
AppAuth Setup with Private URI Schemes
Advanced Sample with Claimed HTTPS Schemes

How to implement proper External Authentication in Cordova, Ionic w/ ASP .NET WebApi - Google/Facebook

I have a mobile application built upon Ionic Framework which uses many Cordova packages. We are upgrading the app from Ionic3 to Ionic5. In the Ionic3 application our .NET API was responsible to managing user logins. Going forward, in the Ionic5 app we will NOT be managing user credentials - we will be using 3rd party Identity Providers such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
We have implemented the Cordova packages to handle external authentication with Facebook and Google and it works fine. How do we tie the token that is received from Google/Facebook to our .NET API? When we try to use the token provided from Google/Facebook we - of course - get a 401 because our .NET API doesn't know about that token as it was issued from an external source.
I am aware of the process of how to enable the schema described here (External Authentication Services w/ASP.NET Web Api) but in this case the user agent browses to the Web Application in the browser. This is not true in my case as the user agent will be using a mobile application not a web site.
But I hope the principal is the same. But I'm missing something here.
The user will open the mobile app, authenticate with Google/Facebook and be issued a token. Now, what needs to happen to get that token to be recognized by my ASP.NET Web Api?
For example. When I registered my mobile app with Google Developer's Console I selected that the type of app is an Android application and was issued a Client ID for Android now how can I use this token in my ASP .NET Web API? There MUST be some way to tie the two together or some article out there.
Thanks in advance for your assistance!
Also, I looked at this post and see its 11 years old. Is there something here that I should be doing? Please help point me in the right direction. how-can-i-verify-a-google-authentication-api-access-token
It is about data ultimately, and identifying users in a consistent manner, then tracking their history with your app / business.
SOCIAL LOGIN PACKAGES
These are often cheap and nasty solutions that add complexity to your apps as you are finding.- especially when you need to look things up by user.
OPTION 1 - COMPLEX APPS
Your API could look at the token issuer (ISS claim in the token) and download token signing keys from either Facebook or Google - if JWKS endpoints exist. Then create a user from the access token's sub claim if required.
OPTION 2 - SIMPLER APPS
Deal with only a single type of token in your UIs and APIs, which will work like this. It moves the complexity to your Authorization Server (AS):
You have an Authorization Server (use Google maybe) to deal with token issuing and other central OAuth concerns
You have multiple Identity Providers (eg Facebook + Google) to support different login methods for users
During login Facebook posts a token to the AS
Then the AS issues its own token to your UI
The AS may be able to use Account Linking to provide a consistent user id regardless of login method
There is a learning curve in getting this working, but once done it can easily be scaled to many apps with zero code changes.
The proper answer is Auth0... see the below sequence diagram!

OAuth 2.0 Authorisation Code grant + PKCE for native mobile app

I'm currently implementing a new OAuth 2 server (planning to use Ory Hydra) and this will be the authorisation server for both our developers portal where developers create an app they're given client_id and client_secret and use those for the token exchange but also for our mobile app where users fill their credentials (username and password).
The login, logout, forgot password, etc will live in a different server.
Question is, is there a way to prevent having the consent screen as part of the Authorisation Code grant + PKCE? Via the mobile app users are authenticating to have access to their own information from a different service and my understanding of the Authorisation Code grant is that it's meant to be used by third-party apps to gain access to the user information.
I know there are other grant types but it seems that the Authorisation Code + PKCE is the recommended grant for native mobile apps according to this and this
Thanks!
With Ory Hydra, you control the user interface so you can decide when to show and when not to show the consent screen.
So it depends how you built your app.
Basically choose a default consent type as outlined in the Implementing Login, Consent & Logout UI tutorial.
And then just skip showing that Consent UI in your app.
CONSENT
Usually showing the consent screen is a property of the OAuth Client, though this varies between providers.
This can make sense in some scenarios where personal assets are not being used and the message would not be meaningful to users. For example corporate apps provisioned by an administrator.
MOBILE
You are right to use PKCE - it is standard for all UI flows these days - and recommended in OAuth 2.1 Updates.
Interestingly the consent screen can be useful for getting password autofill to work for mobile apps, so you may want to consider that angle also.
ORY
That looks like a very interesting project - I will take a closer look.
RESOURCES OF MINE
The mobile flow is tricky to implement. If it is useful my blog has some visual iOS and Android posts on the topic:
AppAuth Sample
My More Advanced Sample

Authentication in a mobile app

We are developing a hybrid mobile app (code is written in HTML and runs on browser shell as a native app on the device). We need to authenticate the user against an external security manager. I've seen the Gmail App in iPhone which opens a browser to authenticate the user. We are also looking to do something of that sort. We just need to gather your thoughts on how authentication can be done with some external security manager in a mobile app.
Also I noticed that Dailymotion website was able to know if the user is authenticated with Facebook. This looks like a cross domain authentication.
Can you please share your thoughts on how Google and others have implemented it?
What you are looking for is OAuth and OpenID services to federate your login. Depending on the architecture of your system you can implement whichever one you like or even a hybrid of both.
Take a look at this link: Federated Login for Google Accounts
It provides all the useful information you need.
Hmm this question seems old but in case you haven't found an answer here's how I did it with my hybrid apps :
open url on client side with the provider's (facebook/twitter/instagram) url for login
the user logs in and is redirected to the server's callback url (my server is written in nodejs)
once I've got the access token from the provider. I save this token and then create a token for the client to reuse every time the user wants to access a protected ressource.
Download the apk and test it.
If this is what you're looking for you can checkout both the client side code at : https://github.com/malikov/Authenticate.me-client-cordova-ionic
And the server side code at : https://github.com/malikov/Authenticate.me-Node-Server
Cheers

Can you use openID as a single sign-on for an iphone app?

I'm looking to implement Single Sign On for a native iOS app whereby logging in with this single sign on gives the mobile device authenticated access to our private service in a fashion that is somewhat similar to oauth.
The marketing text on openid.net suggests that "OpenID is a safe, faster, and easier way to log in to web sites.". Emphasis on web sites.
So the question is: Is it reasonable to implement openID on a native mobile app, or is openID only for web sites.
I've been scouring the web and I'm not finding a way to fit openID in as my login option.
The best way to do this seems to be to use a UIWebView and render a log in page from your site in it. Once the user logs in, they'll be redirected back to your site and have an auth cookie, which you can extract, store, and send on subsequent HTTP requests to the server.
See this, which has a sample code link at the bottom.
OpenID sends its messages as a series of HTTP requests and responses. Your app and the openid provider must communicate to each other via HTTP post, and you will need to redirect the user to corresponding URLs, and have a URL for the user to be redirected back to. As such, you will probably find it difficult to integrate with your app.
Derek Knight claims to have been experimenting with iOS and OpenID using the Janrain Engage iOS SDK. Although the github link he references no longer exists and he doesnt provide a complete and verified solution, he does offer an idea for how it might work.
OpenID and iOS development - gordonknight.co.uk
Janrain Engage for your iPad Apps
The accepted answer diminish the OpenID protocol. OpenID is a federated authentication protocol aiming simple SSO experience, its a web based protocol but it can be implemented if you design an authentication broker.
APPs share nothing, apps should never access anything but identity token and access token (if allow). here is a link to get you starter in the right path to build seems-less SSO in the mobile between apps regardless the app isolation level.
https://www.pingidentity.com/developer/en/resources/napps-native-app-sso.html
Libraries:
https://github.com/openid/AppAuth-iOS
https://github.com/openid/AppAuth-Android