Showing posts with label Identity Server. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Identity Server. Show all posts

Monday 26 October 2020

Identity Server - OAuth and OIDC

Overview:  The current version of Identity Server is 4.  Identity server is basically a .NET Core 3.1 application that is an Identify Provider (IdP) similar in role to PingId, SiteMinder, AAD b2C.  Identity server allows application (native mobile, web sites and servers) to securely authenticate users.  In this post OAuth means OAuth2.0.

OAuth2 Grant Types:

Flow Description Client Grant Type
Authorization with PK Authorization Code Grant Type.  Default choice for authorization. Native mobile Apps, Windows app, Browser Apps Code
Client Credential Server-to-server (S2S) communication also refereed to as Machine-to-machine (M2M). Server,Consoles,Services ClientCredentials
Implicit Rather use the Authorization Code Flow with PKCE Native Apps & SPA's often use Implicit Flow Implicit
Hybrid
Device
Resource Owner Pswd Don't use

Scopes: The authorisation Server specifies the "scope" that the user has consented too.  So for an API you can limit the actions the user can perform.  Scopes must be unique strings.  Recommendation is to name your scopes by the API and the Verb e.g. "pauls_api.read" is better than "read".  Scopes are used to give the user access to resources so "read" is not a good idea.  Also scopes have length limits so don't be crazy verbose in naming.

Mandatory Endpoints:  OAuth specifies 2 endpoints namely:
  1. /authorization endpoint - gets the access grant and user consent (only code and implicit flows use this endpoint)
  2. /token Endpoint - issues tokens (client credential only uses the token endpoint, obviously code & implicit flow use both endpoints)
Optional Endpoint Extensions:
  • /revoke - used to revoke a token
  • /userinfo - used to hold profile info for the user e.g. name, email.  The /userinfo endpoint is used in OIDC implementations of OAuth and specifies user must use: address, phone, email, profile in their scopes.
  • /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server - useful to discover the actual OAuth implementation.
Tokens
Access Token:
  • JSON Web Token (JWT) pronounce "JOT" is an access token that contains authorisation and profile data.  The alternative is to use Opaque to JWT but most implementations use JWT.  
  • JWT's need to be validated using the signature.  The JWT Access Token is base 64 encoded and are made up of three parts separated by period signs i.e. HEADER.PAYLOAD.SIGNATURE


Refresh Token:
  • Refresh tokens are opaque
  • Single endpoint with a single function to get a new Access Token.


Interactive description of the OAuth Code Flow process: