Reusing the firebase-server-sdk credentials with the REST API - firebase

In the old version of Firebase, my server app written in Java would authenticate with my backend using the secret and the JWT token generator. Then, at anytime, I could call Firebase.getAuth().getToken() and reuse that token in an HTTP call as the auth parameter.
With the new firebase-server-sdk, how would I reuse my limited service account credentials / token with the REST API?
Map<String, Object> auth = new HashMap<String, Object>();
auth.put("uid", "server-app");
FirebaseOptions options = new FirebaseOptions.Builder()
.setDatabaseUrl(Environment.FIREBASE_URL)
.setServiceAccount(MyClass.class.getResourceAsStream("/keys/dev.json"))
.setDatabaseAuthVariableOverride(auth)
.build();
FirebaseApp.initializeApp(options);
That all works great when I use the SDK to subscribe / write to certain locations - specifically locations that require a server-app uid. But I use REST in conjunction in my server app, because I want my server app to make synchronous reads, something Firebase only supports through the REST API.
FirebaseRestClient firebaseRest = new RestAdapter.Builder()
.setEndpoint(Environment.FIREBASE_URL)
.setRequestInterceptor(new RequestInterceptor() {
#Override
public void intercept(final RequestFacade request) {
request.addQueryParam("access_token", FirebaseAuth.getInstance().createCustomToken("server-app"));
}
})
.build().create(FirebaseRestClient.class);
I've tried adding both the access_token and auth param. It seems like that createCustomToken method produces a valid JWT, but the REST API isn't responding.
When I pass in that createCustomToken return value as the auth param, I get the following message:
"error" : "Missing claim 'kid' in auth header."
When I pass in that createCustomToken return value as the access_token param, I get the basic Permission denied API response.
Is there an easy way to reuse my existing firebase-server-sdk credentials in a REST API call?

The token you're attempting to use is a Firebase Authentication ID token - the type which is designed to be passed to the Firebase SDK on a client. The REST API accepts a Firebase access token (just like the ones in previous Firebase clients).
Your authentication is failing because normally the Firebase SDK takes care of turning your ID token into an access token. Your server can not do this transition or generate an access token using the Firebase SDK so I recommend using the original Firebase Token Generator library with your Firebase Secret to create access tokens for the REST API. This will work fine even for new Firebase projects created since the I/O release.
Note: In the Console your Database Secret can be found under (Gear Icon) > Project Settings > Database.

I'm sure this is not advised, given the name of the undocumented property, but...
If your SDK has logged in with a serviceAccount, you can use firebase.auth().INTERNAL.getToken(), which returns a promised accessToken (and expirationTime) which then works with the ?access_token parameter.

Related

Can I use Firebase's authentication to protect data on my own private server?

Due to some constraints of my project I need to manage my api server and database separately from firebase, however there is nothing stoping me from using their other tools like analytics and in this particular case authentication.
I wanted to ask if following scenario is possible:
I authenticate user on my client app using their SDK's
I send relevant jwt data in headers of my API
Can I then somehow validate this on my server, so in essence avoid complex auth service and use firebase for this instead? Are there any examples, preferably for NodeJS server.
Yes you can, it's very common use case and firebase auth has been made with such usage in mind. As you said, send jwt data on headers, then on the server, you verify the token with firebase service:
var admin = require('firebase-admin');
admin.initializeApp(); //may require other steps, see last link
// idToken comes from the client app
admin.auth().verifyIdToken(idToken, true)//second argument is optional, checks whether the ID token was revoked
.then(function(decodedToken) {
let uid = decodedToken.uid;
// ...
}).catch(function(error) {
// Handle error
});
https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/admin/verify-id-tokens
https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/admin/node/admin.auth.Auth#verifyidtoken
https://firebase.google.com/docs/admin/setup

How to get custom claims of `FirebaseUser` on unity

I using firebase auth on unity for user login.
When user join, client send join request to my my server and my server will set custom claim(userNumber) to user.(Currently, Server using firebase-admin-dotnet)
After user joined, client re-login for refresh.
At this time, i want get custom claim in token. but i can't find relative method in FirebaseUser class..
Custom claim access is missing from the Unity SDK as of v6.6 (Nov 2019). You can add a server function that returns the custom claims for the current user:
// Either use an existing User ID
UserRecord user = await FBAuth.GetUserAsync (uid);
return user.CustomClaims; // user.CustomClaims ["userNumber"]
// OR use a verified ID token
FirebaseToken token = await FBAuth.VerifyIdTokenAsync (idToken);
return token.Claims; // token.Claims ["userNumber"]
Important: If you use a billed-usage server, like Cloud Functions, this approach will incur billing charges, unlike a built-in Firebase method.
Other platforms (Android, iOS, web) have this method already (getIdTokenResult), so I submitted a feature request to Firebase to include it in a future version.

RN Firebase Realtime DB auth token payload

Using react-native-firebase:4.3.x
I'm able to connect to RealtimeDB, us requiring security we've set up rules.
But looking through the docs I can't find where how to setup Auth token payload when connecting to firebase. All it has is to connect to DB call the following:
db = firebase.database();
no parameters or anything. Am I to use, the firebase.auth()?
Short answer: Our whole approach on Firebase RealtimeDB's ruleset was incorrect from the beginning; we had done the rules without understanding Firebase Auth and its tie in with RealtimeDB. We had setup, rules based on uid and RealtimeDB only, storing some random token on RealtimeDB hoping we could somehow pass the token on auth payload to the user.
Long answer:
As stated on Firebase's own Database Security docs Database Rules directly uses Firebase Authentication.
From then on, implemented Custom authentication from Authentication RNFirebase.io
client side:
let postLogin = (userCredentials) => {
db = firebase.database();
//...do stuff
}
firebase
.auth()
.signInAndRetrieveDataWithCustomToken(token)
.then(postLogin);
firebase console:
Project Settings -> Service Accounts -> Generate new private key.
which generates json formatted firebase private key and some identifier values. Import that in whatever library you're using on server-side in our case kreait/firebase-php
Do not enable anonymous authentication, that would defeat the purpose.
php using kreait/firebase.php:
use Kreait\Firebase\Factory;
use Kreait\Firebase\ServiceAccount;
$serviceAccount = ServiceAccount::fromJsonFile($pathToJson);
$firebase = (new Factory())
->withServiceAccount($serviceAccount)
->create();
$token = (string) $firebase->getAuth()->createCustomToken($uid, $payload)
I did not need to be aware of payload on client side. It is passed through client side in the signed JWToken.

Firebase 3.0 Tokens : [Error: Firebase Auth ID token has no "kid" claim]

I'm currently developing a node.js service with firebase 3.0 that is called by a web application that uses firebase 2.4.
I'm sending the current user Firebase ID token (Auth.$getAuth().token) in my header call and trying to validade this token with
var idToken = req.headers["x-access-token"];
auth.verifyIdToken(idToken).then(function(decodedToken) {
var uid = decodedToken.sub;
console.log(decodedToken);
}, function(error){
console.log(error);
});
But I'm getting:
[Error: Firebase Auth ID token has no "kid" claim]
getAuth():
UPDATE
I'have just tested generating and validating the token on the server side and I'm getting the same problem.
var auth = firebase.auth();
var token = auth.createCustomToken(userId, {"premium_account": true});
console.log(token);
auth.verifyIdToken(token).then(function(decodedToken) {
console.log(decodedToken);
}, function(error){
console.log(error);
});
Any suggestions?
UPDATE 2: [SOLUTION]
The problem in my case was that the Tokens generated with AngularFire 2.X.X are not compatible with the Firebase 3.X.X that is running in my server. So after digging into some thoughts that people wrote here and in this google group topic the workaround was to use jsonwebtoken as follows:
var jwt = require('jsonwebtoken');
jwt.verify(idToken, fbKey, function(err, decoded) {
if (!err){ console.log(decoded); }
});
You can find the fbKey accessing the new firebase console and going into Settings -> Project Settings -> Database.
The documentation states that a Firebase ID Token is not the same as a Custom Token, and that verifyIdToken() is not intended for verifying tokens generated with generateCustomToken().
Old style custom tokens still seem to work (signed with a database secret instead of a service account private key). You can generate and verify these yourself using firebase-token-generator.js and/or jsonwebtoken.js.
Copied from Firebase Project > Settings > Database > Secrets
Create custom database authentication tokens using a legacy Firebase
token generator. At least one secret must exist at all times.
Seems like there is no way to use firebase's createCustomToken and verifyIdToken in a couple.
Method createCustomToken uses method sign from jsonwebtoken module which does not put "kid" claim in header section of jwt by default.
And createCustomToken does not put it itself.
I suppose at this time you can use jsonwebtoken module directly to generate token with own key id.
firebase#3.0.2
--jsonwebtoken#5.7.0
The token you pass to your server is not a JWT token, and verifyIdToken need a JWT Token.
To obtain a JWT token in your web application, run firebase.app().auth().currentUser.getToken().
Personnally I removed angularfire, the basic firebase framework made angularfire pretty useless in my opinion. Plus, a compatible version with firebase 3.0 of angularfire is not yet released, probably in the next week according to the firebase team.

authenticated access to Firebase REST API within cloud functions

I am trying to access the firebase REST API from a cloud function, using the built-in functions.config().firebase object (my use case is a shallow query).
const { credential } = functions.config().firebase;
credential.getAccessToken().then( ({ access_token }) => {
// use access_token as auth param to query the REST API
});
When I use the returned access_token as the auth parameter in the REST API, I get the could not parse auth token error. Is there a way of generating there a valid auth token without exposing in the config the database secret ?
Many thanks for your help.
Turns out this is a correct way of generating an authentication token, but that with this token, one need to use an access_token param instead of the documented auth one.

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