I have a web site in google cloud. I use Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) to protect it.
When a request comes in IAP checks if I'm authorized and then responds with either
if I'm authorized: the response from the resource I requested
if not: a 302 or 401 response depending on if it thinks it is an ajax call or not
Now I want to use Google Sign-In for Websites on top of this.
This might seem redundant since I am already logged in by the time I would see the buttons but I want to use it as a way to log out or change user account.
Now what I have tried to do is:
var auth2 = gapi.auth2.init({
client_id: 'mykey.apps.googleusercontent.com',
})
auth2.isSignedIn.get()
// false, I was hoping that I could somehow piggyback on my existing session
auth2.signIn()
// shows a pop up, allowing me to select an account
auth2.isSignedIn.get()
// true
currentUser.getBasicProfile()
// works
This seems to work except it shows me a login box even when I'm already logged in which is suspicious.
Add to this that when I do
auth2.disconnect()
auth2.isSignedIn.get()
// false
and then do a full refresh then I still get my resources from IAP proving that I'm still logged in there.
Questions:
How can I get this to work?
Is this even the correct way to do it?
I don't know much about Sign-In for Websites, but there's another option that might work for you. Have you considered adding a link to /_gcp_iap/clear_login_cookie to provide a "change user account" option? (It's documented here: https://cloud.google.com/iap/docs/special-urls-howto )
If the user is logged in with multiple Google accounts, that will bounce them back to the account picker. Today, if they're only logged in with one account, it will just send them right back into the application -- but there's an enhancement rolling out next week which will display the account picker even for the single-account case, giving the user a chance to sign in with an additional account.
Hope that helps!
--Matthew, IAP engineering lead
I have an existing Wordpress site. The plan is to rebuild the site using the cakePHP framework. Due to time restrictions, I want to replace individual sections of the Wordpress site one at a time. This will mean that both apps will be running side by side for a certain period of time. I need to control access to the cakePHP app using the authorization provided by Wordpress. I'm not sure the best way to go about doing this. I've seen similar questions asked a lot, but I have not yet found a clear solution.
I'm thinking about two approaches:
Plan A:
Configure Cake to look for Wordpress's authorization cookies.
configure Cake to look at Wordpress's database.
Borrow some of Wordpress's authorization logic to teach Cake's Auth component how to authenticate WP users.
Plan B:
set up an authorization API on my Wordpress site.
set up separate auth component in cake.
ping the WP endpoint when a user hits a protected page in the cake app and then manually log in the user. (This would create a second set of auth cookies)
Do either of these sound like the right approach? Is there a better way to do this?
Helpful references: Article about Cake session handling, Cake Auth component documentation, Cake Auth tutorial, brief overview of WP authorization, a more in depth look at wordpress authorization
UPDATE
We've started working on this, and it seems like it will work, but there is a very tricky aspect involving password hashing that warrants its own question. If you're following this thread, you may want to have a look.
I once had a similar situation: Cross framework authentication zend + codeigniter which was few months ago...
Anyways, this is what I will prefer:
set up an authorization API on my Wordpress site.
set up separate auth component in cake.
ping the WP endpoint when a user hits a protected page in the cake app and then manually log in the user. (This would create a second set of auth cookies)
Here, I would suggest a slight change which is do-able.
Make sure, you have a token system of SSO. As in, when person is logged in on Wordpress, set another cookie which will have a token: Token will be username + password (hashed) + secret key, which will be same between Wordpress and CakePHP. On either site, look up for cookie and manually log the user in or just perform a database look up. Hashing is important for that cookie!
However, if the site is using different domains, you might need to re-strategize:
I had different domains once. At the login or unauthorized page, I would ping the other website and bring up their login box. On the other website if the user is logged in, they get post login page and if request URI has sent a token, we perform normal operation and return the authorized token to this (current) domain.
In simple words:
Site A = WordPress & Site B = CakePHP
Site B hits a page where authorization is required then, ping Site A for a login (as it happens when u do Login-with-Facebook sort), which will request via a Token (private key) and REQUEST_URI which will be part of SSO verification table on Site A, if person is already logged in then, Site A will return (via POST) a token, which further will be decrypted via (private key) of Site B and log the user in. Private key of B and A will be same.
Hope this was understandable.
Questions? :)
Answer to your questions in comment:
Ideally, why we use SSO? We use it because of many constraints. For example: You have a database of say... a million row with more than thousand tables, you need to add a module over ur huge app already... so, instead, you will use another database... SSO will return user information, which can further be replicated. For example, when you click on 'Login with Facebook', it returns requested information, like email address, or user's name or even profile picture. Which can further be added to our database... Keeping different databases is strongly recommended :)
To your 2nd and 3rd question: Should both sites reference the same users table in the database? different databases is recommended unless, you are using the same data. Or say changing the software platform.
Should I copy the site-specific user rows into separate user tables for each app? Yes, that should happen automatically. Once you are registered on a main site, nothing happens, things should happen once you are logged in already and then go to site B... Once logged in, user info can always be requested :) That way, new site will have active users ! 2 birds?
Don't complicate (bother) yourself with how what works but, concentrate on how, what is achievable in short period. SSO - Logged in - Restricted page - Look out for log ins - Either login - If already logged in - fetch user info - If user info exists - login via secondary site OR set the new user info . Done!
We developers love flow charts! Don't we? I just created one:
Further answers:
Does the "Fetch User Info" stage mean that we take the user info from the site which is logged in, and create a new user (row) automatically in the other site?
Ideally, you will ask permission from the user before they 'allow' their info to be used but, it varies how your privacy policies are.
In other words, one site handles all the registration/user-creation and the other site just waits for that user to show up and trigger automatic creation. OR at the moment a user registers on the one site, BOTH databases get a user row inserted?
one site handles all the registration/user-creation and the other site just waits for that user to show up and trigger automatic creation. You can have both. Sign up on your website and also a trigger based automatic creation. Depends on your strategy. OR at the moment a user registers on the one site, BOTH databases get a user row inserted? That would be a horrible practice! It will kill the motive of SSO. Motive of SSO is to create an auth family which can be used by users so that they do not have to register every now and then for different websites. update only one database at a time and other when required :)
Questions? :)
I have done this once. I don't have the snippets and/or any references to anything. But thought it might be helpful.
Configure WP and CakePHP both to use same session, you can do this by session id and session name,
When User registers for your website, register them using both WP and CakePHP,
Choose one framework that will handle login view from the front end. I had chosen CakePHP as I was more proficient with it, once the login is successful locate the same user in other framework's DB and authenticate the user using their authentication system.
Hope this helps !!!
Suggestions:
If you are building a closed system, meaning you have to be signed in to access anything useful in the site, then you can use CAS . I know it's used by mainly universities, but for closed systems it works.
( If you need to handle anonymous users the suggestions below might help)
Keep it simple and, similar to Part A of your plan, have a cookie ( visible by both cake and wordpress ) that simply states if a user is logged in. The cookie should be created/checked by both cake and WP. Cake does not need to look at WP's DB. The cookie can have information on how the users in each system are mapped.
Have a central login screen, this is similar to what CAS does. But please build your own. CAS does not handle anonymous users. I am currently creating a central login screen for work. It's simple. The central login screen will handle all authentication and create the cookie visible to both WP and cake. This would mean that the login link for WP and cake will redirect a user to a common page. The link will need to provide a callback URL so that after the user authenticates successfully, he is redirected back to the original service. You will need to decide on a central DB for user authentication.
The cookie approach has following bonus:
It's a lightweight solution and can be wrapped with an on/off switch. In WP, simply wrap the cookie logic with a wp_options value.
You can use WP's and cake's authentication system. no need to work with API's and/or sessions. No need to couple applications by looking at each other's DB.
You can keep roles and permissions native, meaning WP will work with it's own roles and permissions system and your cake application will work with it's system.
Adding a new "service" to your platform is as simple as "create/check for a cookie" then use the system out-of-the-box auth system to log the user in.
Single Sign On is as simple as creating a cookie. Single Sign Off would be deleting the cookie.
I can definitely go into more detail on each suggestion if you're interested.
I want to build a custom asp.net control to put on a webpage that will allow people to see a piece of information from my facebook account that requires auth. For the sake of simplicity let's just say I'd like it to display the last thing that I liked. I don't want the visitor to my site to have to be logged into facebook (nor would they have to be my friend on fb). I want my site to somehow store a token that I have authorized and then it will use this token for the access. I know this can be done initially, but I'm confused what happens when the token expires. Or for that matter if I log out from facebook. Is there some type of token or secret or something that I can request that can be auto-renewed again and again by my website independent of any login state that I have as an fb user? Does this require me creating an fb app and associating the token to it?
I don't have any code at this point, I'm looking for a higher level of guidance on the protocol that should be used here, from there I can hopefully figure out the code from existing samples, docs, etc. This is my first code interaction with facebook so don't assume that I know very much at this point :-)
EDIT: I've been reading everything I can about this topic and I can't seem to find a solution. In the past there was an RSS feed but that appears to be gone now. Then there was also the offline_access permission which is no longer available. This seems like such a simple task but I'm just not able to connect the dots. I have been able to get the initial user token with perms for reading "likes", that's easy. Now I can store that in my website's db and use it to make requests for that data anytime someone loads my page. But eventually the token will expire and I'm not seeing any automatic way to renew it that wouldn't potentially involve user "Larry", who happens to be browsing my website, being asked to supply MY facebook credentials. Basically it seems as though I could never log out from facebook or I'd be risking a broken feed on my website. Is the fb auth model just not set up to allow for thist? To summarize again - a user Bob wants to give his permission to acme.com to always be able to display Bob's most recent like regardless of whether Bob is logged in to fb or not. He would only want to have this stop working if he revoked authorization to the WhatDoesBobLike app which runs on acme.com. Possible?
-JT
You would need an extended access token. It will only last up to 60 days and from then you would need to re-extend.
If it were a page you could extend the user access token then grab the page access token which would never expire.
Read more at
http://developers.facebook.com/roadmap/offline-access-removal/
I have created a username and password to enter and search people in linkedin. Now, I am devloping a web application using asp.net. I need to open a popup page which is displaying the searched results in linked in as logged in.
When the popup page is displaying, I need to logged in automatically using the username and password.
So, here is my question,
How to logged in automatically when the button clicked in Asp.net application using linked in username and password?.
Thanks
The problem is twofold:
deciding which credentials to use
actually logging in
Logging in is fairly straightforward: post to LinkedIn's login URL in the manner that LinkedIn expects. Unfortunately, LinkedIn still does not have a public API, so this is going to require hackery. Go to a LinkedIn web page that allows login and analyze the page source. There will be a field names for username and password in the login form, and the login form will post to a specific URL. Duplicate the username and password with a web request to the URL of the form. You will receive a cookie as part of the response. Make sure you include that cookie in future requests to LinkedIn and you are then "logged in" for every request.
Of far more importance than the actual logging in, which is a simple programming challenge, is deciding which credentials to use. I'm guessing that you're building an application for others to use, rather than yourself. If so, you'll need to ask them to give you their LinkedIn credentials. Beware: this is something that most people simply will not do. It's a trust issue; if they give you their credentials, you now have access to their profile and can do nefarious things with it. You'll need a good disclaimer explaining how you would never do that, ever, and you'll need the people who read it to believe you. Not as easy as it sounds.
If, however, this is just for you, you're on easy street. Just use your own credentials.
I have managed to get all the authentication parts working, however i am confused about setting up registration.
By registration i mean that if the OpenID is not attached to an existing account, then a new account must be created.
Should i simply have it return to a registration page (with from fields for registration) and redirect to a different page if the user is registered?
Is there a way to set up a clean and simple registration flow without signing the user in first (formsauthentication.redirectfromloginpage) then checking if they are new on every page?
Sorry if this is worded badly, like most other things i ask it is difficult to explain!
Thanks
Ideally, no registration is required at all beyond simply an OpenID. Does your site require to know more than a user identifier to provide any functionality at all?
If your site can offer any services to users (even just informational) without asking for more than their identifier, which OpenID supplies, then don't have a registration page at all. This is by far the best for the users and will lower the barrier of entry to new users to your site. Then, when the user accesses a page that offers something that requires the user to give up more information about themselves, stick them with a registration page at that time.
If you must stick up a registration page for all new users, I suggest you do a check every time someone logs in with their OpenID. If you recognize the OpenID Claimed Identifier upon successful login, you just let them through... otherwise you create a database entry for them and redirect them to the registration form.
You can optimize the experience by using OpenID extensions such as Simple Registration or Attribute Exchange so that the user might get a pre-filled out registration form courtesy of the OpenID Provider, further streamlining the registration process.