Symfony2 Oauth2 Server with authorization code grant, Symfony2 APIRest and Angular JS client - angularjs

What I have:
-API Rest in Symfony2 using friendsofsymfony/rest-bundle exposing some resources.
-Oauth2 server in Symfony2 using FOSOAuthServerBundle.
-Client in Angular.js doing requests to the API Rest. This client currently gets to login via the authorization code grant (using Hello.js with a custom module), and gets the access token effectively.
I want these API resources secured, so:
-On API Rest app: I implemented the AuthenticationEntryPointInterface which I set as the entry_point in security.yml, to return 401 code and application/json content-type on rejected.
-Client intercepts 401 responses and sends the user to the login form.
-Client sends api rest requests with X-Access-Token set on header.
My current issues:
1) I'm not sure whether I should be setting X-Access-Token on client for requests, I understand this is the right way? Or should I leave it all to hello.js api methods?
2) I have no idea how to make the API Rest app "ask" the oauth server "is this token ok? who does it belong to?" Is this already solved in Symfony?
Thanks a lot for any answer or guideline. Feel free to require any further information or code for what I describe.

For anyone else facing a similar issue:
1) As for the client authenticated requests after login, I let hello.js hello(provider).api methods solve it. It sends access_token as a param. I didn't have to set X-Access-Token on the header or any other "hand made" touch.
2) I didn't find an out of the box solution by symfony for this. But this is what I did:
-Configured a before filter for the protected controller (see doc)
-In that method, I made a call to the API held on the OAuthServer (using this bundle)

Related

How authorization code flow works in single page applications?

Hi I am exploring some of the authentication and authorization flows with respect to azure active directory. I was using previously oath implicit flow in single page application. After spending time in reading microsoft documentation, I have understood following with respect to implicit flow.
Implicit Flow:
Single page javacript application uses implicit flow to get obtain access token from azure active directory. It directly calls token endpoint to obtain the token so this makes implicit flow less secure.
Authorization Folw in .Net Web application
Whenever we use .Net core web mvc application with authorization code flow, first call will happen in browser to authorization endpoint to get code. In browser we could see the request made to authorization end point. In request url I will pass response type as code then client id and redirect ui. Here first handshake take place between browser and authorization end point. This handshake returns code to the redirect uri. Next part, application has to make POST request to token endpoint to get access token. Code received in first step I will send in token request. In this request I will include client secrete also, redierct uri also. But whenever I make first GET request to authorization endpoint I will not pass client secrete. This is because Its not good to expose secrete in browser. So in second post request I will include client secrete also. Once I get access token I will add it in api request header to make secured call to apis.
This is the authorization code flow flavor I have understood with respect to .Net core web application. now I have another flavor of authorization code with respect to single page application.
Authorization Code Flow in React Web App
I have SPA react application which uses MSAL library. I have cloned sample application from github https://github.com/Azure-Samples/ms-identity-javascript-react-tutorial/tree/main/3-Authorization-II/1-call-api/SPA.
Whenever I run this application, and sign in first call will happen as below
https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/discovery/instance?api-version=1.1&authorization_endpoint=https://login.microsoftonline.com/c5ffa990-7e0a-4bf6-6c04-79ab98e05931/oauth2/v2.0/authorize
I am trying to understand this request. I have query string appended to the url authorization_endpoint=https://login.microsoftonline.com/c5ffa990-7e0a-4bf6-6c04-79ab98e05931/oauth2/v2.0/authorize so this may be used to return the code from authorization server.
Immediately next call will happen https://login.microsoftonline.com/c5ffa990-7e0a-4bf6-6c04-79ab98e05931/oauth2/v2.0/token
to get access token and in request in FormData section I could see following parameters
client_d, redirect_uri,scope,code
In code I see some code value hopefully received from authorization endpoint. anyway this api returned me access_token.
Now coming to conclusion, In .Net core web application and React SPA application both places I am using authorization code flow.
In .Net core authorization code flow I am making use of client secrete whenever trying to obtain access token. All this happen in server side in secure manner. In react also I am using Authorization code flow but I am not using Client secrete anywhere.
In react app also I am making two requests one for authorization endpoint to get code and another to get token. All this I can see in browser itself but then How can I consider this is as secure?
In .Net web app and react app both apps making use of authorization code flow but it behaves independently depends on the type of application.
After going through several documents and videos over the internet I concluded myself as
When Authorization code flow used with server side web apps like .Net core MVC, It makes use of client_secrete to get access token and this call will happen in server side so client secrete not exposed through browser to the users
When Authorization flow used SPA applications without server side support, first it will make call to get authorization code then It will make post request to get access token WITHOUT client_secrete.The only way the authorization code grant with no client secret can be secure is by using the “state” parameter and restricting the redirect URL to trusted clients.
So I am concluding myself as when we use server side web app with authorization code flow we can make use of client secrete but in case of SPA we are not making use of client_secrete.
I have understood above concepts and explained what I understood and also I listed the confusions I got after implementing 2 flavors of authorization code flow in web app and spa app. can someone help me If my understanding is correct or not, If my understanding is wrong, where exactly I understood wrong? Can anyone help me with respect to this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Authcode flow is an OAuth 2.0 workflow, you can use it in any kind of client (Web/mobile/SPA).
Clients should be using MSAL library to communicate with AAD/B2C with PKCE which is used to secure authorization code grants via Proof Key for Code Exchange (code_challenge) with S256 encryption.
Authcode Grant Flow spec:
If you are using B2C, your entry endpoint is:
https://{tenant}.b2clogin.com/{tenant}.onmicrosoft.com/{policy}/oauth2/v2.0/authorize?
client_id=90c0fe63-bcf2-44d5-8fb7-b8bbc0b29dc6
&response_type=code
&redirect_uri=urn%3Aietf%3Awg%3Aoauth%3A2.0%3Aoob
&response_mode=query
&scope=90c0fe63-bcf2-44d5-8fb7-b8bbc0b29dc6%20offline_access
&state=arbitrary_data_you_can_receive_in_the_response
&code_challenge=YTFjNjI1OWYzMzA3MTI4ZDY2Njg5M2RkNmVjNDE5YmEyZGRhOGYyM2IzNjdmZWFhMTQ1ODg3NDcxY2Nl
&code_challenge_method=S256
that will display the SignIn-SignUp-Social Login Form. Just navigate to this URL with you App ClientId registered inside B2C.
You also can take a look to the custom policies starter pack to adapt your workflow to your needs (claims).
If you change response_type=code for response_type=id_token you will get a Token that can be used to authenticate against your restricted resources (API's) after all login process.
Or you can use a second call to the token endpoint to get it.
Token endpoint:
POST https://{tenant}.b2clogin.com/{tenant}.onmicrosoft.com/{policy}/oauth2/v2.0/token HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
grant_type=authorization_code&client_id=90c0fe63-bcf2-44d5-8fb7-b8bbc0b29dc6&scope=90c0fe63-bcf2-44d5-8fb7-b8bbc0b29dc6 offline_access&code=AwABAAAAvPM1KaPlrEqdFSBzjqfTGBCmLdgfSTLEMPGYuNHSUYBrq...&redirect_uri=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob&code_verifier=ThisIsntRandomButItNeedsToBe43CharactersLong
code=XXXXXXXXXXXXX parameter is the access_code returned from first GET request.
Solutions to this is to switch to implicit flow, where there is no need of exchanging code for access token. But keeping access token in web application still vulnerable as this can be exposed using XSS or similar kind of attacks.
Other best practice is https://curity.io/resources/learn/the-token-handler-pattern/

Handling id_token in ASP.NET Core API

I'm implementing Auth0 with my ASP.NET Core 2.1 app with React front end.
After the user authenticates, I do get both an access_token and an id_token. I'm clear that I send the access_token in the header to gain access to my API methods but I'm not sure how to handle the id_token.
Do I place the id_token in the header as well? If so, what key do I use for it? I'm sending the access_token with the key Authorization -- see below.
Not sure how to send the id_token and would appreciate some pointers on this. Thanks.
You would use id_token to construct the User object in SPA application and access_token is used to access the API. So, you don't put the id_token in the header.
There is a JavaScript library for Auth0 that can help with authentication/authorization tasks: Auth0.js.
The library may help with constructing the user object and refreshing the access token.

How to use SAML authentication in a mobile application?

I'm trying to understand how an saml authentication flow could work in a mobile environment where the client (AngularJS based), api server (Node & passport based), and idp exist on different domains.
From what I've gathered the general practice is to have the server return a 401 to the client if there's no authentication present (i.e. the client didn't include a bearer token in the request). The client understands that a 401 response indicates to open up the login endpoint on the server. When the login endpoint is opened it makes a passport call to the auth provider (which redirects the user to the auth provider's site) and supplies a callback URL. When the user authenticates, the auth provider redirects to the provided callback URL, which allows the server to retrieve information from the auth provider's response and construct a token of some sort (e.g. JWT) that can be used by the client (i.e. included in the headers) when making REST calls to identify itself.
My question is: How does the client get the token from the server? Because we're in a redirect-based authentication flow, I can't just return token from the callback function; that would just display the token in the browser without handing it off of to the client. Does the server just issue a 302 redirect pointing back to the client domain and include the authentication token in a header? Maybe I should not redirect from the client to the server in the first place and instead window.open() and use window.opener.postMessage or is that too old fashioned/mobile-unfriendly?
This question talks about authentication against a SAML IDP, but I'm interested in getting more details specifically about that last bullet point and how it would work with an AngularJS-based client.
Many examples I've seen online are either a single domain using OAuth/SAML (passport-saml-example), which avoids the issue of having the client exist on a separate domain, or use two domains with basic authentication, which avoids the issue of redirecting to some third party for authentication, but I'm having trouble finding good examples that uses all the bits and pieces I'm trying to work with.
This blog post seems very close to what I'm trying to accomplish (see googleSignInCallback) and uses a 302 redirect like I imagined but that solution relies on explicitly knowing the client URL to redirect to, which seems like it could be problematic if I wanted to support multiple client types (i.e. Native applications) in the future.
Eventually I was able to work together a solution by having my application open a browser window (Cordova's InAppBrowser) to a SAML-enabled application, have that application complete the normal SAML flow, and then that SAML-enabled application generated a JWT. My mobile application was then able to extract the JWT string from the browser window with the InAppBrowser's executeScript functionality. Then I could pass that JWT string along to my API server, which was able to validate the JWT is properly signed and trusted.
After I implemented my solution I saw that there was similar functionality available on github:
https://github.com/feedhenry-templates/saml-service
https://github.com/feedhenry-templates/saml-cloud-app
https://github.com/feedhenry-templates/saml-cordova-app
Hopefully this helps anyone else trying to deal with this issue!

Siteminder SSO + Spring Security + Angular JS

I have seen lot of examples where, there is a custom Login page with Angular JS, and then we make a rest POST call with the username/pwd, and then Spring authenticates based on whatever Auth Service we provide. Then we receive a success, grab the user object from Spring Security and then create a Session cookie in Angular.
https://github.com/witoldsz/angular-http-auth/blob/master/src/http-auth-interceptor.js
I also have seen, integrating Siteminder with Spring Security where we install a policy agent on the web server, and then grab request headers with Spring Security, and then pull the roles and build a user profile object.
I'm looking for a solution where I can combine both the above. This is the scenario :
When the user requests for index.html (Angular), the policy agent on the web server intercepts, authenticates with a Siteminder login page and then passes the headers to the app server. The Spring Security on app server will read the headers and pull the roles from our app database and then build a userprofile object. Now here, I want to continue the flow and display angular page, but Im trying to figure out, how do I send the user profile object to angular, because angular is not making a POST call at this point. Also, how do I get the http-auth-interceptor in play, because I need to keep checking if the user is still authenticated on the change of every view/state in Angular.
Help appreciated ! Thanks !
You may implement a tiny JSON REST service "/your-app/profile" which is protected by SiteMinder, reads and evaluates the headers and returns the result as a JSON object.
Your Angular App (e.g. /your-app/index.html) should better also be protected by SiteMinder so you receive an immediate redirect to the SSO Login when accessing it without session. In addition, it must read the JSON REST resource "/your-app/profile" when loaded. It must also expect that SMSESSION is missing when reading "/your-app/profile" and react accordingly - perform a reload of the protected index.html page to trigger a SM SSO re-login (if "/your-app/index.html" is protected, otherwise you must trigger login by a redirect to some protected resource).
If you want to constantly check to see if SiteMinder session is still present, you may either access the "/your-app/profile" or check for the presence of the SMSESSION cookie (only in case it is not set as HTTP-only).
One SECURITY NOTE: If you rely on the seamless SSO which is provided via SMSESSION cookie, be aware of the possible CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) attacks!
Apparently both roles and the username will be available in spring if the integration is done as this describes
Integrating Spring Security with SiteMinder

How to secure an AngularJS application that does not use authentication?

I have an AngularJS application (using ASP.NET Web API as the backend) that does not require the user to authenticate (the application has no login). I want to make sure that the REST API methods the AngularJS application invokes can only be invoked from the application. I obviously cannot use token based authentication for that.
If doing nothing special the REST API methods can be invoked freely using the browsers address bar or by writing a desktop application that invokes them. The same-origin policy is only regarded if a browser invokes an API method by a HTML page coming from a site having another origin. The REST API is therefore open to the public and easily hackable.
I wonder what I could do to securely restrict the access to the REST API. Any ideas or experience?
Edit 1:
I found an easy solution for my problem: I just check if the host of the URL referrer is the same as the host of the requested URL. Using ASP.NET Web API the code the REST API actions use is:
private bool ApiCallIsAllowed()
{
var request = HttpContext.Current.Request;
return (request.UrlReferrer != null &&
request.UrlReferrer.Host == request.Url.Host);
}
I am just not 100% sure if I always get the URL referrer.
Edit 2: According to this question the URL referrer ist not reliable. Bummer.
use ssh - that's obvious :)
login process should generate token - write it as a cooke - every http request will use it in header
prepare rest interceptor that will read your token and authorize every request
use some Javascript Obfuscator
Don't forget to invalidate session ;).
you can use spring-security or other framework to simplify this process

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