Skip to content

The Account Server

The Account Server handles authentication, authorization and account management.

Authentication

Most API calls require authentication using an access token.

Access tokens are only issued to valid accounts on registered clients.

To get an access token, a user has four options:

In all cases, the user gets redirected back to the client with an access token. Depending on client configuration, the access token is appended to the URL query string or set as cookie. For debugging, you may also configure a client to send the access token back in a JSON body, this will however not really work with the third-party login options due to the redirect-based OAuth flow.

The access token is a JSON Web Token [RFC 7519] signed with RS512. The public RSA key can be obtained from the account server using the ec:auth/public-key relation for validation. The decrypted JWT contains the following information:

  • jti: Token identifier (UUID)
  • sub: Account ID (UUID)
  • email: primary eMail address of the account
  • iss: issuer ("entrecode")
  • iat: timestamp (in seconds) the token was issued
  • exp: expiration timestamp of the token (in seconds)

See JWT libraries for JWT decoding and validating.

The issued access token has to be sent using the following HTTP Header:

Authorization: Bearer eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJSUzUxMiJ9.eyJlbWFpbCI6InRlc3RAZW50cmVjb2RlLmRlIiwianRpIjoiYjQ0MDE5ODAtODkwOC00OWIyLWE4YjQtYTBjOGI4OWQ2Nzk2IiwiaWF0IjoxNDQwNDk0MTI0LCJleHAiOjE0NDA0OTc3MjQsImlzcyI6ImVudHJlY29kZSIsInN1YiI6IjA3MDBkYWNlLTA1YTgtNDk2Zi05YTFhLTIwYTdmODQ4ODQ5NiJ9.O3HPjePx1uHsA4QyOAer3za0JrxpH_WiKV__9eTTD_2CwlGp2Mjv03wG49mdg_NQUIPFAISqJZMZTiTI0S3hPVYQ1N5_zhqSyWE29OJlCD0yFbcZIEglyydYydBhtj9yPgNhhjCKSSKjrTWqXlBV-KMrVJOqqmjVn55DEdATppqOWWQgI18_FXcL7zXZR5qGuZ8JTUBhCxQ9p1bu7ydRmJQHzxvoqfb_IN6sc6QycsOMs6pSrdatGK0GTFjyjvR1EWBaPgyTQo90Q0o9l7dLTQoueqdkzNH7A0BiRgGiqB775DeEBpGoO5oJYjVQGo7IcdKwIBKNV8WRvgecwT-w3w

The token can also be sent via query string property _token.

To acquire an access token, ec:auth/login for user credentials or ec:auth/facebook or ec:auth/google has to be called. See the Link Relation table of the Entry Point Resource for details.

Client registration

Client registration is needed to obtain access tokens. Due to the authentication flow of OAuth, the end user is sent to the OAuth Provider in the browser, and afterwards redirected back to the client application. The access token can only be sent to the client using a valid redirect URL that gets the token appended as query string parameter or cookie.

The following information is needed:

  • clientID: Unique string identifier for the client. Has to be appended to requests.
  • callbackURL: URL to send the user agent back to after success
  • config (JSON):
    • tokenMethod: Specifies how the token is sent back to the client. Values: query, cookie or body. Can also be an array with multiple values. body only works with local Authentication (email/password). Default: query
    • disableStrategies: Disallow one or more login strategies for this client. Array containing any of facebook, google, password. Default: null (all strategies enabled)

config can contain a parameter "tokenMethod": "cookie" for the token to be sent as cookie. Default is query, so the token gets sent in the query string as token parameter.

Clients are expected to look for the token in that parameter and save it locally. Note that they should be stored into cookies instead of HTML 5 Local Storage due to security issues (XSRF attacks): Where to Store Your JWTs

Authorization

entrecode uses a permission based authorization and permission system. Basically:

  • accounts can be in any number of groups
  • accounts as well as groups can have permissions
  • account permissions are the sum of all permissions assigned directly to an account, as well as permissions assigned to any group the account is member of
  • permissions are hierarchically organized in a Shiro-like manner using node shiro trie

The available permissions are listed in the internal entrecode Knowledge Base (Authentication needed).

API Keys

API keys are Account Resources without an email address and with no possibility to sign in. Instead, they have one very long-lived access token. They may be used in special cases were a piece of software has to be able to use entrecode APIs just like a user account, without actually involving a user login. To create them, simply POST to ec:auth/create-anonymous (included in the Account List Resource). The result is a JSON containing jwt, an almost indefinitely valid access token (~ 100 Years) as well as the corresponding accountID. After creation, this accountID has absolutely no permissions. You can, however, assign permissions to it or put it in a permission group. The access token is currently only visible after creation and cannot be accessed later, so it should be saved immediately.

Account Server API

State Diagram

State Diagram

Relations

Link Relation names are those registered with the IANA. Additionally, custom link relations are used which are built in the form https://doc.entrecode.de/en/latest/App_Manager/#link-relations/<relation>. Those relations are also links to their own documentation (on this page). For brevity, CURIE Syntax is used which results in relation names of the form ec:<relation>/<optional_subrelation>.

Additional to the official link relations defined by IANA the App Manager uses the following:

Link Relation Target Resource  Description
ec:auth Auth Entry Point
ec:auth/public-key Auth/PublicKey Public RSA key for validation of access token JWTs
ec:auth/register Auth/Signup Registration with email/password
ec:auth/login Auth/Login Login with email/password
ec:auth/logout Auth/Logout Invalidation of an access token
ec:auth/password-reset Auth/Password-Reset Changing a registered password
ec:auth/change-email Auth/Change-Email Changing the given email address with validation
ec:auth/email-available Auth/Email-Available Check if a given email is available for registration
ec:auth/facebook Auth/Facebook Login/Register using Facebook
ec:auth/google Auth/Google Login/Register using Google
ec:accounts Account List Account List
ec:account Account Single Account
ec:account/tokens Token List Access Tokens of an account
ec:account/token Token Single Access Token of an account
ec:account/create-anonymous API Token POST to this resource to create a new anonymous account with an access token. (API key)
ec:acc/groups Account Group List List of Account groups
ec:acc/group Account Group Single Account group
ec:invites Invites Resource Invites for Signups

Auth functions & REST

Some functionality of the Auth Server is not completely RESTful:

  • Login and Signup (either via email/password or a third party provider) will redirect the user agent back after successful authentication, with a JWT in the query string or as cookie header.
  • After registration, an email is sent to the user's email address for validation. After clicking the link, the user gets a HTML page with a success message.
  • Password Reset renders a HTML page that tells the user to check her email account for a password reset email. The email contains a link to change the password, also on a HTML page rendered by the Account Server itself.
  • eMail change also requires validation via eMail. The links in the emails (sent to both the old and the new address) render a HTML page.