What is oauth protocol

The Google OAuth 2. The authorization sequence begins when your application redirects a browser to a Google URL; the URL includes query parameters that indicate the type of access being requested. Google handles the user authentication, session selection, and user consent.

The result is an authorization code, which the application can exchange for an access token and a refresh token. The application should store the refresh token for future use and use the access token to access a Google API. Once the access token expires, the application uses the refresh token to obtain a new one. For details, see Using OAuth 2. The process results in a client ID and, in some cases, a client secret, which you embed in the source code of your application.

In this context, the client secret is obviously not treated as a secret. The result is an access token, which the client should validate before including it in a Google API request. When the token expires, the application repeats the process. The authorization sequence begins with the application making a web service request to a Google URL for an authorization code. The response contains several parameters, including a URL and a code that the application shows to the user.

The user obtains the URL and code from the device, then switches to a separate device or computer with richer input capabilities. The user launches a browser, navigates to the specified URL, logs in, and enters the code. Meanwhile, the application polls a Google URL at a specified interval. After the user approves access, the response from the Google server contains an access token and refresh token. In these situations your application needs to prove its own identity to the API, but no user consent is necessary.

Similarly, in enterprise scenarios, your application can request delegated access to some resources. For these types of server-to-server interactions you need a service account , which is an account that belongs to your application instead of to an individual end-user.

Your application calls Google APIs on behalf of the service account, and user consent is not required. In non-service-account scenarios, your application calls Google APIs on behalf of end-users, and user consent is sometimes required. You use the client ID and one private key to create a signed JWT and construct an access-token request in the appropriate format. Your application then sends the token request to the Google OAuth 2.

The application uses the token to access a Google API. For details, see the service-account documentation. For details, see the API documentation. Google reserves the right to change token size within these limits, and your application must support variable token sizes accordingly. You must write your code to anticipate the possibility that a granted refresh token might no longer work. A refresh token might stop working for one of these reasons:.

A Google Cloud Platform project with an OAuth consent screen configured for an external user type and a publishing status of "Testing" is issued a refresh token expiring in 7 days.

There is currently a limit of 50 refresh tokens per Google Account per OAuth 2. If the limit is reached, creating a new refresh token automatically invalidates the oldest refresh token without warning. This limit does not apply to service accounts. There is also a larger limit on the total number of refresh tokens a user account or service account can have across all clients. Despite the obvious risks involved, many vendors still use service accounts because they feel the reduced development costs outweighs the risk of customer data loss.

To avoid any chance of compromising a privileged account, security-focused applications like Spanning will provide application-level authorization leveraging the industry-standard OAuth 2. Above : A splash page for a Google partner service requests the user permission to use Google authentication for application access. The OAuth open authorization protocol was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force and enables secure delegated access. It lets an application access a resource that is controlled by someone else end user.

This kind of access requires Tokens, which represent delegated right of access. An OAuth Access Token transaction requires three players: the end user, the application API , and the resource service provider that has stored your privileged credentials. The transaction begins once the user expresses intent to access the API. Many Office and G Suite backup solutions use service accounts that require administrator rights and privileged credentials to access these systems.

However, a good backup solution enables OAuth data transfers to take place in Secure Sockets Layer SSL to ensure that the most trusted cryptography industry protocols are being used to keep your credentials secure.

To help you make an informed decision before purchasing a backup solution, download our whitepaper Securing Your SaaS Backup. Each time you refresh your access token you get a new cryptographically signed token.

Key rotation is built into the system. It can be in whatever format you want. JWTs allow you to digitally sign information referred to as claims with a signature and can be verified at a later time with a secret signing key. Tokens are retrieved from endpoints on the authorization server. The two main endpoints are the authorize endpoint and the token endpoint.

The authorize endpoint is where you go to get consent and authorization from the user. This returns an authorization grant that says the user has consented to it. Then the authorization is passed to the token endpoint. You can use the access token to get access to APIs. The downside is this causes a lot of developer friction.

One of the biggest pain points of OAuth for developers is you having to manage the refresh tokens. You push state management onto each client developer. API keys are very convenient for the developer, but very bad for security. There are opportunities for toolkits and platforms to simplify things and help with token management. Luckily, OAuth is pretty mature these days, and chances are your favorite language or framework has tools available to simplify things. I mentioned two different flows: getting the authorization and getting the tokens.

The front channel is what goes over the browser. The browser redirected the user to the authorization server, the user gave consent. Once the user takes that authorization grant and hands that to the application, the client application no longer needs to use the browser to complete the OAuth flow to get the tokens. The tokens are meant to be consumed by the client application so it can access resources on your behalf.

We call that the back channel. The back channel is an HTTP call directly from the client application to the resource server to exchange the authorization grant for tokens. These channels are used for different flows depending on what device capabilities you have.

Scopes are from Gmail's API. This should match the value from the client registration process at the DMV. You don't want the authorization being bounced back to a foreign application. Response type varies the OAuth flows. Client ID is also from the registration process. State is a security flag, similar to XRSF. The code returned is the authorization grant and state is to ensure it's not forged and it's from the same request. After the Front Channel is done, a Back Channel Flow happens, exchanging the authorization code for an access token.

The Client application sends an access token request to the token endpoint on the Authorization Server with confidential client credentials and client id. Client accesses a protected resource with Access Token. It's an authorization code from a precomputed perspective. It opens up the flexibility to have different ways to describe these grants.

This is the most common type of OAuth flow. The response is JSON. You can be reactive or proactive in using tokens. Proactive is to have a timer in your client. Reactive is to catch an error and attempt to get a new token then. So now you have a front channel, a back channel, different endpoints, and different clients. You have to mix and match these for different use cases. This up-levels the complexity of OAuth and it can get confusing. The very first flow is what we call the Implicit Flow.

There is no backend server redeeming the authorization grant for an access token. This flow is also called 2 Legged OAuth. Implicit flow is optimized for browser-only public clients. An access token is returned directly from the authorization request front channel only. It typically does not support refresh tokens. It assumes the Resource Owner and Public Client are on the same device. The gold standard is the Authorization Code Flow , aka 3 Legged, that uses both the front channel and the back channel.

The front channel flow is used by the client application to obtain an authorization code grant. The back channel is used by the client application to exchange the authorization code grant for an access token and optionally a refresh token.

It assumes the Resource Owner and Client Application are on separate devices. Again, OAuth is more of a framework. For server-to-server scenarios, you might want to use a Client Credential Flow. It supports shared secrets or assertions as client credentials signed with either symmetric or asymmetric keys.

Symmetric-key algorithms are cryptographic algorithms that allow you to decrypt anything, as long as you have the password. This is often found when securing PDFs or. Public key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is any cryptographic system that uses pairs of keys: public keys and private keys. Public keys can be read by anyone, private keys are sacred to the owner.

This allows data to be secure without the need to share a password. This is very similar to the direct authentication with username and password scenario and is not recommended.