Connecting an OpenID Connect service

Introduction

There are three basic OpenID flows, depending whether the service name must be authenticated using its client secret or not:

OpenID flow

Implicit flow

• The Service Provider sends the user to the IdP.
• The IdP authenticates the user.
• The user returns control to the Service Provider along an OpenID token and an OAuth token.

Client credentials flow

• The Service Provider sends the user to the IdP.
• The IdP authenticates the user.
• The user returns control to the Service Provider along an authorization code.
• The Service Provider gets the OpenID token and OAuth token from the IdP by presenting the authorization code, and its client secret. This request is using a direct connection between them.

Password authentication flow

• The Service Provider asks for a user name and password.
• The Service Provider gets the OpenID token and OAuth token from the IdP by presenting the user's name and password, and optionally its client secret. This request is using a direct connection between them.

Examples

1. Authorization code flow

The client application creates a random String, named nonce, and sends to he user the following URL

Request

https://<identityprovider>/authorization? redirect_uri=https://<serviceprovider>/response& client_id=MYCLIENT& nonce=12345679801234567890& scope=openid& response_type=code

Then, the user will be asked for a username and password, or any other means of authentication. After authenticating the user, the browser will be redirected to the URL configured in the service provider page, adding a one-time authorization code.

Request

https://<serviceprovider>/response/? code=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX& nonce=12345679801234567980

Once the service provider has received the one-time authorization code, it can connect to the identity provider to retrieve the oAuth token, as well as the OpenID token.

Request

POST https://<YOUR_SERVER>:2443/token Accept: application/json Authorization: Basic dGVzdDp0ZXN0 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded   grant_type=authorization_code&code=XXXXXXXXXXXX

Parameters

• Authorization: contains, coded in base 64, the client id and the client secret, as it would have been sent for a standard Basic authentication header. The identity provider will match these against the stored credentials.

• grant_type: should be authorization_code.

• code: should be the one-time authorization code received in the previous requested.

Response

{     "access_token":"8bDP2P...",     "refresh_token":"gjLmSW...",     "id_token":"eyJra.eyJ.LQ_XtHKr.RY3A4...",     "token_type":"Bearer",     "expires_in":11998 }

• The id_token  tag contains the OpenId token.
• The access_token tag contains the oAuth token.

Before the number of seconds specified om expires_in are elapsed, the token can be renewed by invoking again the token endpoint changing the grant_type:

Request

POST https://<YOUR_SERVER>:2443/token Accept: application/json Authorization: Basic dGVzdDp0ZXN0 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded   grant_type=refresh_token&refresh_token=XXXXXXXXXXXX

Parameters

• Authorization: contains, coded in base 64, the client id and the client secret, as it would have been sent for a standard Basic authentication header. The identity provider will match these against the stored credentials.
• grant_type: should be refresh_token.
• refresh_code: should be refresh code received in the previous requested.

Response

{     "access_token":"8bDP2P...",     "refresh_token":"gjLmSW...",     "id_token":"eyJra.eyJ.LQ_XtHKr.RY3A4...",     "token_type":"Bearer",     "expires_in":11998 }

2. User’s password + client credentials flow

The application asks the user for the user name and password. Then, it connects to the token endpoint to get an access token:

Request

POST https://<YOUR_SERVER>:2443/token Accept: application/json Authorization: Basic dGVzdDp0ZXN0 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded   grant_type=password& username=USER& password=PASSWORD&XXXXXXXXXXXX

Parameters

• Authorization: contains, coded in base 64, the client id and the client secret, as it would have been sent for a standard Basic authentication header. The identity provider will match these against the stored credentials
• grant_type: should be password
• username: must be the user name entered by the user.
• password: must be the password entered by the user.

Response

{     "access_token":"8bDP2P...",     "refresh_token":"gjLmSW...",     "id_token":"eyJra.eyJ.LQ_XtHKr.RY3A4...",     "token_type":"Bearer",     "expires_in":11998 }

• The id_token tag contains the openid token.
• The access_token tag contains the oAuth token.

Before the number of seconds specified in expires_in are elapsed, the token can be renewed by invoking again the token endpoint:

Request

POST https://<YOUR_SERVER>:2443/token Accept: application/json Authorization: Basic dGVzdDp0ZXN0 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded   grant_type=refresh_token&refresh_token=XXXXXXXXXXXX

Parameters

• Authorization: contains, coded in base 64, the client id and the client secret, as it would have been sent for a standard Basic authentication header. The identity provider will match these against the stored credentials
• grant_type: should be refresh_token
• refresh_code: should be refresh code received in the previous requested

Response

{     "access_token":"8bDP2P...",     "refresh_token":"gjLmSW...",     "id_token":"eyJra.eyJ.LQ_XtHKr.RY3A4...",     "token_type":"Bearer",     "expires_in":11998 }

3. Closing the session

The application wants to revoke the token and session cookie:

Request

POST https://<YOUR_SERVER>:2443/revoke Accept: application/json Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Authorization: Basic dGVzdDp0ZXN0 token_type_hint=token=access_token &token=99999999

Parameters

• Authorization: contains the encoded client id and client secret.
• token_type_hint: can have the following values:
  • access_token
  • refresh_token
  • session_cookie
• token: contains the authorization token, refresh_token or session_cookie value

4. Getting user attributes

All the user attributes can be extracted from the OpenID token. Anyway, it is possible to get them in a more readable format user the user-info endpoint.

Request

GET https://<YOUR_SERVER>:2443/user-info Accept: application/json Authorization: Bearer dGVzdDp0ZXN0

Parameters

• Authorization: contains a valid access token.

Response

{     "sub": "admin",     "surname": "Admin",     "given_name": "Admin",     "member_of": [         "TestRole2@soffid",        "TestRole@soffid"     ] }

5. Getting a session cookie for the user

Sometimes, a mobile application has authenticated the user using the username & password grant, but wants to share this authenticated session with the underlying web browser. For such a case, the application can request a session cookie with this request:

Request

GET https://<YOUR_SERVER>:2443/session_cookie Accept: application/json Authorization: Bearer dGVzdDp0ZXN0

Parameters

• Authorization: contains a valid access token.

Response

{     "stats":"Success" }