Securing REST API using GRAILS, GROOVY, ORACLE with API KEY - security

I have a naive question.
I am looking for some web application that implements Authentication and Authorization mechanism using api keys.
Example Case: Users authenticate themselves using an api key (apikey generation
mechanism is either GOOGLE or any other free service). The logic identify the user along
with the provided apikey and release resource access delegation accordingly]
For me the optimal case is to use Grails framework with oracle database.
Is there any web application for that?, otherwise how would I follow step by step to accomplish it?

I would do a search on the Grails plugin site for oauth plugins:
http://plugins.grails.org/
Look at what they offer, and maybe look at the code to see how you can extend them to get what you want.
I would also take a look at the Spring Security Rest plugin.

It really depends on authentication methods that you're using. I suppose in order to secure REST APIs, you can probably write a filter/interceptor to check against any third party auth that you desire. I reckon that you're probably having the idea of using JWT authentication for this, right?

Related

which authentiation to use

Our application is currently written in .NET Framework + Razor, and traditional Membership authentication.
I am trying to modernize it, so I stawted to work on a .net core + react solution, but it has to cooperate with the existing application.
So currently, we have the old monolit, and an other .net core apis, called by react. The react is embedded inside the Razor.
Now I need to choose what authentication to use. I guess membership and other session based authentications can't be used, because there are multiple apps in multiple domains. So I need tokens.
I am not really sure about which solution can or should I use. I know buzzwords like bearer token, .NET Identity, OAuth + OpenId, but can I use any of them in this situation, to use it to protect the API and as well for the "traditional" razor app?
And where should I store the token? Should I store it in a session of the razor app, and pass it to the React too?
I need a solution where user credentials are stored in our own database, not something list Google's or Facebook's single sign on.
Is there a good tutorial for this?
You're asking for a lot here. I would suggest brushing up on this topic from the beginning. If you only know the buzz words you won't get anywhere quick. I can give some quick advice but if you aren't familiar with the basics this won't really help. There is no quick solution for your answer.
I would suggest authentication on the edge of the application to achieve a nice separation to work with the existing app. I would create a light weight method that receives the request from the client and gives the api gateway proof of the user identity in a way the API can verify. I would go with OAuth and OpenId Connect protocol to achieve this separation. Also, take a look at IdentityServer, it is an open source product that makes it easy to implement single sign-on and access control(Authentication) in web applications and HTTP APIs.
OpenId Connect to authenticate users
OAuth to limit collaboration for these light weight method calls
JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) for user identities
Now the problem with this solution is that there is a high level of trust between this light weight method call and the rest of the system. The principle of defense in depth would suggest to implement a layering strategy, so that if this layer is compromised another layer is there as the next line of defense. I'll leave the rest up to you.

Azure Mobile App Authentication using Xamarin

I read these two articles 1.here and 2.here to find out what is best way to perform authentication against an Azure Mobile App when the API on the server is using Claims based custom authorization and the Xamarin client calling it is using the MobileServiceClient framework. I am unable to finalize which of the two examples in those links is the better way to go.
In the first link there doesn't seem to be any dependency on platform specific code like it has in the second link, which means I don't need to write any code in the Driod or IOS or Windows projects and can get away with doing everything in a class library itself.(Am I right here?)
Also, the first link seems to not require any provider like the second link does because I am invoking a direct service call to a Url. The second link on the other hand only seems to support Facebook, Twitter, MicrosoftAccount, Google and WindowsAzureActiveDirectory. The mandatory MobileServiceAuthenticationProvider parameter doesn't seem to provide for Custom Authentication against a sql server based User table. I am not sure about this part and cant find documentation that says otherwise.
If LoginAsync doesn't provide for Custom Authentication then its clear that I will need to follow the InvokeApiAsync route. If it does provide it then the question is: should I write platform specific(Droid/IOS/windows) code in each target project like in the second link or should I handle all the service calls in a class library as can be done in the example shown in the first link? In other words should I go with LoginAsync or InvokeApiAsync? Which of the two is the recommended way?
The first article shows off custom authentication, as you intimated. The second article shows off App Service Authentication, which has a known list. If you need to do a custom username/password, then go with the former. If you need to go with social auth or enterprise auth, then go with the latter.
My general recommendation is don't require the user to create yet another username unless you have to - which means social authentication for consumer apps and enterprise authentication via AAD for enterprise apps.
My other recommendation is to always use the client SDK for doing the authentication part. This allows you to follow the very latest practices from the provider (facebook, twitter, etc.) in respect to security, refresh tokens and other authentication requirements. Once you have the provider token, it's easy to swap it for an Azure Mobile token by using LoginAsync() with a token. See the Azure Documentation for information on this.
In all cases, you are going to need platform specific code - that means using the DependencyService (as in the second example) to execute your login code. I generally create a singleton class that wraps the MobileServiceClient in the PCL. Then create an ILoginProvider interface which has LoginAsync/LogoutAsync code in it to handle the platform dependency code. My singleton class then calls the DependencyService to get the code. You can find an example in my GitHub Repository that covers iOS, Android and UWP.

Secure Grails Rest Api with Spring Security Rest Plugin

Can I use spring-security-rest as a replacement of Oauth?. My app has server side part and java script client side part where I found that spring-security-rest plugin fits most. But I want to be able to authenticate other apps who want to consume my service (I want to be something like Oauth provider). Does spring-security-rest plugin support this? or should I use another plugin?
The plugin is not a fully OAuth provider. Or said in OAuth terminology, is not a full Authorisation Server.
In that case I recommend you Spring Security OAuth 2 Provider Plugin
If you are looking only for a simplistic token based authentication for your service, you could leverage the spring security rest plugin and tweak it a little bit based on your need without having to implement the full blown Spring Security OAuth2 Provider plugin. I managed to accomplish something similar with by extending some of the base classes of spring security rest plugin to modify the login payload and authentication and exposed a token/validate as a REST endpoint. I put up this as an independent authentication service that uses the /api/login API for token generation in tandem with the /token/validate to accomplish some kind of validation on token. Not a full blown Oauth scenario but serves the purpose of authentication between consumer and provider services.

What kind of authentication mechanism to use for my REST based API service?

I am making a small Rest based webservice. I have used OAuth and other authentication mechanism before but never implemented one by myself. Can some one give direction on how to do this in either NodeJs or even in any other framework.
Use this. It has a lot of examples inside that repo.
Besides of that OAuth I would use some api-key auth (maby generated in your online service). And of course limit the access - protect your servers from too large traffic from a single api-key.

Spring/Acegi security for REST Webservices in WebApplication?

Our current app is a standard spring 2.5 application with Form Based Authentication using Acegi. However, we need to expose some REST Service for 3rd party application and we are trying to use BASIC auth over SSL. We have used RESTEAsy for exposing the REST Services. Now, given that the rest of the application uses form & Session based authentication, how can I enable basic authentication for the few REST Services.
To me, the usecase seems normal, however, I couldn't find much reference on the web. Any comment/suggestions will be very much appreciated.
Regarding the more general question of whether to secure the REST service using Form authentication or Basic/Digest authentication - this is deeply tied into one of the more important constraints of RESTful architecture - statelessness.
With this in mind, logging into a service means keeping state on the server, which goes against the stateless server constraint. From an authentication POV, Form based authentication implies logging in, whereas Basic/Digest authentication means embedding the authentication credentials in each request, with no need to keep any state on the server. This is why this kind of authentication is much more inline with the way REST is meant to be build.
Hope this helps.
Check out Basic/Digest Authentication in the Spring Security Reference.

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