Since an access_token has a short life period, for the users' convenience a refresh_token is used.
Let's imagine we have client side mobile iOs/android app. After the first login when the user provides his username and credentials then the subsequent request is sent to the server side which respond with access and refresh token.
But what if 1 minute left before access token expires or it has already expired. Should verification process be on the server side?
Server get a request (gateway proxy as example), read auth token from header, verify expiration time, under the hood update token if refresh token is present (in header as example), modify initial request and proceed with newly created access_token?
Or this kind of iterations should perform client app? On each request validate expires_in date and if so ask for a new access_token using refresh_token grant type and only after this make a remote call?
According to OAuth, when your initial token expires, depending the situation, you should refresh it by sending the refresh_token value to the respective server endpoint. Server does the refreshing operation generating a new token so you get a new token with a new expires_in date. You get many options on how you should send the refresh the token by the client, for example:
Having a timer and send the refresh action before token expiration.
If you have a 401 status error.
I would suggest you coding a HTTP interceptor and when a response get a 401 code, you should send the refresh action.
Related
I am creating a Node js / Express js based, login registration system using JWT (i am using JSONWEBTOKEN npm library).
Whenever a user login, that user gets a pair of access and refresh token. Now for accessing resources user need to send access token to backend.
Now when i verify the access token send by user to backend and if it will not get verified then it produces three types of error (as mentioned is JSONWEBTOKEN library in npm):
Token Expired Error: If i get this error, then in that case i will send response to frontend to send the request to refresh token route to get a new pair of access and refresh token.
JsonWebTokenError: If i get this error then it means that access token is malformed. Then in this case what should i do? Should i logout a user or should i will send a response to frontend to send request to refresh token route to get a new pair of access and refresh token. <-- This is the main question should i logout a user?
NotBeforeError: Since i am not using nbf claim and then in that case i dont need to worry about it.
Please provide your useful suggestion. while building backend security plays an important role.
This is useful to read: JWT refresh token flow.
Talking short, you should logout user if refresh token malformed or expired.
According to JWT idea, access token is short-life token. When it doesn't pass validation due to malformed or expired you have to send refresh token to server to get new pair. User continues to work using new access token without interruption.
If JWT is malformed then just block that call by responding with 403. that's fine. The application then takes the decision on it to refresh the token or not.
When a user logs out please revoke the issued token even if it is a JWT.
JWT also needs to be revoked as best practice. Yes, JWTs are self tokens and expirations already part of themselves. But if user logs out and still their JWTs are not expired means someone can use that token to call different APIs. So it is a security breach.
To avoid such things we should maintain JTI claim of that JWT in our backend with the same TTL with the value of JWT "exp". When the user logs out we have to clear those JTIs and notifcy the API callers about this just putting into some event service from their API Gateways should get to be notified and clear their side cached tokens if anything and cross check with identity system (Introspection).
This is we have to design the system to avoid further security related issues.
First thing is that user will be logged out from front end side.
front end will send request to your node server and token will be verified. Server will only send the response that token is expired or malformed and based on that front end will perform the action.
If token is expired then request for new token.
Is token is malformed then based on your requirements you can show results to your end user. You can either logout user or you can show unauthorized page too.
Suppose, you have role based website and some unauthorized user is trying to access root level routes then you can show unauthorized page.
I am trying implementing JWT Tokens(Access tokens and Refresh tokens), but I come to an issue on requesting a protected resource with an expired access token, while the refresh token is still valid.
I know that I should not use refresh tokens to request resources, refresh tokens should be used against authorization validators to revalidate/regenerate access tokens.
In my app, the User can log in by POST request with a valid credential to get Access token(exp. in 1min) and Refresh token(exp. in 10min.). Say now User making a request 30 sec later of login and sends both tokens, then tokens get checked and resource comes back. If now user makes a request after 2min and sends tokens, his access token is Invalid, in this scenario how can I proceed with the request and revalidate tokens.
I can think of middleware to validate and provide tokens and send that with the response, but is this the right approach?
Then I need to handle and restore tokens on the client-side for every response. Don't I?
Also, I do not want to prompt users to re-login. I am using Node and Express for Server and React on Client.
Here are your steps:
Try to login
Receive 401 from server when token is invalid
Request a new access token by making a new refresh request.
Set the new access token and refresh token
Retry original request
This has to be done on the client side because it is the audience that gets validated for authorization.
Usually we don't set the access token to expire every minute because the described process would add too much latency to the process.
Edit from #MComment:
5 min for access tokens and 30 min up to a few hours is what is generally recommended for respectively access and refresh tokens. Usually Authorization Servers offer "rolling refresh" - refresh token's expiration is renewed whenever you use it. This way a user stays logged in as long as they are actively using the website
You can update expired date of access token in every request, no need to regenerate token.
I think session time you set is not normal and recommended.
If you dont want user must re-login, make a forever refresh token, create a function in reactjs for re-generate access token by refresh token if it expired.
Revoke refresh token only when u want to logout from this client.
Good evening, I ran into a problem that I need to make authorization more secure and without re-logging. I read on the Internet that you need to use two tokens (access and refresh), but how to properly do authorization with them. You can advise a resource where competent authorization with two tokens is made.
My Tech Stack:
MongoDB
ExpressJS
ReactJS
NodeJS
If you request authentication with offline_access scope, you'll geta refresh token in addition to an access token. Save this refresh token to the database and whenever you need to make another call on behalf of the user you can
Make the call using your existing access token. If you don't get a 401, then you're good.
If you did get a 401, your token is probably expired and then you can call the token end point on the authorization server with the refresh token and grant_type=refresh_token to get a new access token and try your call again.
Might make the most sense to always request a new access token using your refresh token before you make another call.
To my knowledge you only deal with access tokens for authorization. The refresh token is only there to refresh an expired access token. The refresh token is exchanged for a new access token - without needing to present authentication credentials again. The call also (typically) takes a fraction of the time than re-authenticating.
as soon as the user log-in, give it two tokens refresh and access, store the refresh token in the database, give access token a expire time (5-10 min approx or less depending on your requirement).
for each request user will use the access token and for each request backend should check for the expired access token.
if the access token is expired, user will get a new access token by sending the stored refresh token to the backend(using a dedicated endpoint), backend will than check whether the refresh token is present in the database or not, if yes a new access token with new expire time will be sent in the response.
the cycle will continue until the user logs-out, in that case the refresh token will be deleted from the database and after some time access token will also get expire.
I am building SPA app with its rest API and I cannot find information when I should refresh JWT using refresh token. Should I do this when I will receive 401 HTTP status from server (JWT expired) or for example every 15 minutes if possible (before JWT will expire)?
I'm not a security expert, but as far we know, we
1- login and save the received token
2- we put one interceptor that check every response (in angular it's easy, in react we usually use axios ...etc)
3- we check every response in the interceptor, if the response was 401 and the expiration date from the token has passed, we send a refresh token request and save the new token
to check expiration date you can use a library that decode the token like: jwt-decode on npm, (don't forget to wrap the process in try...catch in case somebody screw with the token) and you even can paste the token in https://jwt.io/ and see for your self the decoded token and check the expiration date.
4- repeat the last request with the new token should succeed.
5- if for example even the refresh token request failed, simply redirect the user to the login page
If the server is sending a proper error code in case of access_token expired then you can intercept the error code on the client-side and use the refresh_token you got earlier during authentication to get a new access token. You can repeat this process again and again until your refresh token gets expired. On that occasion, you should redirect the user to perform the authentication to get both the tokens.
I have read many articles and viewed many videos but there are a lot of contradictions. I try to avoid any external libraries and build the system from scratch, I have read about oAuth 2 but it is more confusing.
This is the flow that I think is ok untill now:
User fills a form using email and password and submits it.
Server verifies the password if it matches and responds back with a httponly cookie with a signed jwt token that expires in like 10
minutes. (I know I have to protect it against csrf attacks)
User gets logged in and every new request he is making to the server he will send the cookie in the header automatically and the
server will verify the token.
Everything is fine but I have encountered some issues and have some questions:
I want the user to stay logged in even after opening a new session so there is no need to login after the token expired or when he closes the browser.
What should happen if the access token expired?
There should be a refresh token attached to the user in database that gets added when the user logs in with an expiration of ex 7 days, then the server will respond with a cookie containing that refresh token?
On the new request while access token is expired,the user will send the refresh cookie to the server, if it matches the user database refresh token,server will respond with a separate cookie that will renew the access token?
If there is a refresh token where should you store it and what format? (cookie,database or where?)
Should I keep the user logged in based on this refresh token cookie?If is it httponly I can't read it and set the state that user is logged in. How should I do it?
I heard about that revoking the jwt token is problematic. How would you fix it?
How would you do this whole thing?Please explain the workflow, I try to avoid localstorage,as I read everywhere that is not safe for sensitive data.
I have implemented and deployed to production systems that do exactly the kinds of things that you are asking about here so I think that I am qualified to provide you with some guidance to solve your particular issues and answer your questions. The flow that you have listed above in the numbered list is definitely the correct path so far. I do understand your confusion going forward from there because there are many different options for how to approach this problem.
In addition to providing a login route that returns a new JWT to the client when the user submits a login form to the server, I would recommend also implementing a token refresh route that accepts a still valid JWT that was received from the initial login process and returns a new JWT with an updated expiration time. The logic for this new token refresh route should first verify that the provided JWT is still valid by matching it with a user in the database. Then, it should generate a new token using the same JWT generation logic as the login route logic. Then, the application should overwrite the access token data in the database for the user replacing the old access token with the newly generated access token. It is not necessary to keep an old access token in the database once it is no longer valid, which is why I suggest simply overwriting it with a new one. Once all of that is finished and successful, you can return the new JWT to the client and then the client should now use that new JWT when making any additional authenticated calls to the server to maintain an authenticated interaction with the server. This logic flow would keep the user logged in, because the client would have a valid JWT before calling the refresh logic and it would have a valid JWT after calling the refresh logic. The user should only be recognized as not logged in and not authenticated if they are no longer able to provide a valid access token that is associated with a user in the database.
As far as cookies go, whichever method that you use for maintaining the cookies on your client should be used for setting the refreshed access token as it is for setting the initial access token that you receive on login. If the server finds that an access token is no longer valid at some point in the future, if for example your client is not used after login until some time after the access token has expired, then the client should recognize a server response indicating that this is the case and present the user with the login flow on the client again so that a new access token can be acquired and stored in a cookie on the client.
I would not worry about revoking JWTs and instead just let them expire if they do and initiate a new login flow if it is found that a JWT has expired. Also, instead of using local storage I would suggest using session storage to store your JWT so that you have it for the duration of your user's session on the website and it is removed as soon as the browser has been closed. This will prevent the JWT from persisting beyond the session and should assuage your fears about saving sensitive data in the session storage. Also, when generating your JWT, you should also make a point of not storing any sensitive data in it because JWTs are easily reverse-engineered. This can also prevent any sort of sensitive data from being exposed on the client.
EDIT:
The key thing to remember when developing your server API is that you should have two different classes of endpoints. One set should be unauthenticated and one set should be authenticated.
The authenticated set of endpoints would not require an access token to be included in the request. An example of this class of endpoint would be your login endpoint, which does not require an access token because it actually generates an access token for you to use later on. Any other endpoint that does not expose sensitive or important information could be included in this class of endpoints.
The unauthenticated set of endpoints would require an access token to be included in the request, and if no access token or an invalid access token is detected the endpoint would respond with a 401 HTTP response code (indicating an unauthorized request). An example of this class of endpoint would be an endpoint that allows a user to update their personal information. Obviously, a user cannot update their own information if they cannot provide credentials to prove that they are the user whose information they are attempting to update. If the client receives a response with a 401 response code, that would be the signal that the client would need in order to tell the user to re-login so that a new valid access token can be retrieved. This possibility can be avoided on the client if the client is programmed to periodically check the expiration of the JWT that is currently being held on the client and initiate an access token refresh, but obviously you should still have logic in place to detect and respond to a 401 response code so that the client user flow is managed properly.