I'm trying to create a self-hosted app. This app would provide a custom express server with some routes and also provides a CouchDB access using pouchdb-server. I would like the node server to be able to configure the database and create the admin username/password, and then create the roles functions. How can I configure CouchDB from my nodejs app?
I would like to:
Stop admin party and create an admin with a password. I found that the web client makes a PUT request to http://localhost:5984/_node/couchdb#localhost/_config/admins/<username> with password in payload, but I would like to do it using express-pouchdb, so HTTP is not possible
Create users roles I would like to set up several roles
Set up permissions which roles can update which databases, what databases are readable by who etc...
Please note that I can't do direct http requests to CouchDB, since I'm using pouch-db-express in my node app to serve the db to the client, and I would like my express app to configure the couchDB instance managed by pouchdb-express
Stop admin party and create an admin with a password
I'm pretty sure the only way to interact with the _config endpoint is with HTTP, as I see no config plugin on the plugins page. Even if there was a plugin, it would use HTTP. Is there some reason HTTP is actually not possible? Or you just don't want to use it?
Create users roles
The PouchDB authentication plugin can do this for you.
Set up permissions
The authentication plugin also gives you access to the _security endpoint for this. Then you'll also need to create the appropriate design documents, using the standard put() API.
Related
Summary
I need to create an application where the user will subscribe to a plan that will give him a consumption of requests to the backend.
Backend: I will use nodejs and express to create the backend
Frontend: I will use reactjs to create the frontend. I will create the admin panel for user control you account.
Detail
I need to create a plugin for Wordpress that will consume these requests from the user's account. As I've never worked with this type of structure, I don't know how to guarantee that these plugins are the client's own and not someone who took his credentials and is spending his plan.
I took a look at RSA encrypt to make a data signature, but I still don't understand the best way to create this application.
I also saw about JWT but the plugin in wordpress would not have the account credentials to use JWT as login, and usually plugins and REST API using public key and secret key or api key.
Another use would be embedding a form on another site or using the REST API.
I have an admin site that has a react frontend, using redux actions, with a node.js app as the server which uses firebase-admin to do the work.
I want to use firestore's onsnapshot listener. but im not sure how this works within the HTTP protocol?
I can't use the firebase-admin from my frontend app, and i cant create realtime DB functionality from the backend within HTTP protocol.
The goal: to set snapshot listeners on my collections from rreact frontend without having to go through multiple authentication processes, considering ive got a separate auth system for admins with my express api.
Is there a solution for this?
EDIT:
my client app is currently initialized with firebase web app config data, but because im authenticating admins with my own express server, the firebase web SDK hasnt authenticated with firebase, so i dont have permission for the data i need. im not sure if i need a service account, or a web app config with extra setup or what
My recommendation is to integrate the Firebase JS SDK into your client app using signInWithCustomToken().
It's not too complicated to do. Though I suppose that depends a lot on how your current auth setup works.
The general idea is this:
Send auth request to your auth service.
Process the request like normal.
Evaluate if the user should have access to Firebase.
If they should, use firebase-admin to create a custom token and send it back to the user.
Use the token on the client to authenticate with Firebase.auth
You should make sure to have Firestore rules to allow admin users to access the data you need.
As an alternative that doesn't use the Firebase client SDK, you could have a long-running node process that opens an onSnapshot. Your react app could receive data from it using either Server-Sent Events or through a WebSocket
I created an Azure Mobile App Service which is currently accessible 'Anonymously'
Anonymous access is enabled on the App Service app. Users will not be prompted for login.
To make it secure I can enable App Service Authentication which will ask users to log in
But this is not what I want - The data in this app is only accessed by Application without the need of each and every user to login to my app before using it.
So you might say, in this case, Anonymous access is fine but I want to restrict it with something at least like an API Key so I will have access to the API which my app can use to access the data to prevent random requests as anyone can just go and use Postman and start getting data without any authentication.
So in short, I don't want individual user authentication, but at least an API Key to ensure only requests made from my app are authenticated and nothing else.
I am using the following in my mobile app to create a connection and also doing Offline sync etc
MobileServiceClient client = new MobileServiceClient(applicationURL);
Any idea how do I do that?
FYI. My server side backend is in C#
Since you are using Azure Mobile Apps, for your requirement, you could leverage Custom Authentication for building your CustomAuthController to login and generate the JWT token for a specific user without user interaction. The core code snippet for logging would look like as follow:
MobileServiceClient client = new MobileServiceClient("https://{your-mobileapp-name}.azurewebsites.net/");
client.LoginAsync("custom", JObject.FromObject(new{Username="***",Password="***"}));
Note: As the above tutorial mentions as follows:
You must turn on Authentication / Authorization in your App Service. Set the Action to take when request is not authenticated to Allow Request (no action) and do not configure any of the supported authentication providers.
And you must explicitly add [Authorize] attribute for your controllers / actions which need to be authorized access. Details you could follow Authentication in the Backend.
I want to extend IdentityServer 3 with a 'admin' part where users can manage things like users, clients, etc. This part should be secured by the same ID server implementation (same app in IIS). Do I have to build a separate app or can I extend the same ID server solution? How do I configure the OWIN start up then? When I have
app.Map("/Identity"....)
how do I add:
app.UseOpenIdConnectAuthentication
This results in an 'external' login provider, but that is not what I want. I also tried to add:
app.Map("/admin", config => config.UseOpenIdConnectAuthentiaction())
But that does not work as well, so:
How to have ID server and a client combined in one Solution?
Please help.
Have a look at IdentityManager provided by developers of IdentityServer. This will get you up & running very quickly.
Security Model
The security model can be configured to only allow users running on the same machine or can be configured to use any Katana based authentication middleware to authenticate users.
Hosting Options
IdentityManager is hosted as OWIN middleware. It can be configured with the UseIdentityManager extension method for Katana
This is how you "Get started"
Firebase provides database back-end so that developers can focus on the client side code.
So if someone takes my firebase uri (for example, https://firebaseinstance.firebaseio.com) then develop on it locally.
Then, would they be able to create another app off my Firebase instance, signup and authenticate themselves to read all data of my Firebase app?
#Frank van Puffelen,
You mentioned the phishing attack. There actually is a way to secure for that.
If you login to your googleAPIs API Manager console, you have an option to lock down which HTTP referrer your app will accept request from.
visit https://console.developers.google.com/apis
Go to your firebase project
Go to credentials
Under API keys, select the Browser key associated with your firebase project (should have the same key as the API key you use to initialize your firebase app.)
Under "Accept requests from these HTTP referrers (web sites), simply add the URL of your app.
This should only allow the whitelisted domain to use your app.
This is also described here in the firebase launch-checklist here: https://firebase.google.com/support/guides/launch-checklist
Perhaps the firebase documentation could make this more visible or automatically lock down the domain by default and require users to allow access?
The fact that someone knows your URL is not a security risk.
For example: I have no problem telling you that my bank hosts its web site at bankofamerica.com and it speaks the HTTP protocol there. Unless you also know the credentials I use to access that site, knowing the URL doesn't do you any good.
To secure your data, your database should be protected with:
validation rules that ensure all data adheres to a structure that you want
authorization rules to ensure that each bit of data can only be read and modified by the authorized users
This is all covered in the Firebase documentation on Security & Rules, which I highly recommend.
With these security rules in place, the only way somebody else's app can access the data in your database is if they copy the functionality of your application, have the users sign in to their app instead of yours and sign in/read from/write to your database; essentially a phishing attack. In that case there is no security problem in the database, although it's probably time to get some authorities involved.
Update May 2021: Thanks to the new feature called Firebase App Check, it is now actually possible to limit access to your Realtime Database to only those coming from iOS, Android and Web apps that are registered in your Firebase project.
You'll typically want to combine this with the user authentication based security described above, so that you have another shield against abusive users that do use your app.
By combining App Check with security rules you have both broad protection against abuse, and fine gained control over what data each user can access.
Regarding the Auth white-listing for mobile apps, where the domain name is not applicable, Firebase has
SHA1 fingerprint for Android apps and
App Store ID and Bundle ID and Team ID (if necessary) for your iOS apps
which you will have to configure in the Firebase console.
With this protection, since validation is not just if someone has a valid API key, Auth domain, etc, but also, is it coming from our authorized apps and domain name/HTTP referrer in case of Web.
That said, we don't have to worry if these API keys and other connection params are exposed to others.
For more info, https://firebase.google.com/support/guides/launch-checklist