php validate bearer token

We have a bootstrap file coded in PHP that will handle the authenticator initialization and will invoke the actual authenticator when receiving requests. I’ll keep the Unix timestamp when the keys expire in $valid_until, as returned by the Okta server cache headers. After this, you should just configure your settings in the classes/Config.php file: As we can see, we retrieve the JWT signing keys from the Okta server. If not, it’ll deny it. You should be able to see and edit the code of the bootstrap and our other files from the AWS Lambda Console. In the created API Resources menu, select the /pets GET method. If not, let’s create a REST example API using the example “PetStore” provided by AWS: Grant all the requested permissions, and the authorizer will be created. Leave the Authorization Caching enabled, with the default TTL of 300 seconds. After this, we’ll create another ZIP package including our code for the authorizer: From the AWS Lambda console, we’ll create the two layers first. Here are some commonly used ones: Public claims can be defined as you see fit. If the token isnât valid because, for example, the token has expired, the user will be sent an HTTP 401 Unauthorized header, and the script will exit. This information and metadata can describe a wide range of things, such as a userâs identity, authorization data, and the validity of the token within a time frame or in relation to a domain. In order to avoid problems and build a PHP environment compatible with the Lambda runtime, we need to use the image that is available as an AMI image. Running REST APIs with AWS Lambda and AWS API Gateway has recently become a very popular option. // Build the URL from Okta that we'll use to retrieve the current set of signing keys, // Let's convert the received keys into PEM format, usable from the key verifier library, // Save both the keys and their expiring moment for future use, // Remove the "Bearer " prefix from $jwt, if it exists, 'Token expired, or used before its validity', "arn:aws:execute-api:us-east-2:123456789012:example/prod/POST/{proxy+}", 'https://XXXXXXXX.execute-api.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/beta/pets', "Authorization: Bearer eyJraWQiOiI5VzhZV3Qxc2RqO...", Illustrated Guide to OAuth and OpenID Connect, https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/lambda-runtimes.html, Build a Simple Laravel App with Authentication, Create and Verify JWTs in PHP with OAuth 2.0. Perform standard JWT validation. To finish up,, let’s make a request to the Invoke URL for the /pets GET resource, first without an access token, and then with the access token. The access_token field is the one we’ll use as a Bearer token in our requests to the API.. This structure depends on the configured type of Lambda authorizer. If itâs able to be successfully decoded, we then attempt to validate it. Copy the access token generated for the user when the user login in, click on Authorization on postman and select the type, Bearer Token, and paste the token by the input field by the right. There are other access token types that you might want to use, e.g. As always, weâd include Composerâs autoloader. The algorithm can be either symmetric or asymmetric. Here we will use the same concept to generate the JWT for individual user and allow him/her continue his/her work until JWT expires. In the above code, I have defined all five APIs that I had mentioned in the beginning of the post. If the JWT is invalid, however, the user wonât be allowed to access the resource. Then click on the pencil icon in the Authorization setting, select the defined Authorizer as the authorization method, and click the check mark icon to save the selection. We could then, optionally, check if the correct request methodâs been used. Prevent API slowness—Keep things local // This invokes Composer's autoloader so that we'll be able to use Guzzle and any other 3rd party libraries we need. Assign a name for the function. The key is shared between the creator of the JWT and the consumer of it. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. For API scenarios, the typical choice is the JwtBearer authentication handler, which can validate bearer JWT access tokens.. When writing this article, this was the Amazon Linux-based AMI image amzn-ami-hvm-2018.03.0.20181129-x86_64-gp2. We’ll create a working folder to make the needed infrastructure. You must select a name for it (for example, “idtoken”). Another thing worth pointing out, again, is that $secretKey wouldnât be initialized like this. If you already have an API, you can use it. Okta JWT Verifier for PHP. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to get in touch on Twitter. The JSON Web Token specification (RFC 7519) was first published on December 28, 2010, and was most recently updated in May 2015. After a user has been authenticated, the application must validate the user’s bearer token to ensure that authentication was successful. You can … If we call out to Okta’s token introspection, we add an additional network request to every authorization call. Please note that JWT was not designed to substitute session cookies. Validating bearer JWT access tokens. Then, when choosing an AMI, you must use the same image that is currently being used by the Lambda Execution Environment (see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/lambda-runtimes.html). This can be the user information like user ID, name and email. The claims in a JWT are encoded as a JSON object that … The JWT Bearer Grant Type above is an example of this. The API Gateway evaluates the returned policy object. Next you’ll need to check all the existing methods you want to protect and set the defined Authorizer as its authorization method. A symmetric algorithm uses a single key to both create and verify the token. Matthew Setter is a software developer, specialising in reliable, tested, and secure PHP code. Then, in the function code frame, click Actions and select Upload a .zip file. Iâve skipped over the code to do that, to continue focusing on the JWT-specific code: Then, the code would attempt to extract the token from the Bearer header. The 'Accept: application/json' header tells the server that the client expects a JSON. Thatâs a quick introduction to JSON Web Tokens, or JWTs, and how to use them in PHP-based applications. The easiest way to do this is to compile it on the same platform as Lambda, so we’ll use EC2 for this. Barring unrecoverable failure, this loop runs until the environment shuts down. Select the Lambda type, and use the already configured authorizer Lambda function (phpAuthorizer in our example). Then the code will function as expected. Lambda authorizers are the method provided by AWS API Gateway to manage authorization and authentication features. The idea of API tokens came up and nowadays, they are common practice. Thereâs couple of ways to use JWTs when making requests. API keys are random strings, whereas JWTs contain information and metadata. If itâs valid, the user will see the normal response for that request. After a user fills out and submits the login form, the form will be submitted via JavaScript to the login endpoint, authenticate.php, in our application. 'bGS6lzFqvvSQ8ALbOxatm7/Vk7mLQyzqaS34Q4oR1ew=', // Issued at: time when the token was generated, 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8'. The Connect2id server, for example, can mint access tokens that are RSA-signed JWTs.These can be validated quickly and efficiently with the public key for the JWT. OAuth 2: The user gets access token based on OAuth 2 protocol from the authentication server and sends it to the API server via HTTP Bearer Tokens. Let’s use beta as the Stage name. But first, why are sessions not such a good thing? Once this is done, let’s create the authorizer Lambda function. The authorization token will include the JWT token, possibly with the “Bearer “ prefix. But if the expiration time of the current information is in the past, it will refresh the saved keys. This bearer token is a lightweight security token that grants the “bearer” access to a protected resource, in this case, Machine Learning Server's core APIs for operationalizing analytics. Implementation steps If you still don’t have one, create your free developer account at, Update packages and install needed compilation dependencies. This gives us the ability to scale our application without worrying where the user has logged in. By calling echo on the result of the function, the generated token is returned: Now that the client has the token, you can store it using JavaScript or whichever mechanism you prefer. These are the top rated real world PHP examples of JWT::decode extracted from open source projects. To send a GET request with a Bearer Token authorization header, you need to make an HTTP GET request and provide your Bearer Token with the Authorization: Bearer {token} HTTP header. Let’s test it. However, if you look more closely, there are three separate strings. First, let us start by creating a project using the below command. If youâre not familiar with Bearer Authorization, itâs a form of HTTP authentication, where a token (such as a JWT) is sent in a request header. You can test this by making a request from curl using the access token you generated at the beginning of this blog post. If access is allowed, the API Gateway executes the method. JSON Web Token (JWT) is a compact URL-safe means of representing claims to be transferred between two parties. We have seen how to generate and validate JWT using PHP language without using any third party library. However, to avoid a lot of confusion, add the following to your Apache configuration. Finally, letâs look at how we can validate the token in PHP. You won’t find this image in the default Quick Start list that appears immediately when launching a new instance. Let’s build two layers for the code that don’t depend on us—one for the PHP runtime and other for the Composer vendor folder. Launch the EC2 instance and connect to it. Create a New Project. Local JWT validation should be more than enough, as the generated JWT tokens are signed. We have a YouTube channel too! If the decode and validation process succeeds, the user will be allowed to make the request, and will be sent the appropriate response. Create a variable ALGORITHM with the algorithm used to sign the JWT token and set it to "HS256". In order to do this, download the project from GitHub, and copy the generated PHP runtime into it: Now we’ll install composer, and use it to retrieve the PHP libraries that our bootstrap file uses to call the authorizer and other libraries related to the management of JWT tokens. We’ll call it “phpAuthorizer”. // Depending on the configured runtime, its location may vary, // Initialize signing-key manager, and retrieve the current JWT signing keys from Okta. (You’ll have to retrieve the actual URL from the corresponding endpoint in the last deployed stage.). I thoroughly recommend this great Illustrated Guide to OAuth and OpenID Connect and all the other articles it references. The authorizer Lambda function checks the provided token or parameters and determines if the requested API action will be authorized or not (just by analyzing the provided token, or by calling external services). Master complex transitions, transformations and animations in CSS! See Validate JSON Web Tokens for details. With the payload data ready to go, we next use php-jwtâs static encode method to create the JWT. Like other AWS Lambda methods, Authorizers can be implemented in any language and are run in a limited, managed environment. Please bear in mind that since a JWT can be inspected client-side, do not include any sensitive information in it. All requests to the application, except for the login and logout page, need to be authenticated via a JWT. As a result of a successful authentication by obtaining an authorization grant from a user or using the Okta API, you will be provided with a signed JWT (id_token and/or access_token).A common use case for these access tokens is to use it inside of the Bearer authentication header to let your application know who the user is that is making the request. Add Token Authorization to the API. After receiving the form submission, the credentials are validated against a database, or some other data store. This will pull in Firebase PHP-JWT, a third-party library that simplifies working with JWTs, as well as laminas-config, designed to simplify access to configuration data within applications. From here on, you can try to implement JWTs in your next API, maybe trying some other signing algorithms that use asymmetric keys like RS256, or integrating it in an existing OAUTH2 authentication server to be the API key. // Execute the desired function and obtain the response. The response from the access token validation will include attributes that the … There was a time when the only way to authenticate yourself into an application was by giving out credentials. To begin with, we need to have PHP and Composer installed on our systems. The runtime environment will be ready if you should see a message similar to this one: Now, let’s start building our PHP authorizer. Congratulations! JWTs have many advantages over API keys, including: At first glance, it appears that the string is just random groups of characters concatenated with a period or dot character. It’s very important that we keep the Lambda authorizer quick, as it will be called in every API request. To create the signature component, you have to take the encoded header, the encoded payload, a secret, the algorithm specified in the header, and sign that. Replace the string incoming-client-token in the generated event with the access token you generated earlier, and create the test event. I’ll keep the keys returned by the server in the $keys object. The client calls a method on an API Gateway API method, passing a bearer token or request parameters. We have a vendor directory with all the needed PHP libraries. The JWTâs signature is a cryptographic mechanism designed to secure the JWTâs data with a digital signature unique to the contents of the token. Iâve avoided doing that in this example, as I want to focus on the JWT code. JWTs donât require a centralized issuing or revoking authority. Now we just need to configure all the endpoints of the API to use the new authorizer. Then, use the Event template, Choose the REST protocol, select to use the Example API and the Regional Endpoint Type, and click, Once the API PetStore is created, enter the. The first string is the JWT header. This token will be appended to the header of subsequent requests to ensure that the API can identify the user making a request. Registered claims are predefined. Available at jwt-decode. The method getKeys() returns the current JWT-signing key information. This cache will be used by any subsequent API call from the same user. Then we have an endless loop that will execute until the environment is finished. We first do the usual setup, ensuring that the Composer-generated autoloader is available. In a real application, youâd likely use a number of other claims as well. Itâs a Base64, URL-encoded JSON string. To verify ID tokens with the Firebase Admin SDK, you must have a service account. There are many ways that you can approach integrating JWTs, but hereâs how weâre going to do it. The API Gateway checks whether a Lambda authorizer is configured for the called method. The getValidUntil() method will return the timestamp until which the current keys are valid. You can create private claims at will. The signature is invalid, which means the data was tampered with. Retrieve all the projects, but no project was created Create a project Retrieve all the projects Retrieve just 1 project Update a project Delete a project Validate JSON Web Tokens (JWT) when implementing a regular web, native, or SPA application. Let’s see how this is done for the /pets GET method: You’ll have to repeat all these steps for all the endpoints you want to protect. It wonât do much, just returning a string, containing the current timestamp at the time of the request. This way, if you ever introduce a change in your auth methods, you’ll only have to change and re-deploy the Lambda authorizer. As such, it may not seem very different from an API key. // This is the request processing loop. In our application, the JWT will be sent in the Bearer authorization header. You’ll have to create a new Deployment Stage. For this to work, the API provides a token when the user registers or logs in successfully. You can find a list of them in the JWTâs RFC. This class is designed as a singleton, as it will contain the currently valid keys that will be used in all the API calls; we’ll want to access it from anywhere. However, they canât be the same as registered claims, or claims of already existing public claims. In this example, we’ll use an app with client credentials to keep things simple. In this tutorial, the firebase/php-jwt bundle will be used to generate the tokens. For the purposes of this example, weâll assume that theyâre valid, and set $hasValidCredentials to true. If it is, API Gateway calls the corresponding authorizer Lambda function. In the projectâs root, run composer install. See Auth tokens for more information. So, we have all the code and the environment ready: Instead of uploading our software as a single, monolithic component, we’ll upload it using layers, which will allow us easier and quicker updates if we need them. njwt njwt is another node js based library , can be used to create, decode, verify JWT Tokens. Now, to obtain a JWT token you can call Okta’s token endpoint, giving it the application’s client ID and client secret. The downside is, this doesn't validate the token. All the protected API Methods will now require a valid JWT token. Create another Layer “Vendor”, uploading the generated. Here’s the full code of public/index.php for clarity: Once these commands are completed, please run ~/php-7-bin/bin/php -v to verify everything has worked correctly. Available at njwt The endpoint will then extract the credentials (a username and password) from the request and check if theyâre valid. Bearer Authentication (also called token authentication) is an HTTP authentication scheme originally created as part of OAuth 2.0, but is now used on its own. There are three types of claims: registered, public, and private. It contains some standard fields, which are referred to as âclaimsâ. Some of the disadvantages of giving out credentials to an application and maintaining a user’s state in relation to the application with session cookies are: 1. For each request received by our application, PHP will attempt to extract the token from the Bearer header. The server can inspect the token and determine if access should be given to the âbearerâ of the token. Itâs essential that you make sure only the creator and consumer knows the secret. For this example, I only left the root GET method unprotected, so we can test the difference between protected and unprotected methods. Below are the free libraries for decoding JWT Token. The example I have here is quite simplistic, as it only uses the issuer, not before and expiry timestamps. In your config/auth.php configuration file, ... Laravel includes an authentication guard that will automatically validate API tokens on incoming requests. After deciding the result of an auth request, the Lambda authorizer method must return an object with the following structure: In our example, we’ll focus on building a token-based authorizer that receives a JWT token in order to allow or deny access. // Submit the response back to the runtime API. Update the front controller so it requires authorization for all API endpoints (using local validation for the index and store methods, and remote validation for the charge method). All of our backend API quickstarts use SDKs that perform JWT validation and parsing for you.. To visually inspect a JWT, visit JWT.io or use the JWT Debugger Chrome Extension).To parse and validate a JSON Web Token (JWT), you can: This loop will launch the authorizer function and any other existing functions corresponding to other methods in the API. Run the following to install it using composer: Data is transmitted in JavaScript Object Notation format (JSON). This is not a good idea, especially when gateway requests need to pass through very quickly, and Lambda limits the amount of time that functions can run. Extension Grant. The payload component is the data that is stored inside the JWT. Additionally, using a Lambda authorizer will allow the API Gateway to cache the auth result for an hour. The number of segments provided did not match the standard three as described earlier. To do this, the URL for every API access point can be retrieved from the API Stages section, selecting the stage you just deployed and clicking on the corresponding endpoint. Depending on the requirements of your PHP Lambda functions, you may have to customize the ./configure line to add extra libraries. Select the already generated authorizer.zip file. You’ll find it as a community AMI. This method retrieves the current JWT-signing keys provided by the Okta server and saves them, along with their expiration timestamp, for future use from other functions. The name “Bearer authentication” can be understood as “give access to the bearer of this token.” The bearer token is a cryptic string, usually generated by the server in response to a login request. Because the access token is a JWT, you need to perform the standard JWT validation steps. And in yet more recent times, JWTs, or JSON Web Tokens, have been increasingly used as another way to authenticate requests to a server. Itâs also a Base64, URL-encoded JSON string. Then, click on the Method Request definition. The bearer token is sent to the server in the 'Authorization: Bearer {token}' authorization header. Otherwise, anyone can create a valid token. We then use php-jwtâs static decode method, passing to it the JWT, the secret key, and an array of algorithms to use to decode the JWT. The test should always be successful, returning Deny for invalid or expired JWT tokens, and Allow for valid, non-expired JWT tokens generated by the Okta server. We’re also streaming on Twitch, follow us to be notified when we’re live. All Lambda authorizers must be implemented so they receive a defined data structure from the AWS API Gateway. Web application developer, database administrator, project lead in a variety of enterprise apps and now article author. Define a Pydantic Model that will be used in the token endpoint for the response. To do that, we need our secret key again, which would be pulled from the environment or the applicationâs configuration. If the API action must be authorized, the Lambda function grants access by returning an output object containing at least an IAM policy object and a principal identifier. An access token (without a refresh token) is then returned directly. Let’s compile PHP with OpenSSL and libcurl support and install to, We have a PHP binary compiled on the correct supported version of Amazon Linux. Before you begin. With the library installed, letâs step through the login code in authenticate.php. At the time of writing, it was 7.4.10. They are independent AWS Lambda methods that are called by the AWS API Gateway in order to validate the provided credentials and provide information about the authorized access level. Check the token's algorithm and signature by using the public key that is fetched from the issuer's jwks_uri. In this article, youâll learn what JWTs are and how to use them with PHP to make authenticated user requests. Next, we initialize a set of variables to be used for generating the JWT. Now we’ll compile the last version of PHP. We have our own src and class directories including the authenticator method itself, and other auxiliary classes. Youâd likely set it in the environment and extract it, using library such as phpdotenv, or in a config file. OAuth 2.0 leaves the design of access tokens in terms of encoding and validation up to implementers. Before we dive in, feel free to clone the code for this article, or follow along and create it as we go. We can easily use the same token for fetching a secure resource from a domain other than the one we are logged in to. These keys will be the ones used to validate the received JWT tokens. A little while later, we started using authentication APIs. Currently, only RSA-based algorithms are supported. The JWTâs signature is a combination of three things: These three are digitally signed (not encrypted) using the algorithm specified in the JWTâs header. Let’s go with the updateKeys() method. The header component contains information about how the JWT signature should be computed. Token based/JWT authentication is stateless, so there is no need to store user information in the session. There was a time when the only way to authenticate yourself with an application was by providing your credentials (usually a username or email address and a password) and a session was then used to maintain user state until the user logged out. I have spent the last year intermittently working on a PHP JSON Web Token library called ReallySimpleJWT, and this week I released version 1.0.0.The code is accessible via GitHub and Packagist.. For those of you who have not used JSON Web Tokens before they are a URL friendly, token based, authentication system. Unfortunately, the Amazon Linux 2 runtime is a custom runtime that is not based on any available AMI image. Once a user has been created, we create a new personal access token for them using the createToken() method and give the token a name of auth_token. JWTs are intended for space-constrained environments, such as HTTP Authorization headers. Bearer Token. If youâre not familiar with the function, it performs a regular expression match on a string. // Do some checking for the request method here, if desired. "arn:aws:execute-api:{regionId}:{accountId}:{apiId}/{stage}/{httpVerb}/[{resource}/[{child-resources}]]", 'https://:@/oauth2/default/v1/token', "eyJraWQiOiJQTnk1OGR(...)e6z-UOv4pGUnbIAMAHxmVsb2h4PXpblaH4", // Define here your Okta server hostname, like 'dev-XXXXX.okta.com' or.