How do i make logins happen via Amazon Cognito REST APIs (for user pools) on platforms for which there is no official SDK? - Note that i am asking for user pools - not identity pools.
Synopsis
Amazon cognito provides 3 kinds of logins:
federated logins (creates identity pools) - using social connects like FB, Twitter, G+ etc
AWS managed logins (creates user pools) - using Amazon's own managed signup, signin, forgot password, reset password services
developer provided logins (my custom designed authentication service managed by myself)
I am using the second one (with User Pools)
Amazon cognito has several SDKs for android, iOS, javascript, Xamarin etc. Cognito also provides REST APIs for building on platforms other than those supported by official SDKs. I am building an app for a different platform and, hence, REST API is my only way as there is no official SDK for my platform.
The Cognito REST API provides various endpoints for 'sign up', 'forgot password', 'confirm verification' etc, but surprisingly, the REST API does not have any endpoint for simple signin / login.
From Cognito CLI API docs I have all the OFFICIAL CLI APIs necessary to "signup users", "confirm signups", "change passwords", "verify phone numbers", "forgot passwords" etc. Surprisingly there is no CLI API mentioned for LOGINs. I was hoping there should be some CLI API like "$ aws cognito-idp log-in" just like there is for "$ aws cognito-idp sign-up" or for "$ aws cognito-idp forgot-password" etc.
Also from this getting started tutorial it talks about "*what should be done with tokens received AFTER successful authentication of a user*". However, it doesn't talk about HOW TO make the successful authentication happen on the first place with Cognito User Pool APIs. Examples are available only for Android, iOS, javascript SDKs. There are no authentication examples available for platforms which do not have SDKs.
Hence, How do i make logins happen via Amazon Cognito REST APIs (for user pools) on platforms for which there is no official SDK?
This curl command works for me:
curl -X POST --data #aws-auth-data.json \
-H 'X-Amz-Target: AWSCognitoIdentityProviderService.InitiateAuth' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.1' \
https://cognito-idp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/
Where aws-auth-data.json is:
{
"AuthParameters" : {
"USERNAME" : "yourusername#example.com",
"PASSWORD" : "yourpassword"
},
"AuthFlow" : "USER_PASSWORD_AUTH",
"ClientId" : "75........................"
}
The user pool client must allow USER_PASSWORD_AUTH for this to work - that's an AWS-side setting.
Update:
As you pointed out in the comments below, the authentication flow is documented here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cognito/latest/developerguide/amazon-cognito-user-pools-authentication-flow.html. This might help to clarify the authentication flow
It is somewhat counter-intuitive, but it does make sense for mobile apps where you don't want to have the user explicitly sign in, but instead carry tokens around for the user. Note that there is an explicit signin (login) API in the AWS Userpools SDK for iOS. I have not used it, but I suppose it is just an alternate client side API to get through the same InitiateAuth() followed by a RespondToAuthChallenge() flow. The iOS signin example is documented here - IOS SDK Example: Sign in a User
Original Post:
The Cognito User Pools API documentation for initiating auth is available here
The way it works becomes clearer if you implement a user pools application in one of the SDK's (I did one in Swift for iOS, it is clarified because the logging of the JSON responses is verbose and you can kind of see what is going on if you look through the log).
But assuming I understand your question: In summary you should InitiateAuth() and the response to that (from the Cognito User Pools server) is a challenge. Then you do RespondToAuthChallenge() (also documented in that API doc) and the response to that is an authentication result - assuming that the password / session / token were accepted.
The combination of those two things is, I believe, what you are calling LOGIN, and it works like a login. In the API's, the way it is set up is that attempts to get user information when the user is unauthenticated kicks off that InitiateAuth() and (in iOS anyway) the API does a callback to the code you write to ask for passwords, and send a RespondToAuthChallenge() request etc.
Just to add to #andrewjj's answer. You might get back a challenge (NEW_PASSWORD_REQUIRED) as InitiateAuth response. It is when you are being asked to change passport on initial signin.
You can use Postman or curl command. This example expects Postman being used.
InitiateAuth - This step is same as #andrewjj
Add this to Body as raw values
{
"AuthParameters": {
"USERNAME": "youremail#example.com",
"PASSWORD": "temporary-password",
},
"AuthFlow": "USER_PASSWORD_AUTH",
"ClientId": "2s........................"
}
Set headers
X-Amz-Target: AWSCognitoIdentityProviderService.InitiateAuth
Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.1
Send a request to https://cognito-idp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ You might have to change region.
If you receive this response then your are ok, otherwise continue with step 2.
{
"AuthenticationResult": {
"AccessToken": "eyJra........",
"ExpiresIn": 3600,
"IdToken": "eyJra........",
"RefreshToken": "eyJjd........",
"TokenType": "Bearer"
},
"ChallengeParameters": {}
}
RespondToAuthChallenge - this is new step
In case you receive Challenge back like this one:
{
"ChallengeName": "NEW_PASSWORD_REQUIRED",
"ChallengeParameters": {
"USER_ID_FOR_SRP": "1231-......",
"requiredAttributes": "[]",
"userAttributes": "{\"email_verified\":\"true\",\"email\":\"youremail#example.com\"}"
},
"Session": "Sfas......"
}
You need to set new password. Add this to Body as raw values
{
"ChallengeName": "NEW_PASSWORD_REQUIRED",
"ChallengeResponses": {
"USERNAME": "youremail#example.com",
"NEW_PASSWORD": "newpassword"
},
"ClientId": "2s........................",
"Session": "Sfas......(use one from the InitiateAuth response)"
}
Set headers
X-Amz-Target: AWSCognitoIdentityProviderService.RespondToAuthChallenge
Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.1
Send a request to https://cognito-idp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ You might have to change region.
Do step 1 again to receive tokens.
Sharing curl direct may help to anyone
curl -X POST --data #user-data.json \
-H 'X-Amz-Target: AWSCognitoIdentityProviderService.InitiateAuth' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.1' \
https://cognito-idp.<just-replace-region>.amazonaws.com/
file json user-data.json
{"AuthParameters" : {"USERNAME" : "sadfsf", "PASSWORD" : "password"}, "AuthFlow" : "USER_PASSWORD_AUTH", "ClientId" : "csdfhripnv7sq027kktf75"}
make sure your app client does not contain app-secret or create new app without secret. also inside app enable USER_PASSWORD_AUTH
One of the developers from AWS Cognito team here.
To add to #md-abdul-munim's answer, we recommend using one of the client side SDKs. If you are building a REST API and then a front end which talks to those APIs, it is better to just integrate Cognito from your front end.
If you absolutely need to use Cognito from a back end, the authentication APIs will be available with our GA release. In our Cognito User Pools beta release authentication is only available through client SDKs.
From what you have discussed, I consider you are trying to do that from a web frontend. Cause, cognito is providing you the necessary backend support and it expects you to communicate(e.g. authenticate, sign up etc.) from a presentation layer- that's why you found SDK's for different mobile platforms. They also have SDK for web app- the access is available via their Javascript SDK.
Here's a detailed tutorial to achieve what you have asked from a web frontend using their JS SDK-
Accessing Your User Pools using the Amazon Cognito Identity SDK for JavaScript
I have a similar problem and was wondering how to integrate Cognito within an Elixir backend and found this library: https://github.com/aws-beam/aws-elixir
From what I can understand by reading its source code, they ultimately make a POST request that contains the header "X-Amz-Target": "AWSCognitoIdentityProviderService.#{name_of_api_action}" (this is here: https://github.com/aws-beam/aws-elixir/blob/master/lib/aws/cognito_identity_provider.ex#L564). That's without the authorization headers, they are added elsewhere, but I found it interesting. The functions that construct the request URL are following, so you should be able to get an idea of the endpoint that gets called.
I must say I tried following this article written in Japanese - https://qiita.com/yujikawa/items/e79929ed14277102f4b8, and couldn't manage to make it work, maybe because I was not sure what the proper AWS_ENDPOINT environment variable should be. I am currently thinking of trying out the Ruby SDK, from the looks of the documentation it seems fine. But, nonetheless, this information may still help someone.
Thank #andrewjj, your answer is a big help.
Here is additional info for someone who has trouble with client secret. You don't need to turn it off.
You need to generate a secret hash from username, clientId, client secret, as following:
message = bytes(username+app_client_id,'utf-8')
key= bytes(clientSecret,'utf-8')
secret_hash = base64.b64encode(hmac.new(key, message, digestmod=hashlib.sha256).digest()).decode()
src: https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/cognito-unable-to-verify-secret-hash/
Then add the secret hash to your AuthParameters, as following:
{
"AuthParameters" : {
"USERNAME" : "...",
"PASSWORD" : "...",
"SECRET_HASH" : "..."
},
"AuthFlow" : "USER_PASSWORD_AUTH",
"ClientId" : "..."
}
I am trying to find an example in .NET to gerneate the following call to the Google Admin API:
PUT https://www.googleapis.com/admin/directory/v1/users/user%40domain.com?key={YOUR_API_KEY}
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer ya29.1.AADtN_U3
X-JavaScript-User-Agent: Google APIs Explorer
{
"password": "7c4a8d09ca3762af61e59520943dc26494f8941b",
"hashFunction": "SHA-1"
}
I cannot seem to find any code examples for .net as to how to duplicate this. The page https://developers.google.com/admin-sdk/directory/v1/reference/users/update demonstrates the functionality I am trying to localize and use from a .NET application. Any help would be appreciated. We need to leverage this API for an initial password update. We do not allow our students to change passwords so this JSon update is required for us to be able to use Google Apps for Education.
I fought this for a week or so and finally got it to work.
Blogged about it here - how to setup your project, developer console, admin console and .net
http://blog.mwpreston.net/2014/10/17/google-admin-sdk-apis-and-net-integration-changing-a-users-password/
I got "error": {
"errors": [
{
"domain": "usageLimits",
"reason": "dailyLimitExceededUnreg",
"message": "Daily Limit for Unauthenticated Use Exceeded. Continued use requires signup.",
"extendedHelp": "https://code.google.com/apis/console"
}
],
"code": 403,
"message": "Daily Limit for Unauthenticated Use Exceeded. Continued use requires signup."
}
When i try to fetch User Profile in Google+ api by https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/me URL String.If anyone have any suggestion then please tell me as soon as possible.Thanks in advance for your time.
That message implies that you haven't set up a Google APIs console project.
Create a Google APIs Console project
On the Services pane, enable all of the APIs that your project requires.
On the API Access pane, click Create an OAuth 2.0 client ID. A dialog opens. Fill in your project's information. Click Next
Choose the appropriate application type. Based on the tags you used for this post, I am guessing this is an iOS project so select Installed application.
Enter your bundle ID. You don't need to enter an App Store ID until your app is listed there.
Click Create Client ID.
You will see the client ID and client secret values. You will use these values to enable communication with your project and the Google APIs.
If you aren't already using it, see the Google+ iOS SDK and documentation for a full walk through. The task called "write moments" is similar in implementation and demonstrates how to connect to and use the Google+ REST APIs from within an iOS project that uses the SDK.
You'll need to specify the scope of plus.me to get the profile information.
I got the same error and after much hunting I found that, in my case, the Authorization header with the access token was not set. Set Authorization: "Bearer <YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN>" in the header of the request of EVERY Google API call.
I just want to add a little information here in the rare case that someone runs into this problem.
I have an organization (ORG). I created a second channel (SC) with some playlists, that referenced videos from ORG.
I made the mistake of assuming that because ORG owned SC, that I could use the same oauth credentials from ORG to access both. I was wrong.
I switched credentials and was confused when I could access the playlists but not the videos. Again, I needed credentials for each one separately to access the resources on the respective channel.
Lame, but that was how it was.
BrettJ's answer will cover most of the bases. However, you will also get this error - even when your credentials are properly authenticated - when the scope is not properly set up. I would check the scope setting in your OAuth dance. Make sure your user is permitted to do the thing your code is trying to help them do.
On top of what BrettJ has mentioned, it is important to send the authorization header for the request done to fetch UserProfile in google+ API.
For example, Add the following header
key: Authorization
value: Bearer ya29.Ci-cA_CywoVdVG#######
For what it's worth, I also got this error when using rclone to sync files and my firewall wasn't configured to allow that traffic.
Try the following workflow:
Create a Google Spreadsheet. Set its ACL to “Anyone with the link”
Get its key (https://spreadsheets0.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=HEREISTHEKEY)
Try accessing it with the HTTP API: https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/list/HEREISTHEKEY/o6d/public/full (try with private instead of public also)
Get a 404 error
It seems that the Google Spreadsheet API does not allow accessing a private link from the API when you are not authenticated, but maybe I'm wrong somewhere.
It's kind of illogical because you don't need to be logged in when accessing this spreadsheet from a browser.
Any thoughts (I'll fill up a bug report)?
Thanks!
One thought, and I'm not sure if this is applicable to your situation, is that you might try building a dummy Google account and having your interface access the HTTP API using those dummy credentials. It's dirty, but it might work, as once you're logged in you should definitely be authenticated. Right?
To be able to access it via the API, you need to "publish" the spreadsheet. You can do this via the file menu:
File > "Publish to the web..."
You'll then be able it via the API with the URL you gave. I had this issue initially too!
With Google opening the goo.gl API a few weeks ago, it's quite easy to use it with POST:
curl -F "url=LONGURL" http://goo.gl/api/shorten
The response is like this:
{"short_url":"http://goo.gl/A9MR","added_to_history":false}
So, does anyone know how to perform an authorized POST to the goo.gl API so that the shortened URL is added to the users history as if you would use the browser?
I tried providing a basic Authorization header using my Google mail address and password, but that doesn't work.
It's not really a public API, yet. What you're using is what the goo.gl site uses itself, but it's not designed for public use like you're trying to do. They do plan on launching one though, and when they do I'm sure they'll add it as an option.
See this post
EDIT: This is now possible with the newly launched API. See the docs here.