Try OAuth2 on your workspace¶
The following exercise is very interesting to see and practice all the aspects of OAuth2 with Fief.
First of all, go to your workspace admin dashboard.
1. Add a Redirect URI to a Client¶
On the left menu, click on Clients. You'll see here the list of OAuth2 clients defined on your workspace. When getting started, you will have one default client created for you.
What is a client?
A client is a central part of the OAuth2 protocol. It's the definition of an application authorized to request for access tokens and user information on Fief. In other words, your application will need one of those client to be able to authenticate users from your Fief workspace.
Each client has a Client ID and a Client Secret. Those values are used during OAuth2 authentification to recognize the client.
Each workspace comes with one client, tied to the default tenant.
Click on your default client in the list. You'll see its details on the right. Click on the Edit Client button. A modal will open where you'll be able to change some of the properties of this client.
In the Redirect URIs part, click on Add and add the following URL, using your subdomain:
Don't forget to adapt with your own workspace subdomain
If your workspace subdomain is mysuperapp.fief.dev, then the Redirect URL will be https://mysuperapp.fief.dev/docs/oauth2-redirect.
Click on Update to submit your changes.
Keep this tab open
You can keep this tab open in your browser, we'll need it right after.
2. Open the interactive documentation¶
Fief comes with an interactive documentation allowing you to easily test its API. Open it in a new window: https://MY_WORKSPACE_SUBDOMAIN.fief.dev/docs
Don't forget to adapt with your own workspace subdomain
If your workspace subdomain is mysuperapp.fief.dev, then the Redirect URL will be https://mysuperapp.fief.dev/docs.
You see there the list of available API endpoints. We'll be able to call them when we'll be properly authenticated.
3. Authenticate in the interactive documentation¶
Click on the Authorize button. A modal will open showing you the available methods for authenticating. The one we're interested in is at the bottom of this window and called OAuth2AuthorizationCodeBearer.
You see a form expecting two things: the Client ID and Client Secret. Get back to the admin dashboard window and copy and paste them from the client information.
Don't forget also to check the openid checkbox (that's the scope we ask for!). Finally, click on the Authorize button. You'll be taken to a Fief login page!
Just go through the authentication process. If your workspace is brand new, you'll need to create a new account. If everything goes well, you'll be taken back to the interactive documentation. The authorize window now shows you that you are correctly authenticated: we successfully got an access token 🎉
4. Call an API¶
We can now call one of the API! In particular, we'll try the /api/userinfo endpoint: it'll show the information about the current user (you!). Open the one called GET /api/userinfo, click on the Try it out button and then Execute. You'll see an API response showing the information about your user object:
Notice how the interactive documentation automatically added the Authorization header with the token!
5. See your new user in the admin dashboard¶
Now that you have a user account in your workspace, you can see it from the admin dashboard! Get back to your admin dashboard and, in the left menu, click on Users. This is the list of users in your workspace... And you should see the one you just created!
You're now an OAuth2 master 👏¶
Congratulations! You've performed a full OAuth2 authentication from A to Z. Those concepts are important to have in mind because they'll be at the core of Fief integration in your app. The key things to remember are:
- You need a Client to make authentication requests, using its ID and Secret.
- You need to allow the Redirect URL on the Client so Fief can redirect to your application.
- You need to request an access token and store it somewhere to authenticate requests.
What now?¶
You can now proceed to integrate Fief in your application! We provide libraries and guides for the following languages:
Also, be sure to get familiar with all the features of Fief by going through the admin dashboard documentation.