Catching 401 and refreshing Firebase Id Token - android

My app uses Firebase to authenticate users by phone number, a migration from Digits.
I add the idToken from Firebase to my calls.
I listen with an interceptor on my httpclient if a 401 was trown, if so, I logged out.
I noticed after one hour the 401 came in, so I added an addIdTokenListener in my App class. When it changes I update my token to sign my calls.
It worked, but not flawless, sometimes a 401 was thrown and I still logged the user out...
I am writing something in my interceptor to get the IdToken from the user, but the call firebaseUser.getIdToken() is async. So I'm starting to make things complicated, I guess.
Could anyone point me in the right direction? What is your workflow?

You're going in the right direction. One thing you may want to do is alter your logic a little based on the reason for the ID token validation failure. You can unpack the ID token data yourself and check the expiration field. If the token has expired, return a different code that triggers the retrieval process, before trying the call again.

Related

How to get Firebase idToken from AuthResult?

Firebase are providing AuthResult on the callback for user sign in using startActivityForSignInWithProvider (in my case the provider is apple on Android platform).
I can't seem to fetch the idToken from it in a proper (synchronous) way.
So far I found two options, both aren't satisfying:
Option 1: casting
((OAuthCredential)authResult.getCredential()).getIdToken()
This works but I'm not sure if it's a safe cast. Plis, I'm thinking, if Firebase would have wanted us to fetch the idToken this way, they would have added it to AuthCredential.
Option 2: fetching it from the user
authResult.getUser().getIdToken(false).addOnCompleteListener { ... }
This seems to be a safe solution, but it's an async method. It doesn't seem to make sense to performing another async method, after the user just manually signed in (this is what i'm doing for an existing user).
You should be using the asynchronous listener. The reason for this is because the ID token will expire every hour, and your listener is how you know the very moment when the token has been refreshed, so you can start using that new token right away.

What to do if token expired

I have communicate with API using retrofit. When the user is log in, I save account to database and when the user go to app next time, I get data from database (so I skipped login screen). Problem is when user's token expires.
How to handle the situation?
in login fragment
PSEUDOCODE
user = ... //get user from database
if(user != null) {
startActivityAccountActivity();
}
//onButtonClick
emailLogin();
Don't go to your "logged in" activity just because you have a token saved, because as you have correctly noticed, it may be invalid. Try authenticating with the API when you get the token, and only go to the "logged in" activity if it indeed worked. Otherwise proceed as if there was no token saved (and remove the expired one from the database).
You should also note that the token may expire when the user is in the "logged in" activity. For example, the user logged in, used the app and then went to another app from the recents screen. A week later he/she returns to your app with the "logged in" activity open, but in the mean time the token has expired and nothing will work. So you should also check if the token still works there, maybe in the onStart() of the activity.
As indramurari said, you can also handle it on the backend if you control it. But keep in mind that it doesn't solve your inherent problem of handling expired tokens, a refresh token may also expire and you are back to square one. If you make refresh tokens not expire you can just make the login tokens not expire. (This paragraph would be a comment on his answer, but I don't have enough reputation.)
It depends on your back end security level. You have two options to handle this situation.
Build some mechanism on back end side so that your server will send some refresh-token along with the user's token at the time of login to Android device. Whenever user's token get expired then request from Android device to your server to obtain new user's token by sending old user's token along with refresh-token. And you can use that new user's token for future. Repeat this whenever user's token get expired.
Note - refresh-token is for validating if it is valid resource who is requesting for a user's token.
You can delete the user account from database and tell user to Re-Login.

ParseUser.getCurrentUser() confusion

I'm using Parse as the backend.
To check if the user is logged in I use ParseUser.getCurrentUser(). What I don't understand is, if the user changes his password from somewhere else (another device, the web-client), will this ParseUser return with some kind of error?
I don't think it does a check on the server, so I think it just returns the last saved user. This mean that I can continue to use this user (with an old password) or will I get a "wrong credential" response on the first request to the servers?
If I don't get it, will I at least get it when setting an ACL with parseObject.setACL(new ParseACL(ParseUser.getCurrentUser()));?
Try same action on yahoo in 2 open browsers of different types and see what you get?
Each client's been handed a token value by the respective servers and until the token expire will not be prompt for a new logon.
Well IMO Parse work very similar except the lease on Parse token never expire.
Response to the original parse logon contain the token value which the SDK may retain. Details are in the docs section on Rest api / user logon...
So, if a diff client change password but the token lease over on some other client never expire, the other client stays logged in.

Why I am getting exception after trying to access Box?

Some days ago I asked how to retain Box tokens (Load, save and use of authentication data in Box Android API). Now, when user wants to access his Box account I use this code to configure BoxAndroidClient:
client = new BoxAndroidClient(C, S);
client.authenticate(loadAuth()); //loadAuth() returns BoxAndroidOAuthData object
For short period of time after obtaining authentication data it works good. But after an hour or so I get an AuthFatalFailureException:
07-06 17:21:01.841: W/System.err(3647): com.box.boxjavalibv2.exceptions.AuthFatalFailureException
07-06 17:21:01.841: W/System.err(3647): at com.box.boxjavalibv2.authorization.OAuthDataController.doRefresh(OAuthDataController.java:275)
07-06 17:21:01.841: W/System.err(3647): at com.box.boxjavalibv2.authorization.OAuthDataController.refresh(OAuthDataController.java:191)
07-06 17:21:01.841: W/System.err(3647): at org.redscorpio.cloudtest.network.Box$2$1.run(Box.java:71)
Line 71 is
client.getOAuthDataController().refresh();
but it happens every time I need to access Box:
client.getFoldersManager().getFolderItems(current.getId(), LIST_REQUEST()).getEntries();
client.getFoldersManager().getFolder("0", DEFAULT_REQUEST);
I suspect that my token is invalidated at some point, but I don't know why it can't be renewed and why it happens after such a short period of time.
What I can do to prevent this?
I am not exactly sure what's going on. The sdk does auto refresh the token. However every time the token is refreshed, you actually will get a new refresh token and new access token, the old refresh token will not be valid any more. So basically the easiest way probably is update your stored OAuth token object every time your api call succeeds.
In the meantime, can you double check(maybe add some loggings) whether the stored refresh token and access token are the latest ones?
You can logcat out the access token in the code of token refresh:
com.box.boxjavalibv2.authorization.OAuthDataController class, doRefresh() method.
and in the place where api call is made: com.box.boxjavalibv2.authorization.OAuthAuthorization class, getAuthString() method.
When a user logs in and accepts your app's grant, you exchange the authorization_code for an access_token and a refresh_token (response shown below). The reason your token invalidates is that the access_token expires in one hour. You can exchange the refresh_token, which is valid for 14 days, for another one-hour access token. This is why you'll want the app to store both the access_token and the refresh_token, ensuring that a user will only need to re-authenticate if they return to the app after more than 14 days.
Using the refresh_token for another access_token will always return one more of each (refresh + access).
{
"access_token": "T9cE5asGnuyYCCqIZFoWjFHvNbvVqHjl",
"expires_in": 3600,
"token_type": "bearer",
"refresh_token": "J7rxTiWOHMoSC1isKZKBZWizoRXjkQzig5C6jFgCVJ9bUnsUfGMinKBDLZWP9BgR"
}

How to refresh Token in GoogleCredential

I have implement function retrieve credentials from saved token in SharedPreferences.
mCredential = new GoogleCredential.Builder()
.setClientSecrets(CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET)
.setJsonFactory(mJsonFactory)
.setTransport(mHttpTransport).build();
mCredential.setRefreshToken(accessRefreshTokenSave);
mCredential.setAccessToken(accessTokenSave);
Long expires = mCredential.getExpiresInSeconds();
boolean result = mCredential.refreshToken();
When the token is expired. We should call mCredential.refreshToken() to refresh the token, is it right ?
When i call refreshToken i got exception.
com.google.api.client.auth.oauth2.TokenResponseException: 400 Bad Request
{
"error" : "invalid_grant"
}
What should i need to do to refresh the token ? I found some document in Using OAuth 2.0 say about refresh token. But i don't know how to implement it in Android code? Is there any sample code do this ?
Generally (in my experience, since I haven't found any documentation) 'invalid grant' means there is some problem with your stored refresh token. This includes (I think):-
The user has revoked it
Your testing has caused multiple refresh tokens to be generated. Only 25 may be extant
The scopes associated with the stored token have changed
To recover the situation, delete the stored refresh token and start the process again. The good news, is that apart from the user revocation scenario (1) this is a testing environment issue and doesn't necessarily mean you have a bug.
Have a look on https://developers.google.com/+/mobile/android/sign-in that's the OAUTH for Android, and you can check what is wrong, or maybe use the example code in your Project. To give you more details, you have to post the entire project (linking it to GitHub for example) or post the interested Class ;-)

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