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Introduction

The device authorization grant is designed for Internet connected devices that either lack a browser to perform a user-agent based authorization or are input constrained to the extent that requiring the user to input text in order to authenticate during the authorization flow is impractical.  It enables clients on such devices (like smart TVs, media consoles, digital picture frames, and printers) to obtain user authorisation to access protected resources by using a user agent on a separate device.

Implementation follows OAuth 2.0 Device Authorization Grant standards https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8628

Device-Auth User flow

This section describes how device authorization flow can be achieved from a device. 

...

EndpointHTTP MethodPurpose
/api/auth/v1/devicePOSTCreates unique user code and a verification URI to present it on a external browser to verify the user.
/api/auth/v1/device/verifyPOSTVerifies the user code with the authenticated user.
/api/auth/v1/access_token grant_type="urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:device_code"POSTProvides access_token to the device once the user is verified externally.

...

  • device_code - This is a long string that the device will use to eventually exchange for an access token.
  • verification_uri - This is the URL the user needs to enter into their browser to start logging in.
  • user_code - This is the code the user will enter at the URL above,  it will be of 8 characters, upper case A-Z and numeric.
  • expires_in - The number of seconds that this set of values is valid. After this amount of time, the device_code and user_code will expire and the process will have to start over.
  • interval - The number of seconds the device should wait between polling to see if the user has finished authentication.

Now the device needs to display the URL and User Code to the user.

Info

Client is free to add spaces or dashes to the user code (ex. ABCD-1234) in order to make it easier to read and enter into the secondary device, as long as all such characters are stripped from the input while requesting for the verification.

Verification: 

User logs in with regular authentication mechanism to the service from mobile phone/browser, then enters the verification_uri provided by the device endpoint, a POST request is made to /api/auth/v1/device/verify endpoint to verify the user. See: User Authentication#/Device%20Authorization/verifyUserCode 

...

While the device waits for the user to enter the code and log in, it will make a POST request every 5 seconds as specified by the interval returned. This POST request will be made to the /api/auth/v1/access_tokenendpoint, using a grant type of urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:device_code

Code Block
curl -X POST "https://testing.booxmedia.xyz/api/auth/v1/access_tokens" -H "accept: application/vnd.api+json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"grant_type\":\"urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:device_code
\",\"credentials\”:{\”client_id\”:\”1234xyz”, \”device_code\”:\”NGU4QWFiNjQ5YmQwNG3YTdmZMEyNzQ3YzQ1YSA
”},\”login_user_profile\":\"84eb61a9-75d4-42c7-8c15-84c3d7776227\”}”

...

Code Block
{
  "errors": [
    {
      "id": "6de7da3e-8877-4f2b-a670-16e18e5d79a0",
      "status": "429",
      "code": "0",
      "title": "Too Many Requests",
      "detail": " - Slow Down"
    }
  ]
}

Once the verification is successful, the api/auth/v1/access_tokens endpoint will respond with access_token and refresh_token which can be used by the device for further use of services.

Code Block
{
  "data": {
    "type": "AccessToken",
    "id": "9bc6871e-ce26-4b8a-96f6-e6688599d938",
    "attributes": {
      "login_timestamp": 1538126476,
      "user_id": "1234",
      "user_profile_id": "84eb61a9-75d4-42c7-8c15-84c3d7776227",
      "user_flags": [
        "TEST_FLAG1"
      ],
      "access_token": "eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJBbWlub01vdmUiLCJpYXQiOjE1Mzc1MjIxNzQsImV4cCI6MTUzODEyNjk3OSwiYXVkIjoid3d3LmJvb3h0di5maSIsInN1YiI6ImV4YW1wbGVfdXNlckBlbWFpbGRvbWFpbi5jb20iLCJwcm9maWxlX2lkIjoiNmM3Zjk0YWYtYjYwMy00ZjM5LTgzODQtZjEyMjI2ZWE5ZDRjNmM3Zjk0YWYtYjYwMy00ZjM5LTgzODQtZjEyMjI2ZWE5ZDRjIiwidHlwZSI6ImFjY2VzcyIsInN0Yl9zZXJpYWxfbm8iOiI2MTU1MDAyNjYxNjIifQ.RW6NdDE_kGgkOVKqodeT1fDdxU7Slaf551rp5ctBcFc",
      "expires_at_timestamp": 1538126476,
      "refresh_token": "eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJBbWlub01vdmUiLCJpYXQiOjE1Mzc1MjIxNzQsImV4cCI6MTU0NTk4OTM3OSwiYXVkIjoid3d3LmJvb3h0di5maSIsInN1YiI6ImV4YW1wbGVfdXNlckBlbWFpbGRvbWFpbi5jb20iLCJ0eXBlIjoicmVmcmVzaCJ9.9Pxzv0oGxjZmAIpZiH-aiue7LwAMcddPPHnaiOkpb-A"
    }
  }
}
Info

If api/auth/v1/access_tokens returns 404 Not Found, that means either the device_code has not been registered or the device code has been expired. In such cases, a new request has to be made using /api/auth/v1/device.