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Backend/API Integration

An API or service protected by Authgear

Last updated 4 months ago

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If your API or backend service needs authentication, you can validate the session in your application server code. Each request from the client to your application server should contain an access token or a cookie. Your backend server should validate them for each HTTP request.

There are different approaches to verify the requests based on whether you validate JWT (JSON Web Tokens) in your server, or forward authentication to Authgear Resolver Endpoint.

Validate JSON Web Token (JWT) in your application server
Forward Authentication to Authgear Resolver Endpoint

Reliability

Medium JWT only updates when expire. That means before the token expiry, your application may see the user is valid even they has been disabled

High Update near real-time, based on your reserve proxy cache setting

Integration difficulties

Easy You only need to add code in your application to validate and decode JWT

Medium Need to setup extra reverse proxy to resolve authentication information

Transportation of session

Access Token in Authorization header

Session ID in Cookies or Access Token in Authorization header

Simple: Validate JWT in your server

Authgear uses for secure data transmission, authentication, and authorization.

Authgear returns the access token and refresh token to the client app after authentication. Your client app should call the backend with the access token in the Authorization header. The tokens should be parsed and validated in the backend server to ensure they are not compromised and the signature is authentic.

Request example:

> GET /api_path HTTP/1.1
> Host: yourdomain.com
> Authorization: Bearer <AUTHGEAR_ACCESS_TOKEN_IN_JWT>

Read more on guide.

Advanced: Forward Authentication to Authgear Resolver Endpoint

Forward Authentication is a process where an intermediate reverse proxy or API Gateway is responsible for authenticating a request before it reaches the intended application or service. This can add an extra layer of security and centralize the authentication logic. An intermediate service forwards each incoming HTTP request to the Authgear Resolver Endpoint to verify the access token or cookie in the HTTP header.

Forward Access Token in Authorization Header

Forward Cookie in HTTP header

In this approach, instead of validating the token in authorization header, Authgear returns Set-Cookie headers and sets cookies to the browser. The cookies are HTTP only and share under the same root domains. So you will need to setup the custom domain for Authgear, such as identity.yourdomain.com.

Request example:

> GET /api_path HTTP/1.1
> Host: yourdomain.com
> cookie: session=<AUTHGEAR_SESSION_ID>

Read more on guide.

Instead of validating the access token in the backend, a reverse proxy forwards the request to an . This endpoint resolves and verifies the access token in the Authorization Header of the request.

If you have multiple applications under yourdomain.com, all applications would share the same session cookie automatically. After that, you can verify the cookies using the .

Forward Authentication to Authgear Resolver Endpoint
Resolver Endpoint
JSON Web Token (JWT)
Validate JWT in your application server
Validate JWT in your application server
Authgear Resolver Endpoint