simpleauth 0.1.4

Simple authentication wrapper for an Google App Engine app
===========================================================

Supported specs:
- OAuth 2.0
- OAuth 1.0(a)
- OpenID

Supported providers out of the box:
- Google (OAuth 2.0)
- Facebook (OAuth 2.0)
- Windows Live (OAuth 2.0)
- Twitter (OAuth 1.0a)
- LinkedIn (OAuth 1.0a)
- OpenID, using App Engine users module API

Dependencies:
- python-oauth2. This is actually a library implementing OAuth 1.0 spec.
- httplib2 (as a dependency of python-oauth2)
- lxml (e.g. LinkedIn user profile data parsing)

Demo (example app): https://simpleauth.appspot.com
Source code + issues: http://code.google.com/p/gae-simpleauth/
GitHub mirror (+ more issues): https://github.com/crhym3/simpleauth

Discussions:
https://groups.google.com/d/forum/gae-simpleauth


Getting Started
================

1. Install the library on your local Mac/PC with one of:
a. "easy_install -U simpleauth"
b. "pip install simpleauth"
c. clone the source repo, e.g. "git clone https://code.google.com/p/gae-simpleauth/"

2. Place the subdir called "simpleauth" into your app root.

3. You'll also need to get python-oauth2 (pip install oauth2)
and httplib2 (http://code.google.com/p/httplib2/)

4. Create a request handler by subclassing SimpleAuthHandler, e.g.

class AuthHandler(SomeBaseRequestHandler, SimpleAuthHandler):
"""Authentication handler for all kinds of auth."""

def _on_signin(self, data, auth_info, provider):
"""Callback whenever a new or existing user is logging in.
data is a user info dictionary.
auth_info contains access token or oauth token and secret.

See what's in it with logging.info(data, auth_info)
"""

auth_id = '%s:%s' % (provider, data['id'])

# 1. check whether user exist, e.g.
# User.get_by_auth_id(auth_id)
#
# 2. create a new user if it doesn't
# User(**data).put()
#
# 3. sign in the user
# self.session['_user_id'] = auth_id
#
# 4. redirect somewhere, e.g. self.redirect('/profile')
#
# See more on how to work the above steps here:
# http://webapp-improved.appspot.com/api/webapp2_extras/auth.html
# http://code.google.com/p/webapp-improved/issues/detail?id=20


def logout(self):
self.auth.unset_session()
self.redirect('/')

def _callback_uri_for(self, provider):
return self.uri_for('auth_callback', provider=provider, _full=True)

def _get_consumer_info_for(self, provider):
"""Should return a tuple (key, secret) for auth init requests.
For OAuth 2.0 you should also return a scope, e.g.
('my app id', 'my app secret', 'email,user_about_me')

The scope depends solely on the provider.
See example/secrets.py.template
"""
return secrets.AUTH_CONFIG[provider]

Note that SimpleAuthHandler isn't a real request handler. It's up to you.
For instance, SomeBaseRequestHandler could be webapp2.RequestHandler.

5. Add routing so that '/auth/PROVIDER', '/auth/PROVIDER/callback' and '/logout' requests
go to your AuthHandler.

For instance, in webapp2 you could do:

# Map URLs to handlers
routes = [
Route('/auth/<provider>',
handler='handlers.AuthHandler:_simple_auth', name='auth_login'),
Route('/auth/<provider>/callback',
handler='handlers.AuthHandler:_auth_callback', name='auth_callback'),
Route('/logout',
handler='handlers.AuthHandler:logout', name='logout')
]

6. That's it. See a sample app in the example dir.
To run the example app, copy example/secrets.py.template into example/secrets.py
and start the app locally by executing run.sh

OAuth scopes, keys and secrets
===============================

This section is just a bunch of links to the docs on authentication with
various providers.

== Google
Docs: https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2WebServer
Get client/secret: http://code.google.com/apis/console

Multiple scopes should be space-separated, e.g.
"https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.profile https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email"

Multiple callback URLs on different domains are awesomely supported.
If you're running two versions of the app, say one on localhost and another
on example.org, simply add all of the callbacks including host, port and
protocol to Redirect URIs list on API Access tab.

== Facebook
Docs: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/server-side/
Get client/secret: https://developers.facebook.com/apps

Multiple Scopes should be comma-separated, e.g. "user_about_me,email".
Full list of scopes:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/permissions/

Multiple callback URLs on different domains are not supported by a single app
registration. If you need to test your app on say, localhost and example.org,
you should probably register two different applications and use the appropriate
set of key/secret: one for localhost, and the other for example.org.

Also, there's a "Sandbox Mode" checkbox on Facebook's app settings page. Make
sure it's disabled for a public/live website. Otherwise, almost nobody
except you will be able to authenticate.

== Windows Live
Docs: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/live/hh243649.aspx
Get client/secret: https://manage.dev.live.com

Scopes are space-separated, e.g. "wl.signin wl.basic".
Full list of scopes:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/live/hh243646.aspx

Multiple callback URLs on different domains are not supported by a single app
registration. If you need to test your app on say, localhost and example.org,
you should probably register two different applications and use the appropriate
set of key/secret: one for localhost, and the other for example.org.

== LinkedIn
Docs: https://developer.linkedin.com/documents/authentication
Get client/secret: https://www.linkedin.com/secure/developer

Scopes are not supported. This is OAuth 1.0a.

Even though LinkedIn will not give you any error about improper callback URI,
it'll always use the value set in app's settings page. So, if you have two
versions, say one on localhost and another on example.org, you'll probably
want to register two applications (e.g. "dev" and "production") and use
appropriate set of key/secret accordingly.

== Twitter
Docs: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/auth/implementing-sign-twitter
Get client/secret: https://dev.twitter.com/apps

Scopes are not supported. This is OAuth 1.0a.

When registering a new app, you have to specify a callback URL. Otherwise,
it is considered as an "off-band" app and users will be given a PIN code
instead of being redirected back to your site.

Even though Twitter will not give you any error about improper callback URI,
it'll always use the value set in app's settings page. So, if you have two
versions, say one on localhost and another on example.org, you'll probably
want to register two applications (e.g. "dev" and "production") and use
appropriate set of key/secret accordingly.

CSRF protection
================

You can optionally enable cross-site-request-forgery protection for OAuth 2.0:

class AuthHandler(webapp2.RequestHandler, SimpleAuthHandler):

# enabled CSRF state token for OAuth 2.0
OAUTH2_CSRF_STATE = True

# ...
# rest of the stuff from step 4 of the above.

This will use the optional OAuth 2.0 'state' param to guard against CSRFs by
setting a user session token during Authorization step and comparing it
against 'state' parameter on callback.

For this to work your handler has to have a session dict-like object on the
instance. Here's an example using webapp2_extras session:

import webapp2
from webapp2_extras import sessions

class AuthHandler(webapp2.RequestHandler, SimpleAuthHandler):
# enabled CSRF state token for OAuth 2.0
OAUTH2_CSRF_STATE = True

@webapp2.cached_property
def session(self):
"""Returns a session using the default cookie key"""
return self.session_store.get_session()

def dispatch(self):
# Get a session store for this request.
self.session_store = sessions.get_store(request=self.request)
try:
# Dispatch the request.
webapp2.RequestHandler.dispatch(self)
finally:
# Save all sessions.
self.session_store.save_sessions(self.response)

# ...
# rest of the stuff from step 4 of the above.

This simple implementation assumes it is safe to use user sessions.
If, however, user's session can be hijacked, the authentication flow could
probably be bypassed anyway and this CSRF protection becomes the least
of the problems.

Alternative implementation could involve HMAC digest. If anything serious
pops up (e.g. see this SO question: http://goo.gl/3hiOv) please submit
a bug on the issue tracker.

Catching errors
================

There are a couple ways to catch authentication errors if you don't want your
app to display a "Server Error" message when something goes wrong during
an auth flow.

You can use webapp2's built-in functionality and define
handle_exception(self, exception, debug) instance method on the handler
that processes authentication requests or on a base handler if you have one.
Here's a simple example:

class AuthHandler(webapp2.RequestHandler, SimpleAuthHandler):
# _on_signin() and other stuff
# ...

def handle_exception(self, exception, debug):
# Log the error
logging.error(exception)
# Do something based on the exception: notify users, etc.
self.response.write(exception)
self.response.set_status(500)

You can also define global (app-wise) error handlers using app.error_handlers
dict (where app is a webapp2.WSGIApplication instance). It's all described
in details on this page:
http://webapp-improved.appspot.com/guide/exceptions.html

Another solution is, if you're using webapp2's dispatch method like in the
CSRF snippet above, you could do something like this:

from simpleauth import Error as AuthError

def dispatch(self):
try:
# Dispatch the request.
webapp2.RequestHandler.dispatch(self)
except AuthError as e:
# Do something based on the error: notify users, etc.
logging.error(e)
self.redirect('/')

Alternatively, you can also use App Engine built-in functionality and define
error handlers in app.yaml. Docs on this can be found here:
https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/config/appconfig
(see Custom Error Responses section).

Lastly, if nothing from the above works for you, override _simple_auth()
and/or _auth_callback() methods, e.g.

from simpleauth import SimpleAuthHandler
from simpleauth import Error as AuthError

class AuthHandler(webapp2.RequestHandler, SimpleAuthHandler):
def _simple_auth(self, provider=None):
try:
super(AuthHandler, self)._simple_auth(provider)
except AuthError as e:
# Do something based on the error: notify users, etc.
logging.error(e)
self.redirect('/')


CONTRIBUTORS
================
Eric Higgins - https://plus.google.com/110096465686977826318
Terence Honles - https://plus.google.com/102290028010684171454


CHANGELOG
================
v0.1.4 - 2013-01-09
* lxml lib requirement is now optional
http://code.google.com/p/gae-simpleauth/issues/detail?id=3
* Updated Windows Live OAuth 2.0 endpoints
* A little more doc in this readme and code comments

v0.1.3 - 2012-09-19
* CSRF protection for OAuth 2.0
http://code.google.com/p/gae-simpleauth/issues/detail?id=1
* Custom exceptions
http://code.google.com/p/gae-simpleauth/issues/detail?id=2
* Example app improvements, including:
- CSRF guard
- show exception messages for demo purposes
- prettier output of session, profile data and auth_info dictionaries
- https://github.com/crhym3/simpleauth/issues/4
- https://github.com/crhym3/simpleauth/issues/5
* More useful info in README