Google Data API Integration - Which Authentication Model? - c#

I am in the processing of developing a web application which will integrate directly with a Google Calendar associated with a specific Google account. The account being accessed by the Google Data API is not likely to change, so I'm unsure what the most appropriate account authentication method is going to be.
I've reviewed the options avilable and it would seem that AuthSub and OAuth are inappropriate as I will not be logging users into their own account- only displaying and updating a fixed account. The other options available are ClientLogin and Gadgets authentication. Of all of them, ClientLogin seems the best fit, but the documentation states that it is intended for installed applications. While the web application I am developing is not specifically an installed application, it closely mirrors one in this scenario- which is why I think ClientLogin makes the most sense.
Which Google authentication option would be the best fit in this scenario?

After reading http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/docs/auth/overview.html it seems to me that OAuth is the most secure way to achieve your goals. Google recommends OAuth or AuthSub over ClientLogin for Web Applications. In addition using OAuth and AuthSub prevents your application from ever having control of the users email and password meaning you dont need to take the extra steps to protect and update the information. Between OAuth and AuthSub, OAuth is more universally adopted, and more secure due to the fact that requests are signed. Hope that helps.
EDIT: So I misunderstood exactly what your application was doing, if you are only using your google account any method of authentication is probably fine, that said google recommends OAuth or AuthSub for web apps. However the important thing to find out about OAuth and AuthSub is what the life of the token is. If there is no way to make the token last for a long time (months, years) then I would try to use ClientLogin, because then your application will always be able to login to the account. As a side note however for security I would recommend you NOT use your primary google account for the application instead create a second account and simply share the calendar with your primary account, that way if you application was compromised you would not lose your primary google account.

Related

Add JWT authentication to Asp.Net MVC applicatio

Basically, I have a homework assignment which involves me creating a MVC app in Asp.Net (the standard version, not Core). I need to provide authentication using jwt, but i have to use a separate authentication server, so the token creation and validation are delegated to that server, and if a server like that already exists (perhaps a facebook or twitter authentication server using jwt), i should use it rather than create my own. I am not sure if there is a jwt authentication server which I could use, and I don't know what is the best way to handle jwt tokens, for example if i have a form that submits stuff to a controller action, how to place a jwt token in the request. Any help on this would be much appreciated!
As this is a homework assignment I'm going to try and provide a jumping off point rather than provide code samples or anything.
A JWT can be issued from another authority and used within your own application provided your application is set up to use that authority. For example, in house we use AWS Cognito to store our users, and in each of our web applications we specify that our JWT tokens are being issued by that Cognito user pool.
I've had a quick look around online for any issuers that may provide this service for free, and found the following blog post for Auth0 which boasts being able to support up to 7000 users for free (there may be hidden costs, I haven't looked into it fully)
The tutorial in the blog post seems to follow a .Net standard rather than a core implementation. Hopefully you find this useful and good luck with your assignment!

How to implement IIS authentication in an asp.net web api project?

I've been tasked with enabling authentication and authorization for our project's api. The main goal is to protect the methods from misuse, however we also need to enable a developer from another company to call the methods in their code.
Being new to authentication and authorization I'm overwhelmed with the many different options available for .NET etc. Some techniques look promising until you read that they pass credentials in plain text (basic auth?) or have other issues etc... I'm just looking for a reliable and safe approach.
I'm using IIS to host the web api, and I have seen that one such option is to authenticate at the 'host level'. My supervisor has mentioned this is the preferred approach.
I have looked at many threads and videos regarding authenticating in IIS. From what I can work out, such a solution alerts the user that a certain action requires authentication and to enter their credentials.
My issues are as follows:
Given the other developer is not a member of our domain, how can they authenticate using their (windows?) credentials. Is there an alternative to windows authentication?
How will requiring authorization on certain api actions impact the function of the site normally? I.e. will I have to pass valid credentials to the api in my code, for each request?
Overall I'm just a bit uncertain on how this all works and I appreciate any advice given.

Application Only Authentication with the LinkedIn API

I fear that the answer to this is that this is no longer supported, but I'm trying to find a way to use Application Only authentication against the LinkedIn API.
The application is running as a Hangfire job (and therefore, without user interaction), with a view to querying the LinkedIn API and pulling in some basic post information from my own account.
I'm having trouble finding a library or even a method to authenticate with the API with just my Client ID and Secret (for example) without having to redirect a user in order to get an access token.
Does anyone know if this is still possible?

Running own identity service

does dotnetopenauth allows or has the ability to run own identity server?
We are interested in building a id provider such as stack exchange, google, or fb.
As well as authentication, we are interested in allowing users to register and then using same creds, accessing corps any resource without login again and again.
what s the best place to start? any source code to research for such impl?
Yes, indeed it does!
Best place to start would be the samples included on GitHub.
OpenID Provider
This example will show you the basics for setting up an OpenID provider.
OAUTH
An example of protecting an API with OAUTH - including an example implementation of an Authorisation Server
Have a look, it's a deep dive but worth it if you are serious about being an ID provider - a decision which should not be taken lightly. If you need help then search/post back here on StackOverflow, post on the Google Groups or talk in the JabbR room

GData Authentication for Server Apps

I have an application running on a server that periodically extracts data from Google Analytics. It doesn't issue many queries so I don't think any limit would be a problem.
I have a prototype running, however I had to provide a login a password for the authentication (in code).
I see that I can generate API keys and other kind of authentication bits and pieces in the Google APIs Console, however I am not sure how to use them and whether they can be used in place of the login/password.
It just doesn't seem right to use a user login/password to authenticate a server application.
Is there another way?
(I am using the C# client library)
You should be using OAuth 2.0. See:
http://code.google.com/p/google-gdata/source/browse/trunk/clients/cs/samples/oauth2_sample/oauth2demo.cs
for a sample OAuth workflow.
The best way to do this is with Google Service Accounts
https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2ServiceAccount
However, I don't know off the top of my head the best library for c#, but there does appear to be support for it in the Google library. http://code.google.com/p/google-api-dotnet-client/wiki/OAuth2#Service_Accounts
Here's a answer specifically about the PHP client.
Service Applications and Google Analytics API V3: Server-to-server OAuth2 authentication?

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