AppSync API, authentication method and how to refresh x-api-key - amazon-web-services

I am coding a react native app, without user authentication.
The app shows a list of cards (like apartment cards in airbnb) using GraphQL API and AWS AppSync.
AppSync provides different authentication methods, but I can't choose the best one for production.
Everyone (without authentication) could use the app
I am using api-key auth method in production, but the api key expires in 7 days... How can I update the app in production with a new api key each time? (Maybe it's not the correct auth method for production)
I saw many apps the are using x-api-key header in their network traffic, refreshing it each 10 minutes... how they do that?

Related

Accept only authentificated requests to backend

I have this question. I am quite new in this area.
I have web app.
This consist of services deployed on Docker engine.
The main services/containers are:
Frontend : React on Nginx web server
Backend (API) : Django, DRF on gunicorn on Nginx
For frontend I use Auth0 provider. It works as expected. If user is not authenticated/authorized it is redirected to login page.
Now I want also to "secure" my backend that it only would accept authenticated connections from frontend.
For backend (Django) I also have CORS enabled (django-cors-headers package), but I still can connect from my browser my-site/api/ and get the response.
Does anybody know which strategy should I use.
Should I somehow secure it using JWT tokens. Somehow pass it to backend in my request?
There is various ways of authorizing API calls from your front-end applications to execute actions on your back-end. These will tend to vary in a few aspects:
Complexity
Needing to know who sent the request
Access surfaces
Duration of access
Roles
and so on...
In this case if you have authenticated users on your front-end using AuthO then a JWT could make sense since using this method you can encode specific user data that will allow you to make the decision on your backend as to if that user should have access to that action at that time.
Here is an article explaining a few popular methods of authentication

Which is the best way to protect a Django API?

I've deployed a Django API powered with Django Rest Framework with some open endpoints and some Authenticated endpoints using Token authentication.
Which is the best way to protect the entry API allowing only to send request from the app frontend team?
I was thinking to use an Nginx basic auth, but then the Authorization header is duplicated, so Token auth is not working.
You could filter the access in your API by filtering the IP address in case that the frontend team uses a static one (e.g. ALLOWED HOSTS).
Moreover, you could add the users of the frontend team in a specific group or provided the same role and filter the access by implementing a reusable custom DRF permission.
An other option could be the usage of a custom HTTP header or an API key (e.g. X-API-KEY header).

How to send requests to Cloud Run only from the app?

Subscription based iOS app I'm building uses Cloud Run service invoked via HTTPS request.
How can I make sure that the request can only be invoked by app owners(from the app)?
I've looked at Google Sign-In authentication, but I don't think it is applicable in my case as only those subscribed to the app should have the access, not just those with Gmail account.
I think without a Google Sign-in involved, your question has nothing to do with Cloud Run and can be generalized as:
How to send requests to to a backend app only from its mobile app?
So I'll answer that.
You'll find out that you need some form of "authentication" to prove that you're on a mobile app as a "user". To achieve that, you need some form of sign-in.
You may try to ship a secret (like a token or private key) in the application and use that to authenticate, but this will be susceptible to:
exfiltration of the private they from the application bundle through reverse engineering
applying a man-in-the-middle attack to the HTTPS request (and therefore the token) by trusting a root CA on the device and using e.g. mitmproxy to decrypt the request as plaintext.
In reality, there's no way to fully secure iOS/Android <=> backend communication that. Even the largest apps like Twitter, Instagram etc have their APIs reverse engineered all the time and invoked from non iOS/Android clients as the requests can be spoofed.
If you want to authenticate your existing users, you should figure out how these people login to your app. This could be simple username:password in Authentication: Basic [...] header, or something more complicated like OAuth2 which is what apps like Facebook, Twitter implement under the covers for their mobile apps.
Then you would validate that Authentication header in your Cloud Run application code yourself.
So again, I don't think this is a problem specific to Cloud Run, or any cloud provider.
If your goal is for your API to only be called when your users are authenticated in your app, I would recommend implementing one of the two solutions described on this page:
Using Google Sign-in or Firebase Authentication

want to push/pull data into/from SalesForce Accounts/leads from/to my external web app

I have my web application. Now i want to integrate salesforce into my web app so that i can push data from my app to any salesforce org after the authentication(OAuth).
I found 2 ways:
1. Connected Apps
2. via wsdl generation file and use
I created a connected app from my developer account and i authenticated using consumer key, cusumer secret key(from my connected app) and username of user and secret token of the user account.
I tried with another free trail account, It's validating and fetching the details and post data also working.
My question is, shall i deploy my connected app into app exchange, then only i caan use REST APIs ?
generating wsdl and coding around is the better option than the above ?
Is there a option, only one time authentication enough for any number of sessions and use the REST APIs?
Please suggest me a best way to proceed.
You're mixing up a couple of independent issues here.
If you're going to authenticate via OAuth, you must have a Connected App.
A SOAP API login() call requires you to store a username and password, which is undesirable.
There is no way to "permanently" authenticate, i.e., to get a session id that never expires. Your app must always be ready to get a new access token via the OAuth refresh token it obtains and stores (via, for example, the Web Server OAuth flow), or to reauthenticate via JWT flow.
Connected Apps are global metadata in most cases. You don't need to deploy a Connected App into a target org in order to authenticate using its Client Id and Secret into that org. The only exception I'm aware of is if you want to use the JWT flow with a certificate and preauthorized Profiles and Permission Sets.
Based on what you've shared, I don't see any reason for the AppExchange to be involved.

Django API fronted by Azure API gateway

I have a Django application that currently stores user credentials and performs authorization and authentication. I am in the process of breaking off the front-end into an Angular SPA and converting the backend to a REST API. My Django API will live as an Azure API app protected by Azure API Gateway. I would like to remove the authentication piece from Django and allow users to sign in using OpenID Connect through either Google or Microsoft Account. What I would like to happen is this:
When a user visits the site, assuming they have never registered with my app, they will have the option to sign in with their Google account or Microsoft Account. If the user decides to sign in using their Google or Microsoft account, (this is where I'm confused and why i'm posting here ... ) I think what happens is the API Gateway performs the authentication, generates a JSON Web Token (JWT), and sends that token back to the Django API. Django receives the JWT, decrypts it, and checks to see if there is a user account matching the email address in the JWT. If there is not a user account, Django will add a user to the user accounts table (not storing a password). If there is a user matching that email address, then Django allows the user in.
All that said, I guess my question(s) are:
Should I do the authentication at the API Management Gateway or should I do it at the Azure Web API?
Can I use Django's built-in authentication system to do what I want or is that not needed?
Am I over-complicating all of this? Is there an easier way to do this? All this seems like a lot of work.
Is OpenID Connect what I should be using (instead of Oauth2)? I have no experience with either.
Azure API Management does not actually provide any kind of JWT issuing mechanism, so you'll have to implement that yourself. The end points for doing that may or may not be exposed via API management.
What possibly gets you confused is the fact that the APIm Portal supports various indentity providers, like Twitter or Google, to sign up for the API. But these are not your application users, these are for the API Portal Users.
What you can do with the APIm Gateway is to validate subsequent calls to your backend API that the supplied JWT token is valid (using the <validate-jwt> policy).