Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Stateless authentication w/ JSON Web Tokens
Search
Sponsored
·
Ship Features Fearlessly
Turn features on and off without deploys. Used by thousands of Ruby developers.
→
DamirSvrtan
October 06, 2017
Programming
370
5
Share
Stateless authentication w/ JSON Web Tokens
DamirSvrtan
October 06, 2017
More Decks by DamirSvrtan
See All by DamirSvrtan
Designing APIs: Less Data is More
damirsvrtan
1
520
Crossing Domain Boundaries with GraphQL
damirsvrtan
0
200
Surrounded by Microservices
damirsvrtan
2
5.5k
Building Serverless Ruby Bots @ Ruby Conf 2018
damirsvrtan
0
480
Building Serverless Ruby Bots @ Paris.rb Conf 2018
damirsvrtan
1
2.5k
Importing and serving millions of records
damirsvrtan
1
220
Building Ruby Bots on AWS Lambda
damirsvrtan
0
1.3k
Reinventing The Bootcamp Idea
damirsvrtan
0
270
JSON Web Tokens
damirsvrtan
0
230
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
Oxlintのカスタムルールの現況
syumai
5
980
Migrations : C'est une question d'hygiène !
vinceamstoutz
0
3.2k
Lemonade + Foundry Toolkit でお手軽アプリ開発
seosoft
1
270
PHPで使える日時の表現と、その知り方 #frontend_phpcon_do
o0h
PRO
0
180
TSKaigi Night Talks 2026_TypeScriptでサプライチェーンの整合性を型に閉じ込める
geekplus_tech
0
150
柔軟なPDFレイアウトエディタを支える型システム設計 — Discriminated UnionとConditional Typeの実践
minako__ph
4
1.3k
AI駆動開発で崩れていくコードベースを立て直す
kyoko_nr_nr
1
420
関係性から理解する"同一性"の型用語たち
pvcresin
2
630
IBM Bobを活用したレガシーアプリの最新化
oniak3ibm
PRO
1
160
AIチームを指揮するOSS「TAKT」活用術 / How to Use “TAKT,” an OSS Tool for Orchestrating AI Teams
nrslib
6
800
Why Laravel apps break—Mastering the fundamentals to keep them maintainable
kentaroutakeda
1
330
キャリア迷子上等 ─ "ない道"は自分で作ればいい
16bitidol
2
190
Featured
See All Featured
Highjacked: Video Game Concept Design
rkendrick25
PRO
1
380
Scaling GitHub
holman
464
140k
Why Our Code Smells
bkeepers
PRO
340
58k
What does AI have to do with Human Rights?
axbom
PRO
1
2.2k
How To Stay Up To Date on Web Technology
chriscoyier
790
250k
Exploring the Power of Turbo Streams & Action Cable | RailsConf2023
kevinliebholz
37
6.5k
RailsConf 2023
tenderlove
30
1.5k
GitHub's CSS Performance
jonrohan
1033
470k
Code Reviewing Like a Champion
maltzj
528
40k
AI: The stuff that nobody shows you
jnunemaker
PRO
8
680
No one is an island. Learnings from fostering a developers community.
thoeni
21
3.7k
How Fast Is Fast Enough? [PerfNow 2025]
tammyeverts
3
600
Transcript
Authentication with JSON Web Tokens
01 API AUTHENTICATION
CLIENT SERVER
[email protected]
&PASSWORD=PASS123 AUTH_TOKEN=RAND0M$TR1N6
CLIENT SERVER ARTICLES?AUTH_TOKEN=RAND0M$TR1N6
02 SINGLE AUTH TOKEN PER USER
id email password_digest auth_token 1
[email protected]
$2a$10$5FkD.. 23ZS921a USERS TABLE
GENERATE A RANDOM AUTH TOKEN class User before_save :generate_auth_token def
generate_auth_token loop do self.auth_token = Devise.friendly_token break if User.find_by_auth_token(auth_token).nil? end end end
PROBLEMS WITH THE SINGLE AUTH TOKEN APPROACH
NAIVE IMPLEMENTATIONS NEVER EXPIRE THEM
STORING IT IN PLAIN TEXT
ISN’T THAT THE SAME AS STORING PASSWORDS IN PLAIN TEXT?
NOT QUITE
• difficult to change • used across several services PASSWORDS
• easy to change • auto-generated, random, unique • not
used across several services AUTH TOKENS
03 SINGLE HASHED AUTH TOKEN PER USER
NOT STORING IT IN PLAIN TEXT
BROWSER SERVER EM AIL=DAM IR@ EXAM PLE.COM &PASSW ORD=PASS123 AUTH_TOKEN=RAND0M
$TR1N6 EM AIL=DAM IR@ EXAM PLE.COM &PASSW ORD=PASS123 MOBILE AUTH_TOKEN=ANOTHER-RAND0M $TR1N6
04 MULTIPLE HASHED AUTH TOKENS PER USER
user_id token_digest 1 $2a$10$5FkD.. 2 $3R$D9S21$.. 1 $23$2sBPSA.. AUTH TOKENS
TABLE
ERASE TOKENS PERIODICALLY
0Rel STORE TOKENS NOWHERE WHAT IF WE DIDN’T STORE THEM
ANYWHERE?
LET’S DO SOMETHING SIMILAR TO RAILS SESSIONS!
05 RAILS SESSION STORAGE
CLIENT SERVER
[email protected]
&PASSWORD=PASS123 SET-COOKIE: APP_SESSION=23OFSKL932RDASDAFSFJ23
session[:user_id] = current_user.id
sign(encrypt(hash))
CLIENT SERVER APP_SESSION=23OFSKL932RDASDAFSFJ23
decrypt(verify_signature(cookie))
User.find(session[:user_id])
WE COULD DO SOMETHING SIMILAR… … OR FOLLOW AN OPEN
STANDARD
06 JSON WEB TOKENS
JSON Web Tokens are an open standard that defines a
compact and self-contained way to securely share information between parties as a JSON Object.
CLIENT SERVER
[email protected]
&PASSWORD=PASS123 AUTH_TOKEN=33WE.DAS3Q.ADAS
TO THE API CONSUMER IT CAN LOOK RANDOM..
..BUT IT’S MUCH MORE
IT STORES INFORMATION INSIDE OF IT.
DATA + SIGNATURE
DATA + SIGNATURE data = { "user_id": 231 } token
= data + sign(data)
ABASASD.U93RJADSF.ASASD
ABASASD.U93RJADSF.ASASD HEADER.PAYLOAD.SIGNATURE
THE JWT HEADER
{ "typ": "JWT", "alg": "HS256" } HEADER
eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9 BASE64 ENCODED HEADER
THE JWT BODY
{ “user_id": 231, "exp": 1300819380, } BODY
eyJpc3MiOiJzY290Y2guaW8iLCJleHAiOjE BASE64 ENCODED BODY
THE JWT SIGNATURE
encoded_string = Base64.encode64(header) + "." + Base64.encode64(payload); OpenSSL::HMAC.hexdigest( OpenSSL::Digest.new(‘sha256'), Rails.application.secrets.secret_key_base,
encoded_string ) GENERATE A SIGNATURE
SIGNATURE 03f329983b86f7d9a9f5fef85305880101d
JSON WEB TOKEN eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.e yJpc3MiOiJzY290Y2guaW8iLCJleHAiOjE. 03f329983b86f7d9a9f5fef85305880101d
iss: The issuer of the token sub: The subject of
the token exp: This will define the expiration in NumericDate value. nbf: Defines the time before which the JWT MUST NOT be accepted for processing iat: The time the JWT was issued. Can be used to determine the age of the JWT BODY CLAIMS
08 JWT <> RAILS SESSIONS
RAILS SESSIONS ARE ENCRYPTED JWT’S ARE SIGNED
RAILS SESSIONS CAN’T BE READ ON THE CLIENT SIDE JWT’S
CAN BE READ ON THE CLIENT SIDE
SECRET INFORMATION IN JWT’S MUST BE EXPLICITLY ENCRYPTED
09 STATELESS AUTH
{ “user_id": 231 } BODY
FORCE LOGOUT / ACCOUNT HIJACKING
10 REVOCATION
HOW DOES DEVISE HANDLE THIS?
INSERT A PART OF THE USERS PASSWORD HASH INTO THE
PAYLOAD
SESSION['WARDEN.USER.KEY'] [[1], "$2A$11$NNJPSD1Q36CG.PSQKPBU/U"]
{ "exp": 1300819380, “user_id": 1, “pwd_start": $2a$11$nnjPSD1q36Cg.PSqKPBU }
DISABLE TOKENS WITH AN IAT CLAIM OLDER THAN 6.10.2017
{ “user_id": 231, "exp": 1300819380, "iat": 1300700011, } BODY
id email password min_issued_at 1
[email protected]
$2a$10$5FkD.. 2017-09-09 08:59:06.750087
JTI JSON TOKEN IDENTIFIER
{ "exp": 1300819380, "jti": 0A212BXC12, } BODY
id email password jti 1
[email protected]
$2a$10$5FkD.. DSAY039R21S
LOGOUTS DON’T INVALIDATE TOKENS
10 JWT ADVANTAGES
SAFELY SHARE DATA WITH THE CLIENT APP
{ “user_id": 231, "admin": true, “permissions”: [‘read’, ‘write’] }
SELF CONTAINED TIME-BASED EXPIRATION HANDLING
SCALABILITY
MICROSERVICES INFORMATION SHARING
NOT REINVENTING THE WHEEL - USING AN OPEN STANDARD.
LANGUAGE SUPPORT
JWT.IO RUBY, ELIXIR, GO, PYTHON, JAVA, RUST..
11 RAILS IMPLEMENTATIONS
None
None
None
CONCLUSIONS
SCALABILITY. SIMPLICITY. STANDARDIZATION.
ALWAYS IMPLEMENT A REVOCATION TECHNIQUE
NO SILVER BULLET.
None
Damir Svrtan Rails Team Lead @ infinum.co Organizer @ Ruby
Zagreb Hit me up on twitter @DamirSvrtan