Ruby On Rails API: Authorization

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By Josh Cunningham

This tutorial demonstrates how to add authorization to a Ruby on Rails API. We recommend that you log in to follow this quickstart with examples configured for your account.

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System requirements: Ruby 2.1.8 | Rails 4.2.5

Configure Auth0 APIs

Create an API

In the APIs section of the Auth0 dashboard, click Create API. Provide a name and an identifier for your API, for example, https://quickstarts/api. You will use the identifier as an audience later, when you are configuring the Access Token verification. Leave the Signing Algorithm as RS256.

Create API

By default, your API uses RS256 as the algorithm for signing tokens. Since RS256 uses a private/public keypair, it verifies the tokens against the public key for your Auth0 account. The public key is in the JSON Web Key Set (JWKS) format, and can be accessed here.

Define permissions

Permissions let you define how resources can be accessed on behalf of the user with a given access token. For example, you might choose to grant read access to the messages resource if users have the manager access level, and a write access to that resource if they have the administrator access level.

You can define allowed permissions in the Permissions view of the Auth0 Dashboard's APIs section.

Configure Permissions

This example demonstrates:

  • How to check for a JSON Web Token (JWT) in the Authorization header of an incoming HTTP request.

  • How to check if the token is valid, using the JSON Web Key Set (JWKS) for your Auth0 account. To learn more about validating Access Tokens, see Validate Access Tokens.

Validate Access Tokens

Install dependencies

This tutorial performs access token validation using the jwt Gem within a custom Auth0Client class. A Concern called Secured is used to authorize endpoints which require authentication through an incoming access token.

Install the jwt Gem.

gem 'jwt'
bundle install

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Create an Auth0Client class

Create a class called Auth0Client which decodes and verifies the incoming access token taken from the Authorization header of the request. The public key for your Auth0 tenant can be fetched to verify the token.

# app/lib/auth0_client.rb

# frozen_string_literal: true

require 'jwt'
require 'net/http'

class Auth0Client 

  # Auth0 Client Objects 
  Error = Struct.new(:message, :status)
  Response = Struct.new(:decoded_token, :error)

  # Helper Functions 
  def self.domain_url
    "https://#{Rails.configuration.auth0.domain}/"
  end

  def self.decode_token(token, jwks_hash)
    JWT.decode(token, nil, true, {
                 algorithm: 'RS256',
                 iss: domain_url,
                 verify_iss: true,
                 aud: Rails.configuration.auth0.audience,
                 verify_aud: true,
                 jwks: { keys: jwks_hash[:keys] }
               })
  end

  def self.get_jwks
    jwks_uri = URI("#{domain_url}.well-known/jwks.json")
    Net::HTTP.get_response jwks_uri
  end

  # Token Validation 
  def self.validate_token(token)
    jwks_response = get_jwks

    unless jwks_response.is_a? Net::HTTPSuccess
      error = Error.new(message: 'Unable to verify credentials', status: :internal_server_error)
      return Response.new(nil, error)
    end

    jwks_hash = JSON.parse(jwks_response.body).deep_symbolize_keys

    decoded_token = decode_token(token, jwks_hash)

    Response.new(decoded_token, nil)
  rescue JWT::VerificationError, JWT::DecodeError => e
    error = Error.new('Bad credentials', :unauthorized)
    Response.new(nil, error)
  end
end

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Define a Secured concern

Create a Concern called Secured which looks for the access token in the Authorization header of an incoming request. If the token is present, it should be passed to Auth0Client.validate_token.

# app/controllers/concerns/secured.rb

# frozen_string_literal: true

module Secured
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern

  REQUIRES_AUTHENTICATION = { message: 'Requires authentication' }.freeze
  BAD_CREDENTIALS = {
    message: 'Bad credentials'
  }.freeze
  MALFORMED_AUTHORIZATION_HEADER = {
    error: 'invalid_request',
    error_description: 'Authorization header value must follow this format: Bearer access-token',
    message: 'Bad credentials'
  }.freeze

  def authorize
    token = token_from_request

    return if performed?
    
    validation_response = Auth0Client.validate_token(token)
    
    return unless (error = validation_response.error)
    
    render json: { message: error.message }, status: error.status
  end

  private

  def token_from_request
    authorization_header_elements = request.headers['Authorization']&.split

    render json: REQUIRES_AUTHENTICATION, status: :unauthorized and return unless authorization_header_elements

    unless authorization_header_elements.length == 2
      render json: MALFORMED_AUTHORIZATION_HEADER, status: :unauthorized and return
    end

    scheme, token = authorization_header_elements

    render json: BAD_CREDENTIALS, status: :unauthorized and return unless scheme.downcase == 'bearer'

    token
  end
end

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Validate scopes

The Auth0Client.validate_token method above verifies that the access token included in the request is valid; however, it doesn't yet include any mechanism for checking that the token has the sufficient scope to access the requested resources.

To look for a particular scope in an access token, create a new struct in your Auth0Client class called Token and define a new method inside, validate_permissions, that given an array of required scopes it will check if they are present in the payload of the token.

Go to the Auth0Client class. Add the new Token struct and update the return value of the validate_token method as follows:

# app/lib/auth0_client.rb

# frozen_string_literal: true

require 'jwt'
require 'net/http'

class Auth0Client 

  # Auth0 Client Objects 
  Error = Struct.new(:message, :status)
  Response = Struct.new(:decoded_token, :error)

  Token = Struct.new(:token) do
    def validate_permissions(permissions)
      required_permissions = Set.new permissions
      scopes = token[0]['scope']
      token_permissions = scopes.present? ? Set.new(scopes.split(" ")) : Set.new
      required_permissions <= token_permissions
    end
  end

  # ... 

  # Token Validation 
  def self.validate_token(token)
    jwks_response = get_jwks

    unless jwks_response.is_a? Net::HTTPSuccess
      error = Error.new(message: 'Unable to verify credentials', status: :internal_server_error)
      return Response.new(nil, error)
    end

    jwks_hash = JSON.parse(jwks_response.body).deep_symbolize_keys

    decoded_token = decode_token(token, jwks_hash)

    Response.new(Token.new(decoded_token), nil)
  rescue JWT::VerificationError, JWT::DecodeError => e
    error = Error.new('Bad credentials', :unauthorized)
    Response.new(nil, error)
  end
end

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Next, in the Secured concern, define a new error constant INSUFFICIENT_PERMISSIONS to return a proper error message in case there was a attempt to request a resource without the right permissions. Next, update the return value of the Auth0Client.validate_token call and finally create a new method validate_permissions where to check if the token has the right permissions, or return a 403 FORBIDDEN status code with the INSUFFICIENT_PERMISSIONS error message otherwise.

Apply these changes in your Secured concern by adding the following code:

# app/controllers/concerns/secured.rb

# frozen_string_literal: true

module Secured
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern

  # ... 

  INSUFFICIENT_PERMISSIONS = {
    error: 'insufficient_permissions',
    error_description: 'The access token does not contain the required permissions',
    message: 'Permission denied'
  }.freeze

  def authorize
    token = token_from_request

    return if performed?

    validation_response = Auth0Client.validate_token(token)

    @decoded_token = validation_response.decoded_token # Add this line

    return unless (error = validation_response.error)

    render json: { message: error.message }, status: error.status
  end

  def validate_permissions(permissions)
    raise 'validate_permissions needs to be called with a block' unless block_given?
    return yield if @decoded_token.validate_permissions(permissions)

    render json: INSUFFICIENT_PERMISSIONS, status: :forbidden
  end

  private
  # ... 
end

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Protect API Endpoints

The routes shown below are available for the following requests:

  • GET /api/public: available for non-authenticated requests
  • GET /api/private: available for authenticated requests containing an access token with no additional scopes
  • GET /api/private-scoped: available for authenticated requests containing an access token with the read:messages scope granted

Add the Secured concern to the ApplicationController:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::API
  include Secured
end

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You only ned to protect the PrivateController as follows:

class PrivateController < ApplicationController
  before_action :authorize

  # ...
end

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In order to check that your access token has the right permissions, call the validate_permissions method as follows in the private-scoped action:

class PrivateController < ApplicationController
  before_action :authorize

  def private
    render json: { message: 'Hello from a private endpoint! You need to be authenticated to see this.' }
  end

  def private_scoped
    validate_permissions ['read:messages'] do
      render json: { message: 'Hello from a private endpoint! You need to be authenticated and have a scope of read:messages to see this.' }
    end
  end
end

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