[Openid-specs-native-apps] native app validation

Emily Xu exu at vmware.com
Fri Jul 4 15:34:22 UTC 2014


Hello,

I have a few questions regarding native app validation in the NAPPS flow. I'm not sure whether it has been discussed before or not since I cannot find  any discussion with relevant topic from the list.

1. Who should validate native app

In existing NAPPS flow, a native app will obtain an access token to access a Resource Server from AS through TA. Whose responsibility it is to verify whether this particular native app can be given an access token?

TA may be able to verify that a request indeed came from a native app. However, TA cannot verify that this native app is authorized to obtain access token to access RS. I assume this validation needs to be done at AS.

I remember in the very first draft of the spec (Summer, last year), customUrl was used by AS to verify the requesting native app. When a native app sends a token request to TA, it passes in scope and customUrl. TA will pass the scope and customUrl to AS. AS then verifies customUrl and make sure the customUrl is pre-registered for an authorized native app.

2. customUrl vs. Bundle ID

One potential issue with the customUrl approach is that TA usually could not validate a native app's customUrl. Instead, TA usually knows a requesting native app's bundle ID. So TA could pass a native app's bundle id to AS for AS to validating whether the native app associated with the bundle id is authorized to receive access token.

3. Multiple native apps to one Resource Server

The original customUrl approach assumes one Resource Server (scope) could have only one native app (customUrl) associated with it. If we decide to ask AS to validate native app using either customUrl or bundle id, then we need to cover the situation where multiple native apps running on the same device may ask access token from AS through TA to access the same RS. In this situation, one RS(scope) at AS side may have multiple  native apps registered.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Emily

Emily Xu
Identity Management
VMware







-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid-specs-native-apps/attachments/20140704/d04c87fd/attachment.html>


More information about the Openid-specs-native-apps mailing list