PwsAuth

PwsAuth is an authentication protocol throught http header designed to web services

Request Headers

request headers must be define as follow :

Pws-Authorization : $type $token
Pws-Ident : $userkey

the $token can be either a loginToken or a sessionToken

the $token is divided in four part

• a datetime formatted with the Authenticator::DATE_FORMAT format
• an obfuscate part 's token builded by date, common salt & the third token 's part
• a loginToken representing a user signed token for a specific login at given date OR a session token representing the session id
• noise data to be removed

the complete token is valid only if obfuscate part can be rebuild
this simple mecanism ensure that sessionId is valid and can be safety load

Authenticator 's configuration comes with a hash.session.index and hash.noise.length values wich can be redefined to move the session token part into the complete token

                                                    << hash.session.index >>                             << hash.noise.length >>
|-----------------------------------------------------------<<-^->>---------------------------------------------<<-^->>--------|
|- type -|-- date ---|------------ obfuscate token ---------<<-^->>-------------- session token ----------------<<-^->> noise -|
|        |     1     |                    2                    |                         3                         |     4     |
 PwsAuth2 242003031711e1a6104135f04c6c01e6cd5952ecafbb53c928603b0gb64tqo609qse6ovd7lhdvk4fnaqk7cdl26e4d4qh7jb41eu5f1zb5y79m8pgu3

ClientSide

a request header can be generated via the generateHeader($login, $key, $sessid=null) method the third parameter determine wich kind of token will be generated

ServerSide

the Token can be retriew via the getToken method

loginToken is validate by the check(Token $token, $login) method loginToken must match a public url with method POST and a couple of login/password on successfull login, the session id must be transmit to the client.

sessionToken is valid only if the session can effectively be loaded, and the user key match the given Pws-Ident value

Configuration

configuration must be the same on server and client sides
hash definition is a convenient way to obfuscate your tokens

pwsauth :

    type    : PwsAuth2

    header  :
        auth            : Pws-Authorization
        ident           : Pws-Ident

    salt    : 
        common          : jK5#p9Mh5.Zv}
        # used for generating user specific salt
        user.index      : 10
        user.length     : 12
    
    hash    :
        sep             : /
        algo            : sha256
        # effective token length size. out of bound data is simply noise
        length          : 52
        # session index (or obfuscate length)
        session.index   : 58
        # ending noise data length)
        noise.length    : 12

Authenticator instanciation

<?php
require_once(__dir__ . '/vendor/autoload.php');

use Symfony\Component\Yaml\Yaml;
use MetaTech\PwsAuth\Authenticator;

$config        = Yaml::parse(file_get_contents(__dir__ . '/config/pwsauth.yml'));
$authenticator = new Authenticator($config['pwsauth']);

Notes

a valid $userkey alone is useless
a valid $sessionId alone is useless