OAuth 2 for native application - what is difference between public and confidential client types?

Question

I trying to implement OAuth 2 provider for web service and then built native application on top of it. Also I want give access to API for third-party developers.

I read OAuth 2 specification already and can't choose right flow. I want authenticate both CLI and GUI apps as well.

First of all we have two client types - public and confidential. Of course both GUI and CLI apps will be public. But what is difference between this two types? In this case for what I need client_secret if I can get access token without it just by changing client type?

I tried to look at some API implementations of popular services like GitHub. But they use HTTP Basic Auth. Not sure it is a good idea.

Is there any particular difference? Does one improve security over the other?

Answer 1

As to the difference between public and confidential clients, see http://tutorials.jenkov.com/oauth2/client-types.html which says:

A confidential client is an application that is capable of keeping a client password confidential to the world. This client password is assigned to the client app by the authorization server. This password is used to identify the client to the authorization server, to avoid fraud. An example of a confidential client could be a web app, where no one but the administrator can get access to the server, and see the client password.

A public client is an application that is not capable of keeping a client password confidential. For instance, a mobile phone application or a desktop application that has the client password embedded inside it. Such an application could get cracked, and this could reveal the password. The same is true for a JavaScript application running in the users browser. The user could use a JavaScript debugger to look into the application, and see the client password.

Confidential clients are more secure than public clients, but you may not always be able to use confidential clients because of constraints on the environment that they run in (c.q. native apps, in-browser clients).

Answer 2

@HansZ 's answer is a good starting point in that it clarifies the difference between a public and private client application: the ability to keep the client secret a secret.

But it doesn't answer the question: what OAuth2 profile should I use for which use cases? To answer this critical question, we need to dig a bit deeper into the issue.

For confidential applications, the client secret is supplied out of band (OOB), typically by configuration (e.g. in a properties file). For browser based and mobile applications, there really isn't any opportunity to perform any configuration and, thus, these are considered public applications.

So far, so good. But I disagree that this makes such apps unable accept or store refresh tokens. In fact, the redirect URI used by SPAs and mobile apps is typically localhost and, thus, 100% equivalent to receiving the tokens directly from the token server in response to a Resource Owner Password Credentials Grant (ROPC) .

Many writers point out, sometimes correctly, that OAuth2 doesn't actually do Authentication. In fact, as stated by the OAuth2 RFC 6749, both the ROPC and Client Credentias (CC) grants are required to perform authentication. See Section 4.3 and Section 4.4.

However, the statement is true for Authorization Code and Implicit grants. But how does authentication actually work for these domains?

Typically, the user enters her username and password into a browser form, which is posted to the authentication server, which sets a cookie for its domain. Sorry, but even in 2019, cookies are the state of the authentication art. Why? Because cookies are how browser applications maintain state. There's nothing wrong with them and browser cookie storage is reasonably secure (domain protected, JS apps can't get at "http only" cookies, secure requires TLS/SSL). Cookies allow login forms to be presented only on the 1st authorization request. After that, the current identity is re-used (until the session has expired).

Ok, then what is different between the above and ROPC? Not much. The difference is where the login form comes from. In an SPA, the app is known to be from the TLS/SSL authenticated server. So this is all-but identical to having the form rendered directly by the server. Either way, you trust the site via TLS/SSL. For a mobile app, the form is known to be from the app developer via the app signature (apps from Google Play, Apple Store, etc. are signed). So, again, there is a trust mechanism similar to TLS/SSL (no better, no worse, depends on the store, CA, trusted root distributions, etc.).

In both scenarios, a token is returned to prevent the application from having to resend the password with every request (which is why HTTP Basic authentication is bad).

In both scenarios, the authentication server MUST be hardened to the onslaught of attacks that any Internet facing login server is subjected. Authorization servers don't have this problem as much, because they delegate authentication. However, OAuth2 password and client_credentials profiles both serve as de facto authentication servers and, thus, really need to be tough.

Why would you prefer ROPC over an HTML form? Non-interactive cases, such as a CLI, are a common use case. Most CLIs can be considered confidential and, thus, should have both a client_id and client_secret. Note, if running on a shared OS instance, you should write your CLI to pull the client secret and password from a file or, at least, the standard input to avoid secrets and passwords from showing up in process listings!

Native apps and SPAs are another good use, imo, because these apps require tokens to pass to REST services. However, if these apps require cookies for authentication as well, then you probably want to use the Authorization Code or Implicit flows and delegate authentication to a regular web login server.

Likewise, if users are not authenticated in the same domain as the resource server, you really need to use Authorization Code or Implicit grant types. It is up to the authorization server how the user must authenticate.

If 2-factor authentication is in use, things get tricky. I haven't crossed this particular bridge yet myself. But I have seen cases, like Attlassian, that can use an API key to allow access to accounts that normally require a 2nd factor beyond the password.

Note, even when you host an HTML login page on the server, you need to take care that it is not wrapped either by an IFRAME in the browser or some Webview component in a native application (which may be able to set hooks to see the username and password you type in, which is how password managers work, btw). But that is another topic falling under "login server hardening", but the answers all involve clients respecting web security conventions and, thus, a certain level of trust in applications.

A couple final thoughts:

1. If a refresh token is securely delivered to the application, via any flow type, it can be safely stored in the browser/native local storage. Browsers and mobile devices protect this storage reasonably well. It is, of course, less secure than storing refresh tokens only in memory. So maybe not for banking applications ... But a great many apps have very long lived sessions (weeks) and this is how it's done.

2. Do not use client secrets for public apps. It will only give you a false sense of security. Client secrets are appropriate only when a secure OOB mechanism exists to deliver the secret and it is stored securely (e.g. locked down OS permissions).