Re: API Keys

C?at ? G?ibhtheach?in <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.web.services.rest
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 02:16:50PM +0100, Erlend Hamnaberg wrote:

> This seems to indicate that a User and Acces to the API is the same.
> It is not in this case.

This isn't the case, otherwise the likes of OAuth (which I mention
later) wouldn't be possible.

> Using Authorization was considered, but we need to use this for user
> authentication. API authorization is a different step.
> 
> AFAIK you MAY NOT send multiple challenges back to the server.

I think you might be missing the greater point I was trying to make,
which were that an existing mechanism already exist (RFC 2617):

>     The WWW-Authenticate and Authorization headers exist for this very
>     purpose. In fact, RFC 2617 is designed to be extensible.

In fact, is this very extensibility that OAuth is built upon. OAuth
might not be ideal for your particular purpose, but RFC 2617 still
exists to build upon to quite possibly do what you want.

It's possible to build an RFC 2617 auth method that could potentially
bundle multiple challenges in a single aggregate challenge. Including
multiple 'WWW-Authenticate' and 'Authorization' headers is another
matter, however.

Without knowing more about how your system's access management
requirements, it's hard to speculate further. I think it would be more
valuable to propose an auth method built on top of RFC 2617 to support
your requirements rather than a whole new header.

-- 
Cíat Ó Gáibhtheacháin - [email protected] - http://stereochro.me/ - CF9F6473
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    -- Richard Feynman
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