servant/servant-auth

servant-auth

These packages provides safe and easy-to-use authentication options for servant. The same API can be protected via:

• basicauth
• cookies
• JWT tokens

Package	Hackage
servant-auth
servant-auth-server
servant-auth-client
servant-auth-swagger
servant-auth-docs

How it works

First some imports:

{-# OPTIONS_GHC -fno-warn-unused-binds #-}
{-# OPTIONS_GHC -fno-warn-deprecations #-}
import Control.Concurrent (forkIO)
import Control.Monad (forever)
import Control.Monad.Trans (liftIO)
import Data.Aeson (FromJSON, ToJSON)
import GHC.Generics (Generic)
import Network.Wai.Handler.Warp (run)
import System.Environment (getArgs)
import Servant
import Servant.Auth.Server
import Servant.Auth.Server.SetCookieOrphan ()

servant-auth library introduces a combinator Auth:

data Auth (auths :: [*]) val

What Auth [Auth1, Auth2] Something :> API means is that API is protected by either Auth1 or Auth2, and the result of authentication will be of type AuthResult Something, where :

data AuthResult val
  = BadPassword
  | NoSuchUser
  | Authenticated val
  | Indefinite

Your handlers will get a value of type AuthResult Something, and can decide what to do with it.

data User = User { name :: String, email :: String }
   deriving (Eq, Show, Read, Generic)

instance ToJSON User
instance ToJWT User
instance FromJSON User
instance FromJWT User

data Login = Login { username :: String, password :: String }
   deriving (Eq, Show, Read, Generic)

instance ToJSON Login
instance FromJSON Login

type Protected
   = "name" :> Get '[JSON] String
 :<|> "email" :> Get '[JSON] String


-- | 'Protected' will be protected by 'auths', which we still have to specify.
protected :: Servant.Auth.Server.AuthResult User -> Server Protected
-- If we get an "Authenticated v", we can trust the information in v, since
-- it was signed by a key we trust.
protected (Servant.Auth.Server.Authenticated user) = return (name user) :<|> return (email user)
-- Otherwise, we return a 401.
protected _ = throwAll err401

type Unprotected =
 "login"
     :> ReqBody '[JSON] Login
     :> Verb 'POST 204 '[JSON] (Headers '[ Header "Set-Cookie" SetCookie
                                         , Header "Set-Cookie" SetCookie]
                                         NoContent)
  :<|> Raw

unprotected :: CookieSettings -> JWTSettings -> Server Unprotected
unprotected cs jwts = checkCreds cs jwts :<|> serveDirectory "example/static"

type API auths = (Servant.Auth.Server.Auth auths User :> Protected) :<|> Unprotected

server :: CookieSettings -> JWTSettings -> Server (API auths)
server cs jwts = protected :<|> unprotected cs jwts

The code is common to all authentications. In order to pick one or more specific authentication methods, all we need to do is provide the expect configuration parameters.

API tokens

The following example illustrates how to protect an API with tokens.

-- In main, we fork the server, and allow new tokens to be created in the
-- command line for the specified user name and email.
mainWithJWT :: IO ()
mainWithJWT = do
  -- We generate the key for signing tokens. This would generally be persisted,
  -- and kept safely
  myKey <- generateKey
  -- Adding some configurations. All authentications require CookieSettings to
  -- be in the context.
  let jwtCfg = defaultJWTSettings myKey
      cfg = defaultCookieSettings :. jwtCfg :. EmptyContext
      --- Here we actually make concrete
      api = Proxy :: Proxy (API '[JWT])
  _ <- forkIO $ run 7249 $ serveWithContext api cfg (server defaultCookieSettings jwtCfg)

  putStrLn "Started server on localhost:7249"
  putStrLn "Enter name and email separated by a space for a new token"

  forever $ do
     xs <- words <$> getLine
     case xs of
       [name', email'] -> do
         etoken <- makeJWT (User name' email') jwtCfg Nothing
         case etoken of
           Left e -> putStrLn $ "Error generating token:t" ++ show e
           Right v -> putStrLn $ "New token:\t" ++ show v
       _ -> putStrLn "Expecting a name and email separated by spaces"

And indeed:

./readme JWT

    Started server on localhost:7249
    Enter name and email separated by a space for a new token
    alice alice@gmail.com
    New token:	"eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJkYXQiOnsiZW1haWwiOiJhbGljZUBnbWFpbC5jb20iLCJuYW1lIjoiYWxpY2UifX0.xzOIrx_A9VOKzVO-R1c1JYKBqK9risF625HOxpBzpzE"

curl localhost:7249/name -v

    * Hostname was NOT found in DNS cache
    *   Trying 127.0.0.1...
    * Connected to localhost (127.0.0.1) port 7249 (#0)
    > GET /name HTTP/1.1
    > User-Agent: curl/7.35.0
    > Host: localhost:7249
    > Accept: */*
    >
    < HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
    < Transfer-Encoding: chunked
    < Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 20:17:17 GMT
    * Server Warp/3.2.7 is not blacklisted
    < Server: Warp/3.2.7
    <
    * Connection #0 to host localhost left intact

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJkYXQiOnsiZW1haWwiOiJhbGljZUBnbWFpbC5jb20iLCJuYW1lIjoiYWxpY2UifX0.xzOIrx_A9VOKzVO-R1c1JYKBqK9risF625HOxpBzpzE" \
  localhost:7249/name -v

    * Hostname was NOT found in DNS cache
    *   Trying 127.0.0.1...
    * Connected to localhost (127.0.0.1) port 7249 (#0)
    > GET /name HTTP/1.1
    > User-Agent: curl/7.35.0
    > Host: localhost:7249
    > Accept: */*
    > Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJkYXQiOnsiZW1haWwiOiJhbGljZUBnbWFpbC5jb20iLCJuYW1lIjoiYWxpY2UifX0.xzOIrx_A9VOKzVO-R1c1JYKBqK9risF625HOxpBzpzE
    >
    < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    < Transfer-Encoding: chunked
    < Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 20:16:11 GMT
    * Server Warp/3.2.7 is not blacklisted
    < Server: Warp/3.2.7
    < Content-Type: application/json
    < Set-Cookie: JWT-Cookie=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJkYXQiOnsiZW1haWwiOiJhbGljZUBnbWFpbC5jb20iLCJuYW1lIjoiYWxpY2UifX0.xzOIrx_A9VOKzVO-R1c1JYKBqK9risF625HOxpBzpzE; HttpOnly; Secure
    <  Set-Cookie: XSRF-TOKEN=TWcdPnHr2QHcVyTw/TTBLQ==; Secure
    <
    * Connection #0 to host localhost left intact
    "alice"%

Cookies

What if, in addition to API tokens, we want to expose our API to browsers? All we need to do is say so!

mainWithCookies :: IO ()
mainWithCookies = do
  -- We *also* need a key to sign the cookies
  myKey <- generateKey
  -- Adding some configurations. 'Cookie' requires, in addition to
  -- CookieSettings, JWTSettings (for signing), so everything is just as before
  let jwtCfg = defaultJWTSettings myKey
      cfg = defaultCookieSettings :. jwtCfg :. EmptyContext
      --- Here is the actual change
      api = Proxy :: Proxy (API '[Cookie])
  run 7249 $ serveWithContext api cfg (server defaultCookieSettings jwtCfg)

-- Here is the login handler
checkCreds :: CookieSettings
           -> JWTSettings
           -> Login
           -> Handler (Headers '[ Header "Set-Cookie" SetCookie
                                , Header "Set-Cookie" SetCookie]
                               NoContent)
checkCreds cookieSettings jwtSettings (Login "Ali Baba" "Open Sesame") = do
   -- Usually you would ask a database for the user info. This is just a
   -- regular servant handler, so you can follow your normal database access
   -- patterns (including using 'enter').
   let usr = User "Ali Baba" "ali@email.com"
   mApplyCookies <- liftIO $ acceptLogin cookieSettings jwtSettings usr
   case mApplyCookies of
     Nothing           -> throwError err401
     Just applyCookies -> return $ applyCookies NoContent
checkCreds _ _ _ = throwError err401

XSRF and the frontend

XSRF protection works by requiring that there be a header of the same value as a distinguished cookie that is set by the server on each request. What the cookie and header name are can be configured (see xsrfCookieName and xsrfHeaderName in CookieSettings), but by default they are "XSRF-TOKEN" and "X-XSRF-TOKEN". This means that, if your client is a browser and you're using cookies, Javascript on the client must set the header of each request by reading the cookie. For jQuery, and with the default values, that might be:

var token = (function() {
  r = document.cookie.match(new RegExp('XSRF-TOKEN=([^;]+)'))
  if (r) return r[1];
})();


$.ajaxPrefilter(function(opts, origOpts, xhr) {
  xhr.setRequestHeader('X-XSRF-TOKEN', token);
  }

I believe nothing at all needs to be done if you're using Angular's $http directive, but I haven't tested this.

XSRF protection can be disabled just for GET requests by setting xsrfExcludeGet = False. You might want this if you're relying on the browser to navigate between pages that require cookie authentication.

XSRF protection can be completely disabled by setting cookieXsrfSetting = Nothing in CookieSettings. This is not recommended! If your cookie authenticated web application runs any javascript, it's recommended to send the XSRF header. However, if your web application runs no javascript, disabling XSRF entirely may be required.

Note on this README

This README is a literate haskell file. Here is 'main', allowing you to pick between the examples above.

main :: IO ()
main = do
  args <- getArgs
  let usage = "Usage: readme (JWT|Cookie)"
  case args of
    ["JWT"] -> mainWithJWT
    ["Cookie"] -> mainWithCookies
    e -> putStrLn $ "Arguments: \"" ++ unwords e ++ "\" not understood\n" ++ usage