Security

QuickStart Module

This quickstart module shows you how to perform authentication and use security tokens

Authentication

In order to use the API in any programming language, you need to be able to generate an ID Token to identify yourself to the services. This token is issued by Microsoft using your Azure Active Directory and is scoped to the OpenDataDSL API:

scope=api://opendatadsl/.default

The method you use to generate the token is determined by how the application or script will be run.

Application Type	Generation Method
User application, attended login	User log in via Web Browser
System application, unattended login	Use secret key specific for the application

Unattended Login

For an unattended login, you will need to create an application in Azure AD and generate a secret. The 3 pieces of information required are:

• You company tenant id - {{tid}}
• The id of the application in Azure AD - {{aid}}
• The generated secret - {{sid}}

Getting the necessary id's and secret

The 3 items above can be retrieved/generated in Azure Active Directory as follows:

Tenant ID

Log into Azure Active Directory, with your tenant selected in Overiew, you should see your tenant id on the main page. Click the copy icon next to the Tenant ID and paste it somewhere safe for later as tid.

Client ID

If you haven't created a new App Registration in Azure Active Directory, you will need to do that now in order to get the application id and generate a secret.

Once you have created your App Registration, click on it so that you are in the Overview screen and copy the Application (client) ID and paste it somewhere safe for later as aid.

Secret

To generate a secret, whilst in the App Registration, click on the Certificates and Secrets menu item.

Create a new client secret, then immediately copy the secret and paste it somewhere safe for later as sid.

Example of getting an Access Token

REST

GET /{{tid}}/oauth2/v2.0/token
Host: login.microsoftonline.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

grant_type=client_credentials&
client_id={{aid}}&
client_secret={{sid}}&
scope=api://opendatadsl/.default

Python

import requests

tid = "enter your tenant id"
aid = "enter your app id"
sid = "enter your secret"

url = "https://login.microsoftonline.com/{}/oauth2/v2.0/token".format(tid)
payload = {
    'grant_type':'client_credentials',
    'client_id':'{}'.format(aid),
    'client_secret':'{}'.format(sid),
    'scope':'api://opendatadsl/.default'
}
headers = {'Content-Type':'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'}
response = requests.get(url, data=payload, headers=headers)
token = response.json()['access_token']

Java

An example class to retrieve an Access Token - replace {{tid}}, {{aid}} and {{sid}} with the tokens you saved above.

package com.opendatadsl.security;

import com.microsoft.aad.msal4j.ClientCredentialFactory;
import com.microsoft.aad.msal4j.ClientCredentialParameters;
import com.microsoft.aad.msal4j.ConfidentialClientApplication;
import com.microsoft.aad.msal4j.IAuthenticationResult;

import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture;

public class UnattendedClient {
    private final static String APP_ID = "{{aid}}";
    private final static String SECRET = "{{sid}}";
    private final static String TID = "{{tid}}";
    private final static String AUTHORITY = "https://login.microsoft.com/" + TID;
    private final static Set<String> SCOPE = Collections.singleton("api://opendatadsl/.default");
    private static IAuthenticationResult result = null;

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        String token = new UnattendedClient().getToken();
        System.out.println("Access token: " + token);
    }

    public String getToken() throws Exception {
        if (result == null || hasExpired()) {
            result = getAccessTokenByClientCredentialGrant();
        }
        return result.accessToken();
    }

    private boolean hasExpired() {
        if (result != null) {
            if (result.expiresOnDate().getTime() < System.currentTimeMillis())
                return true;
            return false;
        }
        return true;
    }

    private IAuthenticationResult getAccessTokenByClientCredentialGrant() throws Exception {
        ConfidentialClientApplication app = ConfidentialClientApplication.builder(
                APP_ID,
                ClientCredentialFactory.createFromSecret(SECRET))
                .authority(AUTHORITY)
                .build();

        ClientCredentialParameters clientCredentialParam = ClientCredentialParameters.builder(SCOPE)
                .build();

        CompletableFuture<IAuthenticationResult> future = app.acquireToken(clientCredentialParam);
        IAuthenticationResult r = future.get();
        return r;
    }

}

Using the token

Once you have the token, you need to add it into an Authorization header with the prefix Bearer:

Authorization: Bearer {{token}}

Example request using the token

This example request gets information about the Object service.

REST

GET https://api.opendatadsl.com/api/object
Authorization: Bearer {{token}}

Python

headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer {}'.format(token)}
response = requests.get('https://api.opendatadsl.com/api/object', headers=headers)
print(response.json())

Java

URL u = new URL("https://odsl.azurewebsites.net/api/object");
HttpURLConnection con = (HttpURLConnection) u.openConnection();
con.setRequestMethod("GET");
con.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Bearer " + token);
int status = con.getResponseCode();
if (status == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
    BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(con.getInputStream()));
    String inputLine;
    StringBuilder content = new StringBuilder();
    while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null) {
        content.append(inputLine);
    }
    in.close();
    System.out.println(content.toString());
} else {
    System.out.println("FAILED: status is " + status);
}

Token expiry

The token has a lifetime of around an hour, which means if you are running an application and making service requests which go beyond the token expiry time, you will need to request a new token.