5:52 p.m.
Hi Stian,
I’ve created a first version and submitted it as pull-request, so we can review it.
https://github.com/keycloak/keycloak/pull/5256
It relies on the following plugins:
* browsertab: https://github.com/google/cordova-plugin-browsertab
* universal-links: https://github.com/nordnet/cordova-universal-links-plugin
While the first works really well, the second is a bit of mess and looks abandoned. Sadly,
it is still the best plugin for deep-linking into apps around if you don’t want to add
branch.io<http://branch.io> as third party service. It still works, but the future
of the plugin is unclear. Other plugins only provide custom-url-stlye links, which are
deprecated since iOS 9.
Sadly Universal-Links are not without problems either (at least on iOS), as they don’t
really work with redirects: i.e. clicking on the login-button in the form takes you
straight to the app, but hitting the „open“ button on the keyboard won’t - this is a
problem which all oauth libraries are facing, so I guess there isn’t much we can do about
it:
https://www.google.com/search?q=universal+links+redirect+site%3Aforums.de...
I have to do some more testing to see how well this works on Android. The first attempts
looked promising.
- Gregor
Am 05.06.2018 um 20:12 schrieb Stian Thorgersen
<sthorger@redhat.com<mailto:sthorger@redhat.com>>:
Sorry for the late response, but the first approach seems good to me. I would assume the
app developer would have to configure the universal link for the app, but also configure
it in the Keycloak adapter right so it knows what URL to handle? Or can it just handle it
without knowing the exact link? I would assume changes needed to apps to switch between
the "old mode" and the new mode with system browsers in either case so not to
worried if it requires some changes for existing users.
On 30 May 2018 at 10:26, Gregor Tudan
<Gregor.Tudan@cofinpro.de<mailto:Gregor.Tudan@cofinpro.de>> wrote:
Figuring out the callback wasn’t to hard either - now the last missing piece is parsing
the callback. Here we have the option of registering a universal link inside the Keycloak
adapter which opens the app, or leaving this to the developer and provide a public method
for it (like processCallback).
I’m not quiet sure on these options, what are your thoughts on this?
Could you elaborate a bit on this please?
Sure - The way those native browser tabs work is that the app requests to open a site, but
has no access to what happens inside the browser. After the login is done, the browser
redirects back into the app by using universal links. These URLs have be registered in the
app, so the browser knows that it should pass those requests back. From there, we can get
the oauth params (state and code) and fetch the token.
The question is: should we implement this kind of callback logic inside the adapter, or
should we provide the user a method for completing the login process upon redirecting?
If we do this in the adapter, we would need to make some assumptions on the Cordova-Plugin
being used and how the link is set up. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but we would need
to document how to setup the app so that the redirect works. This would also fit nicely in
the current API of the adapter.
The other option would be to leave it up to the user to handle the redirect and offer a
callback for finishing the authorization. This would basically boil down to a method that
takes the code and the state params (like processCallback in the current adapter). This
would kind of break the API of the adapter, as the login method will behave differently
for this native adapter.
To summarize: doing more stuff in the adapter would simplify things for the developer, but
might not work for existing apps - i.e. if they use a different plugin for handling
universal links.
I suggest starting with first option (handling redirects in the adapter) to get started -
universal links don’t seem to be to widely used, so most apps shouldn’t run into problems
with us picking a plugin for them. Maybe we can add another option to the adapter for
manual redirect-handling later on.
For the first approach I assume the app developer would have to pick a