Re: [OAUTH-WG] treatment of client_id for authentication and identification

[Eran Hammer-Lahav <[e-mail]>]

The way I've set it up in –18 is that the client_id parameter in the authorization endpoint is used to identify the client registration record. The identifier is described in section 2.3. Then in section 2.4.1 the parameter is "extended" for use with the token endpoint for client authentication when Basic is not available.

So the idea is that the only place you should be using client_id is with the authorization endpoint to reference the client registration information (needed to lookup the redirection URI). I have argued in the past that a future extension to remove the need to register clients should make this parameter optional but that's outside our current scope.

The token endpoint performs client authentication instead of "client identification" using the client identifier as username.

Hope this helps.

EHL


From: Brian Campbell <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>>
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:32:42 -0700
To: Eran Hammer-lahav <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>>
Cc: oauth <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>>
Subject: Re: [OAUTH-WG] treatment of client_id for authentication and identification

Okay, looking at some of those drafts again, I see that now. Except
for -16 they are all pretty similar on client_id back to -10.
Apparently it was my misunderstanding.  Maybe I'm the only one who
doesn't get it but I do think it could be clearer.  I'd propose some
text but I'm still not fully sure I understand what is intended.

If a client doesn't have a secret, is client_id a SHOULD NOT, a MUST
NOT or OPTIONAL to be included on token endpoint requests?

Here's a specific question/example to illustrate my continued
confusion - it would seem like the majority of clients that would use
the Resource Owner Password Credentials grant (although 4.3.2 shows
the use of HTTP Basic) would be "public" clients.  How is it expected
that such clients Identify themselves to the AS?  The client identity,
even if not something that can be strongly relied on, is useful for
things like presenting a list of access grants to the user for
revocation.



http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-oauth-v2-20#section-4.3.2


On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 12:17 PM, Eran Hammer-Lahav <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
Not exactly.
The current setup was pretty stable up to –15. In –16 I tried to clean it up
by moving the parameter into each token endpoint type definition. That
didn't work and was more confusing so in –17 I reverted back to the –15
approach.
What makes this stand out in –20 is that all the examples now use HTTP Basic
instead of the parameters (since we decided to make them NOT RECOMMENDED).
So it feels sudden that client_id is gone, but none of this is actually much
different from –15 on. Client authentication is still performed the same
way, and the role of client_id is just as an alternative to using HTTP Basic
on the token endpoint.
I think the current text is sufficient, but if you want to provide specific
additions I'm open to it.
EHL
From: Brian Campbell <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>>
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:16:21 -0700
To: Eran Hammer-lahav <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>>
Cc: oauth <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>>
Subject: Re: [OAUTH-WG] treatment of client_id for authentication and
identification

I'm probably somewhat biased by having read previous version of the
spec, previous WG list discussions, and my current AS implementation
(which expects client_id) but this seems like a fairly big departure
from what was in -16.  I'm okay with the change but feel it's wroth
mentioning that it's likely an incompatible one.
That aside, I feel like it could use some more explanation in
draft-ietf-oauth-v2 because, at least to me and hence my question, it
wasn't entirely clear how client_id should be used for those cases.
On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 4:18 PM, Eran Hammer-Lahav <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>>
wrote:

The client_id is currently only defined for password authentication on the
token endpoint. If you are using Basic or any other form of authentication
(or no authentication at all), you are not going to use the client_id
parameter.