OAuth 2.0
Open Authentication (OAuth 2.0) is an open-standard authorization protocol that allows you to share information between services without revealing or exchanging your password. It is a widely used standard by developers to exchange information securely and thus provides secure designated access to the applications. For example, you can tell GitHub to give access to Appsmith to merge or create pull requests on your behalf without sharing your password. Thus, giving you the flexibility to allow the interaction between applications without exposing your password.
By using OAuth 2.0, you minimize the security risk. It ensures that even if the associated application is breached, your password is safe as it was never exposed.
How does OAuth 2.0 work?
OAuth 2.0 is about authorization, asking for the permissions that govern the access. OAuth2.0 is a simplified redesigned version of OAuth 1.0. OAuth 2.0 is faster and easier to implement and use.
There are four main participants in an OAuth 2.0 workflow: Resource Owner, Client, Authorization Server, and Resource Server. Using the OAuth 2.0 workflow, a resource owner that is a user or a system would like to authorize a client to access protected resources that can be accessed using an access token. A client asks for an access token from an authorization server. A client uses the access token and requests access from the resource server. A resource server validates the access token and returns the requested resource.
For example, John (resource owner) wants Notion (client) to post tweets on his behalf on Twitter. Twitter (authorization and resource server) generates a key and a secret for Notion to do the job. Notion uses the key and secret to create tokens and post the tweets on John’s behalf.
OAuth 2.0 is not backward compatible. If your app is OAuth 1.0 or 1.1, you’ll not be able to use OAuth 2.0 for integration.
Authentication Type - OAuth 2.0
For OAuth 2.0 integration, select OAuth 2.0 from the available options.
Authentication Type
You can connect to your OAuth 2.0 APIs using Authenticated APIs on Appsmith. You select the Authentication type as OAuth 2.0. You can see in the below screenshot that you have the following available grant types to choose from.
Grant Types
An authorization grant type is a secured representation of the owner’s authorization presented in exchange for an access token.
For OAuth 2.0 on Appsmith, you can use the below grant types to communicate with your APIs. Navigate to the below grant types for their specific configurations.