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Welcome to OZorkAuth

The purpose of this project is to learn a little about OAuth2 flows and have fun doing it.

Following the instructions below, you'll be able to play the classic text-based adventure, Zork I by interacting with an API via OAuth2.

This is a Spring Boot app powered by the Stormpath intgeration which provides out-of-the-box authentication and authorization through its SaaS platform, including OAuth2. It also uses the Zax Java based Z-Machine by Matt Kimmel.

Full Disclosure: I work for Stormpath.

A live hosted version of this project can be found here.

Or, you can deploy this app to your own Heroku account by clicking the purple button:

Deploy

A Word on OAuth2

The OAuth2 specification is very broad. This example focuses on just two of the workflows: grant_type=password and grant_type=refresh_token

The grant_type=password flow is an authorization grant used to return an access token (and possibly a refresh token) when a valid username and password are presented. This alleviates the need to pass username and password on every request. Once you have an access token, you can present this token to access protected resources.

The grant_type=refresh_token flow is used to exchange a refresh token for a new access token. Typically, an access token will be short lived and a refresh token will be longer lived. When the access token expires, the next request attempt using the access token will result in Bad Request (400) response. As long as the refresh token has not expired, it can be used to obtain a new access token. Once the refresh token is expired, the user must login once again and get a new access token and refresh token pair.

How to play Zork, OAuth Style

There are 4 steps to be able to play the game:

  1. Register for an account (this has nothing to do with OAuth2)
  2. Get an access token and a refresh token (this is the grant_type=password flow)
  3. Use the access token to interact with the game
  4. When the access token expires, use the refresh token to get a new one (this is the grant_type=refresh_token)

Note: All the examples below use httpie. On Mac, this can be installed with:

brew install httpie

Register for an Account

The OZorkAuth API exposes an endpoint for registration: /v1/r. Behind the scenes, an account will be created using the Stormpath API.

Here's an example of the registration command for the sample app running on Heroku:

http POST \
  https://ozorkauth.herokuapp.com/v1/r \
  givenName=Bob surName=Smith [email protected] password=Password

Note: Of course the above data, including the password is a made-up example. You should create your account using your own real information, including a strong password.

You get a response that looks like this:

{
    "response": [
        "Thank you for registering!",
        "Bob Smith",
        "[email protected]"
    ],
    "status": "SUCCESS"
}

Get an Access Token and a Refresh Token

The OZorkAuth API exposes an endpoint for authorization: /v1/a. Behind the scenes, Stormpath verifies that the username and password are valid and, if so, returns an access token and a refresh token.

Here's an example of the authorization command for the sample app running on Heroku:

http -f POST \
  https://ozorkauth.herokuapp.com/v1/a \
  Origin:https://ozorkauth.herokuapp.com \
  grant_type=password [email protected] password=Password

Note: The -f (form submission) parameter to httpie above is critical as it ensures that the Content-Type header is set to: application/x-www-form-urlencoded, a requirement of the grant_type=password flow per the specification.

You get a response that looks like this:

{
    "access_token": "eyJraWQiOiJSOTJTQkhKQzFVNERBSU1HUTNNSE9HVk1YIiwiYWxnIjoiSFMyNTYifQ...",
    "expires_in": 3600,
    "refresh_token": "eyJraWQiOiJSOTJTQkhKQzFVNERBSU1HUTNNSE9HVk1YIiwiYWxnIjoiSFMyNTYifQ...",
    "token_type": "Bearer"
}

Note: The access_token and refresh_token values above are truncated for brevity.

Save the values of the access_token and refresh_token for use in the following steps.

The Fun Stuff: Use the Access Token to Interact with the Game

The OZorkAuth API exposes an endpoint for sending commands to the game: /v1/c. Behind the scenes, this endpoint is secured using the Stormpath Spring Security Spring Boot WebMVC integrations. If the request is not properly authenticated, it will be rejected.

You use the access token in the Authorization header, which the Stormpath Spring Security integration looks up to verify it as valid.

Here's an example of the game command for the sample app running on Heroku:

http POST \
  https://ozorkauth.herokuapp.com/v1/c \
  Authorization:"Bearer eyJraWQiOiJSOTJTQkhKQzFVNERBSU1HUTNNSE9HVk1YIiwiYWxnIjoiSFMyNTYifQ..."

Without any other parameters, the response will be the result of looking at your surroundings in the game:

{
    "gameInfo": [
        "ZORK I: The Great Underground Empire",
        "Copyright (c) 1981, 1982, 1983 Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved.",
        "ZORK is a registered trademark of Infocom, Inc.",
        "Revision 88 / Serial number 840726"
    ],
    "look": [
        "West of House",
        "You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.",
        "There is a small mailbox here."
    ],
    "status": "SUCCESS"
}

To issue a command in the game, use the above and include the request= parameter:

http POST \
  https://ozorkauth.herokuapp.com/v1/c \
  Authorization:"Bearer eyJraWQiOiJSOTJTQkhKQzFVNERBSU1HUTNNSE9HVk1YIiwiYWxnIjoiSFMyNTYifQ..." \
  request="open mailbox"

The response will look like this:

{
    "gameInfo": [
        "ZORK I: The Great Underground Empire",
        "Copyright (c) 1981, 1982, 1983 Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved.",
        "ZORK is a registered trademark of Infocom, Inc.",
        "Revision 88 / Serial number 840726"
    ],
    "look": [
        "West of House",
        "You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.",
        "There is a small mailbox here."
    ],
    "request": "open mailbox",
    "response": [
        "Opening the small mailbox reveals a leaflet."
    ],
    "status": "SUCCESS"
}

Note: On each successful request, the game state is automatically saved as Custom Data to the Stormpath Account the access_token is associated with.

You can keep executing commands in this way until the access_token expires.

Use the Refresh Token to Get a New Access Token

Once again use the authorization endpoint: /v1/a

Only this time, we use the grant_type=refresh_token OAuth2 flow.

Here's an example of the authorization command for the sample app running on Heroku:

http -f POST \
  https://ozorkauth.herokuapp.com/v1/a \
  Origin:https://ozorkauth.herokuapp.com \
  grant_type=refresh_token refresh_token=eyJraWQiOiJSOTJTQkhKQzFVNERBSU1HUTNNSE9HVk1YIiwiYWxnIjoiSFMyNTYifQ...

You will get a similar response as before when using the grant_type=password flow:

{
    "access_token": "eyJraWQiOiJSOTJTQkhKQzFVNERBSU1HUTNNSE9HVk1YIiwiYWxnIjoiSFMyNTYifQ...",
    "expires_in": 3600,
    "refresh_token": "eyJraWQiOiJSOTJTQkhKQzFVNERBSU1HUTNNSE9HVk1YIiwiYWxnIjoiSFMyNTYifQ...",
    "token_type": "Bearer"
}

Note: The refresh_token returned in the response will be the same while the access_token will be new.

Acknowledgements & More Info

The Zork I game play is accomplished using the Zax Java based Z-Machine by Matt Kimmel.

The only change to the original source I made was to add a monitor to make the controller thread wait until the Zax thread has finished writing the game save file. This is needed as Zax is intended to be used synchronously and the HTTP based API is inherently asynchronous.

For more information on Stormpath and the supported languages and integrations, checkout out the docs.