REST API Authentication using External Identity Provider

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Setup Video:

Pre-requisites: Download and Installation:

• Download & install the Drupal REST & JSON API Authentication module.
• REST UI: This module provides you with a user interface for configuring the REST module. 
• Enable the following Web Services modules from under the Extend section(/admin/modules) of your Drupal site:
  • REST UI
  • RESTful Web Services
  • Serialization

Enable the API and assign methods and operations as follows:

• The first step is to enable the API and assign the methods and operations allowed for that API. This can be done using the REST UI module, or by directly modifying the Drupal config.
• Click on the Enable API button.
• To enable the API using the REST UI module, click the Configure button (as shown below).

• In our example, we need to enable the /entity/user API. Do this by selecting the Enable option in front of it.

• Since our goal is to create a user in Drupal, select the following configurations:
  • Method: POST
  • Format: JSON
  • Authentication Provider: rest_api_authentication
• This allows the miniOrange API Authentication module to authenticate the API. Click the Save Configuration button to continue.

Setup External Identity Provider Authentication Method:

• In this step, we will set up the External Identity Provider as API Authentication. To do this, navigate to the API Authentication tab of the module (/admin/config/people/rest_api_authentication/auth_settings).
  • Under Basic Configuration, enable the Enable Authentication toggle.
  • Enter the Application Name and select External Identity Provider from the Authentication Method section.

• Scroll down to the External Identity Provider Configuration section on the same tab.
  • Enter the User Info Endpoint of your Identity Provider in the given field, so the module can fetch user details using the provided token.
  • In the Username Attribute, enter the attribute key or name from your Identity Provider that contains the username sent by the external provider.
  • Click the Save Configuration button.

• You have successfully configured the External Identity Provider method.

Grant Role Permissions to Create Users:

• If needed, you can allow non-admin Drupal roles to create users. To do this, assign the Administer users permission to the desired roles from the Permissions page (/admin/people/permissions) of your Drupal site.

 Example:

• For better understanding, let’s take an example of adding External Identity Provider-based authentication to the create user API in Drupal.

• To create a user in Drupal, send a POST request along with the token received from your Identity Provider.

HTML Request Format-

Request: POST  <your_drupal_base_url>/entity/user?_format=json

Header:      
             AUTH-METHOD: application_id
             Token: <Token_receievd_from_external_identity_provider>
             Accept: application/json
             Content-Type: application/json

Body: 

                {
                "name": {
                    "value": "<username>"
                },
                "mail": {
                    "value": "<email>"
                },
                "pass": {
                    "value": "<password>"
                },
                "status": {
                    "value": "1"
                }
                }

CURL Request Format-

curl --location --request POST  ‘<your_drupal_base_url>/entity/user?_format=json' \
                --header 'AUTH-METHOD: application_id' \
                --header 'Token: <Token_receievd_from_external_identity_provider>' \
                --header 'Accept: application/json' \
                --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
                --data-raw '  

                {
                "name": [
                    { "value": "Username" }
                ],
                "mail": [
                    { "value": "email" }
                ],
                "pass": [
                    { "value": "Password" }
                ],
                "status": [
                    { "value": "1" }
                ]
                }

• You can also refer to the Postman request image shown below.

• A successful response will return the details of the user you created (see the image below).

• If you receive any error in the response, refer to the table below for the error description and possible solutions.

Congratulations!!!! You can now authenticate any calls to your Drupal APIs using an External Identity Provider Token.

We hope you found this document useful and informative.