README.md
# Ruby Firebase ID Token verifier
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A Ruby gem to verify the signature of Firebase ID Tokens (JWT). It uses Redis to store Google's x509 certificates and manage their expiration time, so you don't need to request Google's API in every execution and can access it as fast as reading from memory.
It also checks the JWT payload parameters as recommended [here](https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/admin/verify-id-tokens) by Firebase official documentation.
Feel free to open any issue or to [contact me](https://fschuindt.github.io/blog/about/) directly.
Any contribution is welcome.
## Docs
+ http://www.rubydoc.info/gems/firebase_id_token
## Requirements
+ Redis
## Installing
```
gem install firebase_id_token
```
or in your Gemfile
```
gem 'firebase_id_token', '~> 3.0.0'
```
then
```
bundle install
```
## Configuration
It's needed to set up your Firebase Project ID.
If you are using Rails, this should probably go into `config/initializers/firebase_id_token.rb`.
```ruby
FirebaseIdToken.configure do |config|
config.redis = Redis.new
config.project_ids = ['your-firebase-project-id']
end
```
- `redis` with a `Redis` instance must be supplied. You can configure your Redis details here. Example: `Redis.new(host: '10.0.1.1', port: 6380, db: 15)`.
- `project_ids` must be an Array.
*If you want to verify signatures from more than one Firebase project, just add more Project IDs to the list.*
## Usage
You can get a glimpse of it by reading our RSpec output on your machine. It's
really helpful. But here is a complete guide:
### Downloading Certificates
Before verifying tokens, you need to download Google's x509 certificates.
To do it, simply:
```ruby
FirebaseIdToken::Certificates.request
```
It will download the certificates and save it in Redis, but only if the Redis certificates database is empty. To force download and override of the Redis database, use:
```ruby
FirebaseIdToken::Certificates.request!
```
Google give us information about the certificates' expiration time, it's used to set a Redis TTL (Time-To-Live) when saving it. By doing so, the certificates will be automatically deleted after its expiration.
#### Certificates Info
Checks the presence of certificates in the Redis database.
```ruby
FirebaseIdToken::Certificates.present?
=> true
```
How many seconds until the certificate's expiration.
```ruby
FirebaseIdToken::Certificates.ttl
=> 22352
```
Lists all certificates in the database.
```ruby
FirebaseIdToken::Certificates.all
=> [{"ec8f292sd30224afac5c55540df66d1f999d" => <OpenSSL::X509::Certificate: [...]]
```
Finds the respective certificate of a given Key ID (`kid`).
```ruby
FirebaseIdToken::Certificates.find('ec8f292sd30224afac5c55540df66d1f999d')
=> <OpenSSL::X509::Certificate: subject=<OpenSSL::X509 [...]>
```
#### Downloading in Rails
If you are using Rails, it's clever to download certificates in a cron task, you can use [whenever](https://github.com/javan/whenever).
**Example**
*Read whenever's guide on how to set it up.*
Create your task in `lib/tasks/firebase.rake`:
```ruby
namespace :firebase do
namespace :certificates do
desc "Request Google's x509 certificates when Redis is empty"
task request: :environment do
FirebaseIdToken::Certificates.request
end
desc "Request Google's x509 certificates and override Redis"
task force_request: :environment do
FirebaseIdToken::Certificates.request!
end
end
end
```
And in your `config/schedule.rb` you might have:
```ruby
every 1.hour do
rake 'firebase:certificates:force_request'
end
```
Then:
```
$ whenever --update-crontab
```
I recommend running it once every hour or every 30 minutes, it's up to you. Normally the certificates expiration time is around 4 to 6 hours, but it's good to perform it in a small fraction of this time.
When developing, you should just run the task:
```
$ rake firebase:certificates:request
```
*You need Redis to be running.*
### Verifying Tokens
Pass the Firebase ID Token to `FirebaseIdToken::Signature.verify` and it will return the token payload if everything is ok:
```ruby
FirebaseIdToken::Signature.verify(token)
=> {"iss"=>"https://securetoken.google.com/firebase-id-token", "name"=>"Bob Test", [...]}
```
When either the signature is false or the token is invalid, it will return `nil`:
```ruby
FirebaseIdToken::Signature.verify(fake_token)
=> nil
FirebaseIdToken::Signature.verify('aaaaaa')
=> nil
```
#### WARNING!
##### Expired tokens can point to long gone certificates
Notice that often when the token have expired, the Firebase certificate can be already missing from the Firebase servers. In these cases, `verify` will return `nil`.
If you want to take specific actions in such cases, here's a solution suggested by the user [cfanpnk](https://github.com/fschuindt/firebase_id_token/issues/29#issuecomment-751137511):
1. Use `verify!` to raise an exception.
2. Rescue `FirebaseIdToken::Exceptions::CertificateNotFound` and return `401`.
3. The client app will refresh the token if expired.
More details [here](https://github.com/fschuindt/firebase_id_token/issues/29).
##### Trying to verify tokens without downloaded certificates will raise an error
If you try to verify a signature without any certificates in Redis database, it will raise a `FirebaseIdToken::Exceptions::NoCertificatesError`.
##### "I keep on getting `nil` on `verify`"
Poorly synchronized clocks will sometimes make the server think the token's `iat` is on the future, which will render the token as invalid. Make sure your server's or development system's clock is correctly set. On macOS, some people reported success by unchecking and checking the "Set date and time automatically" configuration checkbox. See [here](https://github.com/fschuindt/firebase_id_token/issues/21#issuecomment-623133926).
#### Payload Structure
In case you need, here's a example of the payload structure from a Google login in JSON.
```json
{
"iss":"https://securetoken.google.com/{{YOUR_FIREBASE_APP_ID}}",
"name":"Ugly Bob",
"picture":"https://someurl.com/photo.jpg",
"aud":"{{YOUR_FIREBASE_APP_ID}}",
"auth_time":1492981192,
"user_id":"theUserID",
"sub":"theUserID",
"iat":1492981200, // needs to be in the past
"exp":33029000017, // needs to be in the future
"email":"uglybob@emailurl.com",
"email_verified":true,
"firebase":{
"identities":{
"google.com":[
"1010101010101010101"
],
"email":[
"uglybob@emailurl.com"
]
},
"sign_in_provider":"google.com"
}
}
```
If you're using this snippet for testing, make sure you check the comments in it.
## Testing
```
bundle exec rake rspec
```
### Testing Mode
Just run:
```
FirebaseIdToken.test!
```
By using this mode, the following methods become available.
```ruby
# RSA PRIVATE KEY
FirebaseIdToken::Testing::Certificates.private_key
# CERTIFICATE
FirebaseIdToken::Testing::Certificates.certificate
```
`certificate` will always return the same value. No external HTTP call is performed.
#### Example: Testing in Rails
Describes the following in `test_helper.rb`.
```ruby
class ActiveSupport::TestCase
setup do
FirebaseIdToken.test!
end
end
```
Test example:
```ruby
require 'test_helper'
module Api
module V1
module UsersControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
setup do
@routes = Engine.routes
@user = users(:one)
end
def create_token(sub: nil)
_payload = payload.merge({sub: sub})
JWT.encode _payload, OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.new(FirebaseIdToken::Testing::Certificates.private_key), 'RS256'
end
def payload
# payload.json
end
test 'should success get api v1 users ' do
get :show, headers: create_token(@user.id)
assert_response :success
end
end
end
end
```
## License
The gem is available as open source under the terms of the [MIT License](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).