Remove (additional) CSRF check from public endpoints if a Bearer authentication header is present (OAuth 2)

[Dagefoerde]

OCS APIs cannot be used in a straightforward way if OAuth-authenticated clients perform requests, due to CSRF checks. If a Bearer authentication header is present, it should be sufficient to assume that no CSRF attack takes place. As discussed below in this thread, it would be great if additional CSRF checks were disabled if requests are authenticated by a bearer token.

(Edited on 2017-08-07, 2:53 pm) -- Original Text:

If you add Nextcloud as an OAuth 2 service provider to a Moodle (3.3) installation, Moodle's OAuth API queries a userinfo_endpoint in order to obtain information about the authorising Nextcloud user. This fails since such an endpoint does not exist. Although actually from the OpenID spec, such an endpoint is useful to find out who was just logged in. It is also useful to check whether an access token is still valid without actually performing an operation on files. :)

Specs for the userinfo endpoint: https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#UserInfo (general) and https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#UserInfoResponse (response).

Elements of the response can be: https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#StandardClaims, of which sub is a MUST (identifier of a Nextcloud user; what do you suggest? ID or username?). Moodle currently relies on a username and an email being present in the userinfo response. I already found out that you do not necessarily know an email adress, so I reported this there: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-59511. I would suggest that you add an email address if it is known, instead of mocking one.

[LukasReschke]

I'm not really a fan of adding new endpoints, especially such as implementing parts of yet another specification which in the end will lead to other people demanding other parts of the specification as well.

Would the /ocs/v2.php/cloud/user suffice here? At the moment all requests to the API require an OCS-APIRequest: true header to be set to pass the CSRF check (and in an ideal world, consumers would send that one) but we can also adjust the code to not require a CSRF check here in case an OAuth bearer token is used.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ocs>
 <meta>
  <status>ok</status>
  <statuscode>200</statuscode>
  <message>OK</message>
 </meta>
 <data>
  <enabled>true</enabled>
  <id>lukas</id>
  <quota>
   <free>3909530726400</free>
   <used>6657835832</used>
   <total>3916188562232</total>
   <relative>0.17</relative>
   <quota>-3</quota>
  </quota>
  <email>lukas@nextcloud.com</email>
  <phone></phone>
  <address></address>
  <website></website>
  <twitter></twitter>
  <groups>
   <element>Engineering</element>
   <element>General</element>
  </groups>
  <display-name>Lukas Reschke</display-name>
 </data>
</ocs>

[Dagefoerde]

/ocs/v2.php/cloud/user would be more than sufficient information-wise! I didn't know it and I agree that it is better to re-use it instead of adding another endpoint.
But of course it would be too simple if it worked right away: Moodle only supports JSON (https://github.com/moodle/moodle/blob/350700bf8b509f5269b0fefd34fec0d3d5393c99/lib/classes/oauth2/client.php#L246). Is it possible to change the output format to JSON by adding a GET parameter? Everything within <data></data> would need to be on top level of the returned JSON object, then mapping the fields into Moodle is very easy.

we can also adjust the code to not require a CSRF check here in case an OAuth bearer token is used.

This would be great, thanks!

[LukasReschke]

Is it possible to change the output format to JSON by adding a GET parameter? Everything within would need to be on top level of the returned JSON object, then mapping the fields into Moodle is very easy.

"It depends". Our OCS API automatically supports converting the responses to JSON by appending ?format=json. The data would however still be within the ocs->data blob and changing that in the OCS API isn't possible as we're just returning a response object which gets translated by the framework.

Would it be possible to add nested support for this into Moodle? I could then take a look at the CSRF check.

{
   "ocs":{
      "meta":{
         "status":"ok",
         "statuscode":200,
         "message":"OK"
      },
      "data":{
         "enabled":"true",
         "id":"lukas",
         "quota":{
            "free":3909529214976,
            "used":6657835832,
            "total":3916187050808,
            "relative":0.17,
            "quota":-3
         },
         "email":"lukas@nextcloud.com",
         "phone":"",
         "address":"",
         "website":"",
         "twitter":"",
         "groups":[
            "Engineering",
            "General"
         ],
         "display-name":"Lukas Reschke"
      }
   }
}

[Dagefoerde]

For reference, where is the response for /ocs/v2.php/cloud/user implemented?

Would it be possible to add nested support for this into Moodle?

I'll have a look into that and will report back. Thanks! :)

[LukasReschke]

Route registered at

server/apps/provisioning_api/appinfo/routes.php

Line 48 in 3511114

['root' => '/cloud', 'name' => 'Users#getCurrentUser', 'url' => '/user', 'verb' => 'GET'],

, which calls

server/apps/provisioning_api/lib/Controller/UsersController.php

Lines 219 to 241 in 3511114

	/**
	* @NoAdminRequired
	* @NoSubAdminRequired
	*
	* gets user info from the currently logged in user
	*
	* @return DataResponse
	* @throws OCSException
	*/
	public function getCurrentUser() {
	$user = $this->userSession->getUser();
	if ($user) {
	$data = $this->getUserData($user->getUID());
	// rename "displayname" to "display-name" only for this call to keep
	// the API stable.
	$data['display-name'] = $data['displayname'];
	unset($data['displayname']);
	return new DataResponse($data);
	}
	throw new OCSException('', \OCP\API::RESPOND_UNAUTHORISED);
	}

[Dagefoerde]

Awesome, that'll do. No further endpoint required (for me). This should be sufficient, unless you'd ever want to be an OpenID provider. Accessing nested JSON values works with - as a path delimiter (not my idea ;) ).

For future reference, this is my Moodle configuration.

Apart from the CSRF check, this issue is resolved for me. Thanks!

[fishfree]

@LukasReschke Could you please tell me how to modify codes in Nextcloud 12 to solve this problem (for integrating with Moodle) ? I can't wait for the release of 13 :-)

[pierreozoux]

@LukasReschke I was investigating Nextcloud as oauth2 provider, and I came to the same conclusion.
If this is fixed, then we can use the ocs endpoint to get the user details.
(And looks like other major open source project like Rocket.Chat, Discourse, and GitLab allow to configure the path, so we are close to an epic win :) )
(Yes, I'm really excited by this feature :) )

Do you know if it'll still be planned for the Nextcloud 13?
If not, I read a lot the code around oauth2 and and ocs, to try to understand what was missing, so I might be able to help if you point me to the right direction!

Thanks!