Getting Started with Auth Connect in @ionic/angular

In this tutorial we will walk through the basic setup and use of Ionic's Auth Connect in an @ionic/angular application.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to:

• Install and configure Auth Connect
• Perform Login and Logout operations
• Check if the user is authenticated
• Obtain the tokens from Auth Connect
• Integrate Identity Vault with Auth Connect

note

The source code for the Ionic application created in this tutorial can be found here

Generate the Application

The first step to take is to generate the application:

ionic start getting-started-ac-angular tabs --type=angular

Now that the application has been generated, let's also add the iOS and Android platforms.

Open the capacitor.config.ts file and change the appId to something unique like io.ionic.gettingstartedacangular:

import { CapacitorConfig } from '@capacitor/cli';

const config: CapacitorConfig = {
  appId: 'io.ionic.gettingstartedacangular',
  appName: 'getting-started-ac-angular',
  webDir: 'www',
  bundledWebRuntime: false
};

export default config;

Next, build the application, then install and create the platforms:

npm run build
ionic cap add android
ionic cap add ios

We should do a cap sync with each build and ensure that our application is served on port 8100 when we run the development server. Change the scripts in package.json to do this:

  "scripts": {
    ...
    "start": "ng serve --port=8100",
    "build": "ng build && cap sync",
    ...
  },

Finally, we're going to update our routes to better conform to what our OIDC provider requires. A typical app has a Login page with a route like /login and our OIDC provider expects that we do too. We will get around this by adding a blank login page, which will add /login as a route. We will never actually navigate to the page within our app.

ionic g page login

Since this page may display for a short time in the OIDC provider popup tab, it is best to modify the HTML for it to only contain an ion-content tag. Open src/app/login/login.page.html and remove everything other than the empty ion-content.

Install Auth Connect

In order to install Auth Connect, you will need to use ionic enterprise register to register your product key. This will create a .npmrc file containing the product key.

If you have already performed that step for your production application, you can just copy the .npmrc file from your production project. Since this application is for learning purposes only, you don't need to obtain another key.

You can now install Auth Connect and sync the platforms:

npm install @ionic-enterprise/auth

Configure Auth Connect

Our next step is to configure Auth Connect. Create a service named src/app/services/auth/auth.service.ts by using ionic g service services/auth/auth and fill it with the following boilerplate content:

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { ProviderOptions } from '@ionic-enterprise/auth';
import { Platform } from '@ionic/angular';

@Injectable({
  providedIn: 'root'
})
export class AuthService {
    private isNative;
    private authOptions: ProviderOptions;

    constructor(platform: Platform) {
        this.isNative = platform.is('hybrid');
        this.authOptions = {
            audience: '',
            clientId: '',
            discoveryUrl: '',
            logoutUrl: '',
            redirectUri: '',
            scope: '',
        };
    }
}

Auth Connect Options

The options object is passed to the login() function when we establish the authentication session. As you can see, there are several items that we need to fill in. Specifically: audience, clientId, scope, discoveryUrl, redirectUri, and logoutUrl.

Obtaining this information likely takes a little coordination with whoever administers our backend services. In our case, we have a team that administers our Auth0 services and they have given us the following information:

• Application ID: yLasZNUGkZ19DGEjTmAITBfGXzqbvd00
• Audience: https://io.ionic.demo.ac
• Metadata Document URL: https://dev-2uspt-sz.us.auth0.com/.well-known/openid-configuration
• Web Redirect (for development): http://localhost:8100/login
• Native Redirect (for development): msauth://login
• Additional Scopes: email picture profile

Translating that into our configuration object, we now have this:

this.authOptions = {
    audience: 'https://io.ionic.demo.ac',
    clientId: 'yLasZNUGkZ19DGEjTmAITBfGXzqbvd00',
    discoveryUrl: 'https://dev-2uspt-sz.us.auth0.com/.well-known/openid-configuration',
    logoutUrl: this.isNative ? 'msauth://login' : 'http://localhost:8100/login',
    redirectUri: this.isNative ? 'msauth://login' : 'http://localhost:8100/login',
    scope: 'openid offline_access email picture profile',
};

Note: you can use your own configuration for this tutorial as well. However, we suggest that you start with our configuration, get the application working, and then try your own configuration after that.

Initialization

Before we can use any AuthConnect functions we need to make sure we have performed the initialization. Add the code to do this after the setting of the options value in src/app/services/auth.service.ts.

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { AuthConnect, ProviderOptions } from '@ionic-enterprise/auth';
import { Platform } from '@ionic/angular';

@Injectable({
  providedIn: 'root'
})
export class AuthService {
    private initializing: Promise<void> | undefined;
    private isNative;
    private authOptions: ProviderOptions;

    constructor(private platform: Platform) {
        this.isNative = platform.is('hybrid');
        this.authOptions = {
            audience: 'https://io.ionic.demo.ac',
            clientId: 'yLasZNUGkZ19DGEjTmAITBfGXzqbvd00',
            discoveryUrl: 'https://dev-2uspt-sz.us.auth0.com/.well-known/openid-configuration',
            logoutUrl: this.isNative ? 'msauth://login' : 'http://localhost:8100/login',
            redirectUri: this.isNative ? 'msauth://login' : 'http://localhost:8100/login',
            scope: 'openid offline_access email picture profile',
        };
        this.initialize();
    }

    private setup(): Promise<void> {
        return AuthConnect.setup({
        platform: this.isNative ? 'capacitor' : 'web',
        logLevel: 'DEBUG',
        ios: {
            webView: 'private',
        },
        web: {
            uiMode: 'popup',
            authFlow: 'implicit',
        },
        });
    }

    private initialize(): Promise<void> {
        if (!this.initializing) {
        this.initializing = new Promise( resolve => {
            this.setup().then(() => resolve());
        });
        }
        return this.initializing;
    }
}

This will get Auth Connect ready to use within our application. Notice that this is also where we supply any platform specific Auth Connect options. Right now, the logLevel is set to DEBUG since this is a demo application. In a production environment, we probably would set it to DEBUG in development and ERROR in production.

The initialize() function will be called from several locations to ensure the setup is complete before making any further AuthConnect calls.

The Provider

Auth Connect requires a provider object that specifies details pertaining to communicating with the OIDC service. Auth Connect offers several common providers out of the box: Auth0Provider, AzureProvider, CognitoProvider, OktaProvider, and OneLoginProvider. You can also create your own provider, though doing so is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

Since we are using Auth0, we will create an Auth0Provider inside src/app/services/auth.service.ts:

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { Auth0Provider, AuthConnect, ProviderOptions } from '@ionic-enterprise/auth';
import { Platform } from '@ionic/angular';
...
@Injectable({
  providedIn: 'root'
})
export class AuthService {
    private initializing: Promise<void> | undefined;
    private isNative;
    private provider = new Auth0Provider();
    ...
}

Login and Logout

Login and logout are the two most fundamental operations in the authentication flow.

For the login(), we need to pass both the provider and the options we established above. The login() call resolves an AuthResult if the operation succeeds. The AuthResult contains the auth tokens as well as some other information. This object needs to be passed to almost all other Auth Connect functions. As such, it needs to be saved.

The login() call rejects with an error if the user cancels the login or if something else prevents the login to complete.

Add the following code to src/app/services/auth.service.ts:

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { Auth0Provider, AuthConnect, AuthResult, ProviderOptions } from '@ionic-enterprise/auth';
import { Platform } from '@ionic/angular';

@Injectable({
  providedIn: 'root'
})
export class AuthService {
    private initializing: Promise<void> | undefined;
    private isNative;
    private provider = new Auth0Provider();
 ▏  private authOptions: ProviderOptions; 
    private authResult: AuthResult | null = null;

    ...
    public async login(): Promise<void> {
        await this.initialize();
        this.authResult = await AuthConnect.login(this.provider, this.authOptions);
    }
}

For the logout operation, we pass the provider and the authResult that was returned by the login() call.

public async logout(): Promise<void> {
    await this.initialize();
    if (this.authResult) {
        await AuthConnect.logout(this.provider, this.authResult);
        this.authResult = null;
    }
}

To test these new function, replace the ExploreContainer with "Login" and "Logout" buttons in the src/app/tab1/tab1.page.html file. :

<ion-button (click)="login()">Login</ion-button>
<ion-button (click)="logout()">Logout</ion-button>

Inside src/app/tab1/tab1.page.ts, inject our auth service, and expose the login and logout functions:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { AuthService } from '../services/auth/auth.service';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-tab1',
  templateUrl: 'tab1.page.html',
  styleUrls: ['tab1.page.scss']
})
export class Tab1Page {

  constructor(private auth: AuthService) {}

  login() {
    this.auth.login();
  }

  logout() {
    this.auth.logout();
  }

}

If you are using our Auth0 provider, you can use the following credentials for the test:

• Email Address: test@ionic.io
• Password: Ion54321

You should be able to login and and logout successfully.

Configure the Native Projects

Build the application for a native device and try the login there as well. You should notice that this does not work on your device.

The problem is that we need to let the native device know which application(s) are allowed to handle navigation to the msauth:// scheme. To do this, we need to modify our android/app/build.gradle and ios/App/App/Info.plist files as noted here. In the Info.plist file, use msauth in place of $AUTH_URL_SCHEME.

Determine Current Auth Status

Right now, the user is shown both the login and logout buttons, and you don't really know if the user is logged in or not. Let's change that.

A simple strategy to use is if we have an AuthResult then we are logged in, otherwise we are not. Add code to do that in src/app/services/auth.service.ts. We are going to setup observables to notify listening pages of the change. Ignore the extra complexity with the getAuthResult() function. We will expand on that as we go.

We also need to be sure and trigger our authenticationChange$ when we successfully log in or out of the application.

import { Injectable, NgZone } from '@angular/core';
import { BehaviorSubject, Observable } from 'rxjs';
...
@Injectable({
  providedIn: 'root'
})
export class AuthService {
    ...
    private authenticationChange: BehaviorSubject<boolean> = new BehaviorSubject(false);
    public authenticationChange$: Observable<boolean>;

    constructor(platform: Platform, private ngZone: NgZone) {
        this.isNative = platform.is('hybrid');
        this.authOptions = { ... };
        this.initialize();
        this.authenticationChange$ = this.authenticationChange.asObservable();
        this.isAuthenticated().then( authenticated => this.onAuthChange(authenticated));
    }
    ...
    public async login(): Promise<void> {
      await this.initialize();
      this.authResult = await AuthConnect.login(this.provider, this.authOptions);
      this.onAuthChange(await this.isAuthenticated());
    }

    public async logout(): Promise<void> {
      await this.initialize();
      if (this.authResult) {
        await AuthConnect.logout(this.provider, this.authResult);
        this.authResult = null;
        this.onAuthChange(await this.isAuthenticated());
      }
    }
    ...
    private async onAuthChange(isAuthenticated: boolean): Promise<void> {
      this.ngZone.run(() => {
        this.authenticationChange.next(isAuthenticated);
      })
    }
    public async getAuthResult(): Promise<AuthResult | null> {
      return this.authResult;
    }

    public async isAuthenticated(): Promise<boolean> {
      await this.initialize();
      return !!(await this.getAuthResult());
    }
}

Setup Tab1Page to listen to this observable by attaching to it in the constructor:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { Observable } from 'rxjs';
import { AuthService } from '../services/auth/auth.service';
...
export class Tab1Page {

  public authenticationChange$: Observable<boolean>;

  constructor(private auth: AuthService) {
    this.authenticationChange$ = auth.authenticationChange$;
  }

  login() {
    this.auth.login();
  }

  logout() {
    this.auth.logout();
  }

}

Use this in the layout to display only the Login or the Logout button depending on the current login status:

  <div *ngIf="authenticationChange$ | async; else elseBlock">
    <ion-button (click)="logout()">Logout</ion-button>
  </div>
  <ng-template #elseBlock>
    <ion-button (click)="login()">Login</ion-button>
  </ng-template>

At this point, you should see the Login button if you are not logged in and the Logout button if you are.

Get the Tokens

We can now log in and out, but what about getting at the tokens that our OIDC provider gave us? This information is stored as part of the AuthResult. Auth Connect also includes some methods that allow us to easily look at the contents of the tokens. For example, in src/app/services/auth.service.ts add the following:

public async getAccessToken(): Promise<string | undefined> {
    await this.initialize();
    const res = await this.getAuthResult();
    return res?.accessToken;  
  }

public async getUserName(): Promise<string | undefined> {
    await this.initialize();
    const res = await this.getAuthResult();
    if(res) {
        const data = (await AuthConnect.decodeToken(TokenType.id, res)) as { name: string };
        return data?.name ;
    }
    return undefined;
}

Note: the format and data stored in the ID token may change based on your provider and configuration. Check the documentation and configuration of your own provider for details.

Refreshing the Authentication

In a typical OIDC implementation, access tokens are very short lived. In such a case, it is common to use a longer lived refresh token to obtain a new AuthResult.

Let's add a function to src/app/services/auth.service.ts that does the refresh, and then modify getAuthResult() to call it when needed.

public async refreshAuth(authResult: AuthResult): Promise<AuthResult | null> {
    let newAuthResult: AuthResult | null = null;
    if (await AuthConnect.isRefreshTokenAvailable(authResult)) {
        try {
            newAuthResult = await AuthConnect.refreshSession(this.provider, authResult);
        } catch (err) {
            null;
        }
    }

    return newAuthResult;
}

public async getAuthResult(): Promise<AuthResult | null> {
    if (this.authResult && (await AuthConnect.isAccessTokenExpired(this.authResult))) {
        this.authResult = await this.refreshAuth(this.authResult);
    }
    return this.authResult;
}

Now anything using getAuthResult() to get the current auth result will automatically handle a refresh if needed.

Store the Auth Result

Up until this point, we have been storing our AuthResult in a local state variable in src/app/services/auth.service.ts. This has a couple of disadvantages:

• Our tokens could show up in a stack trace.
• Our tokens do not survive a browser refresh or application restart.

There are several options we could use to store the AuthResult, but one that handles persistence as well as storing the data in a secure location on native devices is Identity Vault.

For our application we will install identity vault and use it in "secure storage" mode to store the tokens. The first step is to install the product.

npm i @ionic-enterprise/identity-vault

Next we will create a factory that builds either the actual vault if we are on a device or a browser based "vault" that is suitable for development if we are in the browser.

ionic g service services/vault/vault

The following code should go in src/app/services/vault.service.ts.

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { Platform } from '@ionic/angular';
import { BrowserVault, DeviceSecurityType, Vault, VaultType} from '@ionic-enterprise/identity-vault';
import { AuthResult } from '@ionic-enterprise/auth';

const config = {
  key: 'io.ionic.gettingstartedacangular',
  type: VaultType.SecureStorage,
  deviceSecurityType: DeviceSecurityType.None,
  lockAfterBackgrounded: 5000,
  shouldClearVaultAfterTooManyFailedAttempts: true,
  customPasscodeInvalidUnlockAttempts: 2,
  unlockVaultOnLoad: false,
}

const vaultKey = 'auth-result';

@Injectable({
  providedIn: 'root'
})
export class VaultService {

  private vault: Vault | BrowserVault;

  constructor(private platform: Platform) { 
    this.vault = platform.is('hybrid') ? new Vault(config) : new BrowserVault(config);
  }
}

This provides us with a secure vault on our devices, or a fallback vault that allows us to keep using our browser-based development flow.

Now that we have a factory in place to build our vaults, let's create some functions that allow us to manage our authentication result. Add the following methods to our service:

  public clear(): Promise<void> {
    return this.vault.clear();
  }

  public getSession(): Promise<AuthResult | null> {
    return this.vault.getValue<AuthResult>(vaultKey);
  }

  public setSession(value: AuthResult): Promise<void> {
    return this.vault.setValue(vaultKey, value);
  }

Then modify src/app/services/auth.service.ts to use the vault service. The goal is to no longer store the auth result in a session variable. Instead, we will use the session vault to store the result and retrieve it from the vault as needed.

Remove the private authResult: AuthResult | null = null; line and inject your service into the AuthService:

import { VaultService } from '../vault/vault.service';

constructor(platform: Platform, private ngZone: NgZone, private vault: VaultService)

Create a new function called saveAuthResult():

private async saveAuthResult(authResult: AuthResult | null): Promise<void> {
    if (authResult) {
        await this.vault.setSession(authResult);
    } else {
        await this.vault.clear();
    }
    this.onAuthChange(!!authResult);
}

Modify refreshAuth to save the results of an attempted refresh:

public async refreshAuth(authResult: AuthResult): Promise<AuthResult | null> {
    let newAuthResult: AuthResult | null = null;
    if (await AuthConnect.isRefreshTokenAvailable(authResult)) {
        try {
            newAuthResult = await AuthConnect.refreshSession(this.provider, authResult);
        } catch (err) {
            null;
        }
        this.saveAuthResult(newAuthResult);
    }

    return newAuthResult;
}

Modify getAuthResult() to obtain the auth result from the vault:

public async getAuthResult(): Promise<AuthResult | null> {
    let authResult = await this.vault.getSession();
    if (authResult && (await AuthConnect.isAccessTokenExpired(authResult))) {
        authResult = await this.refreshAuth(authResult);
    }
    
    return authResult;
}

Finally, modify login() and logout() to both save the results of the operation accordingly. The call to onAuthChange() should also be removed from each is it is now centralized in saveAuthResult().

public async login(): Promise<void> {
    await this.initialize();
    const authResult = await AuthConnect.login(this.provider, authOptions);
    await this.saveAuthResult(authResult);
}

public async logout(): Promise<void> {
    await this.initialize();
    const authResult = await this.getAuthResult();
    if (authResult) {
      await AuthConnect.logout(this.provider, authResult);
      await this.saveAuthResult(null);
    }
}

You should now be able to refresh the app and have a persistent session.

Guard the Routes

Let's pretend that Tab2Page and Tab3Page had super secret information that only logged in users could see (they don't, of course, but we can pretend). We would not want users getting there if they were not currently authenticated.

We can use our isAuthenticated() function to build a guard for those routes.

Create a guard called src/app/guards/auth.guard.ts and add the following code into it:

import { inject } from '@angular/core';
import { ActivatedRouteSnapshot, CanActivateFn, RouterStateSnapshot } from '@angular/router';
import { AuthService } from 'src/app/services/auth/auth.service';

export const authGuard: CanActivateFn = (route: ActivatedRouteSnapshot, state: RouterStateSnapshot) => {
    const authService = inject(AuthService);
    return authService.isAuthenticated()
};

Then add some metadata to the tab2 and tab3 routes inside src/app/tabs/tabs-routing.module.ts to indicate that they require authentication:

      {
        path: 'tab2',
        loadChildren: () => import('../tab2/tab2.module').then(m => m.Tab2PageModule),
        canActivate: [authGuard]
      },
      {
        path: 'tab3',
        loadChildren: () => import('../tab3/tab3.module').then(m => m.Tab3PageModule),
        canActivate: [authGuard]
      },

Now if you are not logged in and try to click on tabs 2 or 3, the application will not navigate and you will stay on tab 1. Furthermore, if you try to manually load http://localhost:8100/tab2 (or tab3), you will be redirected to tab1.

Conclusion

At this point, you should have a good idea of how Auth Connect and Identity Vault work together to provide a complete and secure authentication solution. There is still more functionality that can be implemented. Be sure to check out our other documentation and demos to see how to expand on this to offer expanded functionality such as Biometric based authentication.

• Auth Connect
• Identity Vault - check out its Getting Started guide as well.
• Tea Taster with Auth Connect and Identity Vault