Provided by: python3-msal_1.17.0-1_all 
NAME
msalpython - MSAL Python Documentation
You can find high level conceptual documentations in the project README.
There are many different application scenarios. MSAL Python supports some of them. The following
diagram serves as a map. Locate your application scenario on the map. If the corresponding icon is
clickable, it will bring you to an MSAL Python sample for that scenario.
• Most authentication scenarios acquire tokens on behalf of signed-in users.
• There are also daemon apps. In these scenarios, applications acquire tokens on behalf of themselves
with no user.
• There are other less common samples, such for ADAL-to-MSAL migration, available inside the project code
base.
The following section is the API Reference of MSAL Python.
NOTE:
Only APIs and their parameters documented in this section are part of public API, with guaranteed
backward compatibility for the entire 1.x series.
Other modules in the source code are all considered as internal helpers, which could change at anytime
in the future, without prior notice.
MSAL proposes a clean separation between public client applications and confidential client applications.
They are implemented as two separated classes, with different methods for different authentication
scenarios.
PUBLICCLIENTAPPLICATION
class msal.PublicClientApplication(client_id, client_credential=None, **kwargs)
__init__(client_id, client_credential=None, **kwargs)
Create an instance of application.
Parameters
• client_id (str) -- Your app has a client_id after you register it on AAD.
• client_credential (Union[str, dict]) --
For PublicClientApplication, you simply use None here. For
ConfidentialClientApplication, it can be a string containing client secret, or an
X509 certificate container in this form:
{
"private_key": "...-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----...",
"thumbprint": "A1B2C3D4E5F6...",
"public_certificate": "...-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----... (Optional. See below.)",
"passphrase": "Passphrase if the private_key is encrypted (Optional. Added in version 1.6.0)",
}
Added in version 0.5.0: public_certificate (optional) is public key certificate
which will be sent through 'x5c' JWT header only for subject name and issuer
authentication to support cert auto rolls.
Per specs, "the certificate containing the public key corresponding to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS MUST be the first certificate. This MAY be
followed by additional certificates, with each subsequent certificate being the
one used to certify the previous one." However, your certificate's issuer may use
a different order. So, if your attempt ends up with an error AADSTS700027 - "The
provided signature value did not match the expected signature value", you may try
use only the leaf cert (in PEM/str format) instead.
Added in version 1.13.0: It can also be a completely pre-signed assertion that
you've assembled yourself. Simply pass a container containing only the key
"client_assertion", like this:
{
"client_assertion": "...a JWT with claims aud, exp, iss, jti, nbf, and sub..."
}
• client_claims (dict) --
Added in version 0.5.0: It is a dictionary of extra claims that would be signed by
by this ConfidentialClientApplication 's private key. For example, you can use
{"client_ip": "x.x.x.x"}. You may also override any of the following default
claims:
{
"aud": the_token_endpoint,
"iss": self.client_id,
"sub": same_as_issuer,
"exp": now + 10_min,
"iat": now,
"jti": a_random_uuid
}
• authority (str) --
A URL that identifies a token authority. It should be of the format
https://login.microsoftonline.com/your_tenant By default, we will use
https://login.microsoftonline.com/common
Changed in version 1.17: you can also use predefined constant and a builder like
this:
from msal.authority import (
AuthorityBuilder,
AZURE_US_GOVERNMENT, AZURE_CHINA, AZURE_PUBLIC)
my_authority = AuthorityBuilder(AZURE_PUBLIC, "contoso.onmicrosoft.com")
# Now you get an equivalent of
# "https://login.microsoftonline.com/contoso.onmicrosoft.com"
# You can feed such an authority to msal's ClientApplication
from msal import PublicClientApplication
app = PublicClientApplication("my_client_id", authority=my_authority, ...)
• validate_authority (bool) -- (optional) Turns authority validation on or off. This
parameter default to true.
• cache (TokenCache) -- Sets the token cache used by this ClientApplication
instance. By default, an in-memory cache will be created and used.
• http_client -- (optional) Your implementation of abstract class HttpClient
<msal.oauth2cli.http.http_client> Defaults to a requests session instance. Since
MSAL 1.11.0, the default session would be configured to attempt one retry on
connection error. If you are providing your own http_client, it will be your
http_client's duty to decide whether to perform retry.
• verify -- (optional) It will be passed to the verify parameter in the underlying
requests library This does not apply if you have chosen to pass your own Http
client
• proxies -- (optional) It will be passed to the proxies parameter in the underlying
requests library This does not apply if you have chosen to pass your own Http
client
• timeout -- (optional) It will be passed to the timeout parameter in the underlying
requests library This does not apply if you have chosen to pass your own Http
client
• app_name -- (optional) You can provide your application name for Microsoft
telemetry purposes. Default value is None, means it will not be passed to
Microsoft.
• app_version -- (optional) You can provide your application version for Microsoft
telemetry purposes. Default value is None, means it will not be passed to
Microsoft.
• client_capabilities (list[str]) --
(optional) Allows configuration of one or more client capabilities, e.g. ["CP1"].
Client capability is meant to inform the Microsoft identity platform (STS) what
this client is capable for, so STS can decide to turn on certain features. For
example, if client is capable to handle claims challenge, STS can then issue CAE
access tokens to resources knowing when the resource emits claims challenge the
client will be capable to handle.
Implementation details: Client capability is implemented using "claims" parameter
on the wire, for now. MSAL will combine them into
`claims parameter <https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0-final.html#ClaimsParameter`_
which you will later provide via one of the acquire-token request.
• azure_region (str) --
AAD provides regional endpoints for apps to opt in to keep their traffic remain
inside that region.
As of 2021 May, regional service is only available for acquire_token_for_client()
sent by any of the following scenarios:
1. An app powered by a capable MSAL (MSAL Python 1.12+ will be provisioned)
2. An app with managed identity, which is formerly known as MSI. (However MSAL
Python does not support managed identity, so this one does not apply.)
3. An app authenticated by Subject Name/Issuer (SNI).
4. An app which already onboard to the region's allow-list.
This parameter defaults to None, which means region behavior remains off.
App developer can opt in to a regional endpoint, by provide its region name, such
as "westus", "eastus2". You can find a full list of regions by running az account
list-locations -o table, or referencing to this doc.
An app running inside Azure Functions and Azure VM can use a special keyword
ClientApplication.ATTEMPT_REGION_DISCOVERY to auto-detect region.
NOTE:
Setting azure_region to non-None for an app running outside of Azure
Function/VM could hang indefinitely.
You should consider opting in/out region behavior on-demand, by loading
azure_region=None or azure_region="westus" or azure_region=True (which means
opt-in and auto-detect) from your per-deployment configuration, and then do app
= ConfidentialClientApplication(..., azure_region=azure_region).
Alternatively, you can configure a short timeout, or provide a custom
http_client which has a short timeout. That way, the latency would be under
your control, but still less performant than opting out of region feature.
New in version 1.12.0.
• exclude_scopes (list[str]) -- (optional) Historically MSAL hardcodes
offline_access scope, which would allow your app to have prolonged access to
user's data. If that is unnecessary or undesirable for your app, now you can use
this parameter to supply an exclusion list of scopes, such as exclude_scopes =
["offline_access"].
• http_cache (dict) --
MSAL has long been caching tokens in the token_cache. Recently, MSAL also
introduced a concept of http_cache, by automatically caching some finite amount of
non-token http responses, so that long-lived PublicClientApplication and
ConfidentialClientApplication would be more performant and responsive in some
situations.
This http_cache parameter accepts any dict-like object. If not provided, MSAL
will use an in-memory dict.
If your app is a command-line app (CLI), you would want to persist your http_cache
across different CLI runs. The following recipe shows a way to do so:
# Just add the following lines at the beginning of your CLI script
import sys, atexit, pickle
http_cache_filename = sys.argv[0] + ".http_cache"
try:
with open(http_cache_filename, "rb") as f:
persisted_http_cache = pickle.load(f) # Take a snapshot
except (
FileNotFoundError, # Or IOError in Python 2
pickle.UnpicklingError, # A corrupted http cache file
):
persisted_http_cache = {} # Recover by starting afresh
atexit.register(lambda: pickle.dump(
# When exit, flush it back to the file.
# It may occasionally overwrite another process's concurrent write,
# but that is fine. Subsequent runs will reach eventual consistency.
persisted_http_cache, open(http_cache_file, "wb")))
# And then you can implement your app as you normally would
app = msal.PublicClientApplication(
"your_client_id",
...,
http_cache=persisted_http_cache, # Utilize persisted_http_cache
...,
#token_cache=..., # You may combine the old token_cache trick
# Please refer to token_cache recipe at
# https://msal-python.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#msal.SerializableTokenCache
)
app.acquire_token_interactive(["your", "scope"], ...)
Content inside http_cache are cheap to obtain. There is no need to share them
among different apps.
Content inside http_cache will contain no tokens nor Personally Identifiable
Information (PII). Encryption is unnecessary.
New in version 1.16.0.
acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow(auth_code_flow, auth_response, scopes=None, **kwargs)
Validate the auth response being redirected back, and obtain tokens.
It automatically provides nonce protection.
Parameters
• auth_code_flow (dict) -- The same dict returned by initiate_auth_code_flow().
• auth_response (dict) -- A dict of the query string received from auth server.
• scopes (list[str]) --
Scopes requested to access a protected API (a resource).
Most of the time, you can leave it empty.
If you requested user consent for multiple resources, here you will need to
provide a subset of what you required in initiate_auth_code_flow().
OAuth2 was designed mostly for singleton services, where tokens are always meant
for the same resource and the only changes are in the scopes. In AAD, tokens can
be issued for multiple 3rd party resources. You can ask authorization code for
multiple resources, but when you redeem it, the token is for only one intended
recipient, called audience. So the developer need to specify a scope so that we
can restrict the token to be issued for the corresponding audience.
Returns
• A dict containing "access_token" and/or "id_token", among others, depends on what
scope was used. (See https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749#section-5.1)
• A dict containing "error", optionally "error_description", "error_uri". (It is
either this or that)
• Most client-side data error would result in ValueError exception. So the usage
pattern could be without any protocol details:
def authorize(): # A controller in a web app
try:
result = msal_app.acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow(
session.get("flow", {}), request.args)
if "error" in result:
return render_template("error.html", result)
use(result) # Token(s) are available in result and cache
except ValueError: # Usually caused by CSRF
pass # Simply ignore them
return redirect(url_for("index"))
acquire_token_by_authorization_code(code, scopes, redirect_uri=None, nonce=None,
claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
The second half of the Authorization Code Grant.
Parameters
• code -- The authorization code returned from Authorization Server.
• scopes (list[str]) --
(Required) Scopes requested to access a protected API (a resource).
If you requested user consent for multiple resources, here you will typically want
to provide a subset of what you required in AuthCode.
OAuth2 was designed mostly for singleton services, where tokens are always meant
for the same resource and the only changes are in the scopes. In AAD, tokens can
be issued for multiple 3rd party resources. You can ask authorization code for
multiple resources, but when you redeem it, the token is for only one intended
recipient, called audience. So the developer need to specify a scope so that we
can restrict the token to be issued for the corresponding audience.
• nonce -- If you provided a nonce when calling get_authorization_request_url(),
same nonce should also be provided here, so that we'll validate it. An exception
will be raised if the nonce in id token mismatches.
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
A dict representing the json response from AAD:
• A successful response would contain "access_token" key,
• an error response would contain "error" and usually "error_description".
acquire_token_by_device_flow(flow, claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
Obtain token by a device flow object, with customizable polling effect.
Parameters
• flow (dict) -- A dict previously generated by initiate_device_flow(). By default,
this method's polling effect will block current thread. You can abort the
polling loop at any time, by changing the value of the flow's "expires_at" key to
0.
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
A dict representing the json response from AAD:
• A successful response would contain "access_token" key,
• an error response would contain "error" and usually "error_description".
acquire_token_by_refresh_token(refresh_token, scopes, **kwargs)
Acquire token(s) based on a refresh token (RT) obtained from elsewhere.
You use this method only when you have old RTs from elsewhere, and now you want to migrate
them into MSAL. Calling this method results in new tokens automatically storing into MSAL.
You do NOT need to use this method if you are already using MSAL. MSAL maintains RT
automatically inside its token cache, and an access token can be retrieved when you call
acquire_token_silent().
Parameters
• refresh_token (str) -- The old refresh token, as a string.
• scopes (list) -- The scopes associate with this old RT. Each scope needs to be in
the Microsoft identity platform (v2) format. See Scopes not resources.
Returns
• A dict contains "error" and some other keys, when error happened.
• A dict contains no "error" key means migration was successful.
acquire_token_by_username_password(username, password, scopes, claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
Gets a token for a given resource via user credentials.
See this page for constraints of Username Password Flow.
https://github.com/AzureAD/microsoft-authentication-library-for-python/wiki/Username-Password-Authentication
Parameters
• username (str) -- Typically a UPN in the form of an email address.
• password (str) -- The password.
• scopes (list[str]) -- Scopes requested to access a protected API (a resource).
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
A dict representing the json response from AAD:
• A successful response would contain "access_token" key,
• an error response would contain "error" and usually "error_description".
acquire_token_interactive(scopes, prompt=None, login_hint=None, domain_hint=None,
claims_challenge=None, timeout=None, port=None, extra_scopes_to_consent=None, max_age=None,
**kwargs)
Acquire token interactively i.e. via a local browser.
Prerequisite: In Azure Portal, configure the Redirect URI of your "Mobile and Desktop
application" as http://localhost.
Parameters
• scopes (list) -- It is a list of case-sensitive strings.
• prompt (str) -- By default, no prompt value will be sent, not even "none". You
will have to specify a value explicitly. Its valid values are defined in Open ID
Connect specs https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#AuthRequest
• login_hint (str) -- Optional. Identifier of the user. Generally a User Principal
Name (UPN).
• domain_hint --
Can be one of "consumers" or "organizations" or your tenant domain "contoso.com".
If included, it will skip the email-based discovery process that user goes through
on the sign-in page, leading to a slightly more streamlined user experience. More
information on possible values here and here.
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
• timeout (int) -- This method will block the current thread. This parameter
specifies the timeout value in seconds. Default value None means wait
indefinitely.
• port (int) -- The port to be used to listen to an incoming auth response. By
default we will use a system-allocated port. (The rest of the redirect_uri is
hard coded as http://localhost.)
• extra_scopes_to_consent (list) -- "Extra scopes to consent" is a concept only
available in AAD. It refers to other resources you might want to prompt to
consent for, in the same interaction, but for which you won't get back a token for
in this particular operation.
• max_age (int) --
OPTIONAL. Maximum Authentication Age. Specifies the allowable elapsed time in
seconds since the last time the End-User was actively authenticated. If the
elapsed time is greater than this value, Microsoft identity platform will actively
re-authenticate the End-User.
MSAL Python will also automatically validate the auth_time in ID token.
New in version 1.15.
Returns
• A dict containing no "error" key, and typically contains an "access_token" key.
• A dict containing an "error" key, when token refresh failed.
acquire_token_silent(scopes, account, authority=None, force_refresh=False, claims_challenge=None,
**kwargs)
Acquire an access token for given account, without user interaction.
It is done either by finding a valid access token from cache, or by finding a valid refresh
token from cache and then automatically use it to redeem a new access token.
This method will combine the cache empty and refresh error into one return value, None. If
your app does not care about the exact token refresh error during token cache look-up, then
this method is easier and recommended.
Internally, this method calls acquire_token_silent_with_error().
Parameters
claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in the
ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains lists
of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
• A dict containing no "error" key, and typically contains an "access_token" key, if
cache lookup succeeded.
• None when cache lookup does not yield a token.
acquire_token_silent_with_error(scopes, account, authority=None, force_refresh=False,
claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
Acquire an access token for given account, without user interaction.
It is done either by finding a valid access token from cache, or by finding a valid refresh
token from cache and then automatically use it to redeem a new access token.
This method will differentiate cache empty from token refresh error. If your app cares the
exact token refresh error during token cache look-up, then this method is suitable.
Otherwise, the other method acquire_token_silent() is recommended.
Parameters
• scopes (list[str]) -- (Required) Scopes requested to access a protected API (a
resource).
• account -- one of the account object returned by get_accounts(), or use None when
you want to find an access token for this client.
• force_refresh -- If True, it will skip Access Token look-up, and try to find a
Refresh Token to obtain a new Access Token.
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
• A dict containing no "error" key, and typically contains an "access_token" key, if
cache lookup succeeded.
• None when there is simply no token in the cache.
• A dict containing an "error" key, when token refresh failed.
get_accounts(username=None)
Get a list of accounts which previously signed in, i.e. exists in cache.
An account can later be used in acquire_token_silent() to find its tokens.
Parameters
username -- Filter accounts with this username only. Case insensitive.
Returns
A list of account objects. Each account is a dict. For now, we only document its
"username" field. Your app can choose to display those information to end user, and
allow user to choose one of his/her accounts to proceed.
get_authorization_request_url(scopes, login_hint=None, state=None, redirect_uri=None,
response_type='code', prompt=None, nonce=None, domain_hint=None, claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
Constructs a URL for you to start a Authorization Code Grant.
Parameters
• scopes (list[str]) -- (Required) Scopes requested to access a protected API (a
resource).
• state (str) -- Recommended by OAuth2 for CSRF protection.
• login_hint (str) -- Identifier of the user. Generally a User Principal Name (UPN).
• redirect_uri (str) -- Address to return to upon receiving a response from the
authority.
• response_type (str) --
Default value is "code" for an OAuth2 Authorization Code grant.
You could use other content such as "id_token" or "token", which would trigger an
Implicit Grant, but that is not recommended.
• prompt (str) -- By default, no prompt value will be sent, not even "none". You
will have to specify a value explicitly. Its valid values are defined in Open ID
Connect specs https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#AuthRequest
• nonce -- A cryptographically random value used to mitigate replay attacks. See
also OIDC specs.
• domain_hint --
Can be one of "consumers" or "organizations" or your tenant domain "contoso.com".
If included, it will skip the email-based discovery process that user goes through
on the sign-in page, leading to a slightly more streamlined user experience. More
information on possible values here and here.
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
The authorization url as a string.
initiate_auth_code_flow(scopes, redirect_uri=None, state=None, prompt=None, login_hint=None,
domain_hint=None, claims_challenge=None, max_age=None)
Initiate an auth code flow.
Later when the response reaches your redirect_uri, you can use
acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow() to complete the authentication/authorization.
Parameters
• scopes (list) -- It is a list of case-sensitive strings.
• redirect_uri (str) -- Optional. If not specified, server will use the
pre-registered one.
• state (str) -- An opaque value used by the client to maintain state between the
request and callback. If absent, this library will automatically generate one
internally.
• prompt (str) -- By default, no prompt value will be sent, not even "none". You
will have to specify a value explicitly. Its valid values are defined in Open ID
Connect specs https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#AuthRequest
• login_hint (str) -- Optional. Identifier of the user. Generally a User Principal
Name (UPN).
• domain_hint --
Can be one of "consumers" or "organizations" or your tenant domain "contoso.com".
If included, it will skip the email-based discovery process that user goes through
on the sign-in page, leading to a slightly more streamlined user experience. More
information on possible values here and here.
• max_age (int) --
OPTIONAL. Maximum Authentication Age. Specifies the allowable elapsed time in
seconds since the last time the End-User was actively authenticated. If the
elapsed time is greater than this value, Microsoft identity platform will actively
re-authenticate the End-User.
MSAL Python will also automatically validate the auth_time in ID token.
New in version 1.15.
Returns
The auth code flow. It is a dict in this form:
{
"auth_uri": "https://...", // Guide user to visit this
"state": "...", // You may choose to verify it by yourself,
// or just let acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow()
// do that for you.
"...": "...", // Everything else are reserved and internal
}
The caller is expected to:
1. somehow store this content, typically inside the current session,
2. guide the end user (i.e. resource owner) to visit that auth_uri,
3. and then relay this dict and subsequent auth response to
acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow().
initiate_device_flow(scopes=None, **kwargs)
Initiate a Device Flow instance, which will be used in acquire_token_by_device_flow().
Parameters
scopes (list[str]) -- Scopes requested to access a protected API (a resource).
Returns
A dict representing a newly created Device Flow object.
• A successful response would contain "user_code" key, among others
• an error response would contain some other readable key/value pairs.
remove_account(account)
Sign me out and forget me from token cache
CONFIDENTIALCLIENTAPPLICATION
class msal.ConfidentialClientApplication(client_id, client_credential=None, authority=None,
validate_authority=True, token_cache=None, http_client=None, verify=True, proxies=None, timeout=None,
client_claims=None, app_name=None, app_version=None, client_capabilities=None, azure_region=None,
exclude_scopes=None, http_cache=None)
__init__(client_id, client_credential=None, authority=None, validate_authority=True,
token_cache=None, http_client=None, verify=True, proxies=None, timeout=None, client_claims=None,
app_name=None, app_version=None, client_capabilities=None, azure_region=None, exclude_scopes=None,
http_cache=None)
Create an instance of application.
Parameters
• client_id (str) -- Your app has a client_id after you register it on AAD.
• client_credential (Union[str, dict]) --
For PublicClientApplication, you simply use None here. For
ConfidentialClientApplication, it can be a string containing client secret, or an
X509 certificate container in this form:
{
"private_key": "...-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----...",
"thumbprint": "A1B2C3D4E5F6...",
"public_certificate": "...-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----... (Optional. See below.)",
"passphrase": "Passphrase if the private_key is encrypted (Optional. Added in version 1.6.0)",
}
Added in version 0.5.0: public_certificate (optional) is public key certificate
which will be sent through 'x5c' JWT header only for subject name and issuer
authentication to support cert auto rolls.
Per specs, "the certificate containing the public key corresponding to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS MUST be the first certificate. This MAY be
followed by additional certificates, with each subsequent certificate being the
one used to certify the previous one." However, your certificate's issuer may use
a different order. So, if your attempt ends up with an error AADSTS700027 - "The
provided signature value did not match the expected signature value", you may try
use only the leaf cert (in PEM/str format) instead.
Added in version 1.13.0: It can also be a completely pre-signed assertion that
you've assembled yourself. Simply pass a container containing only the key
"client_assertion", like this:
{
"client_assertion": "...a JWT with claims aud, exp, iss, jti, nbf, and sub..."
}
• client_claims (dict) --
Added in version 0.5.0: It is a dictionary of extra claims that would be signed by
by this ConfidentialClientApplication 's private key. For example, you can use
{"client_ip": "x.x.x.x"}. You may also override any of the following default
claims:
{
"aud": the_token_endpoint,
"iss": self.client_id,
"sub": same_as_issuer,
"exp": now + 10_min,
"iat": now,
"jti": a_random_uuid
}
• authority (str) --
A URL that identifies a token authority. It should be of the format
https://login.microsoftonline.com/your_tenant By default, we will use
https://login.microsoftonline.com/common
Changed in version 1.17: you can also use predefined constant and a builder like
this:
from msal.authority import (
AuthorityBuilder,
AZURE_US_GOVERNMENT, AZURE_CHINA, AZURE_PUBLIC)
my_authority = AuthorityBuilder(AZURE_PUBLIC, "contoso.onmicrosoft.com")
# Now you get an equivalent of
# "https://login.microsoftonline.com/contoso.onmicrosoft.com"
# You can feed such an authority to msal's ClientApplication
from msal import PublicClientApplication
app = PublicClientApplication("my_client_id", authority=my_authority, ...)
• validate_authority (bool) -- (optional) Turns authority validation on or off. This
parameter default to true.
• cache (TokenCache) -- Sets the token cache used by this ClientApplication
instance. By default, an in-memory cache will be created and used.
• http_client -- (optional) Your implementation of abstract class HttpClient
<msal.oauth2cli.http.http_client> Defaults to a requests session instance. Since
MSAL 1.11.0, the default session would be configured to attempt one retry on
connection error. If you are providing your own http_client, it will be your
http_client's duty to decide whether to perform retry.
• verify --
(optional) It will be passed to the verify parameter in the underlying requests
library This does not apply if you have chosen to pass your own Http client
• proxies --
(optional) It will be passed to the proxies parameter in the underlying requests
library This does not apply if you have chosen to pass your own Http client
• timeout --
(optional) It will be passed to the timeout parameter in the underlying requests
library This does not apply if you have chosen to pass your own Http client
• app_name -- (optional) You can provide your application name for Microsoft
telemetry purposes. Default value is None, means it will not be passed to
Microsoft.
• app_version -- (optional) You can provide your application version for Microsoft
telemetry purposes. Default value is None, means it will not be passed to
Microsoft.
• client_capabilities (list[str]) --
(optional) Allows configuration of one or more client capabilities, e.g. ["CP1"].
Client capability is meant to inform the Microsoft identity platform (STS) what
this client is capable for, so STS can decide to turn on certain features. For
example, if client is capable to handle claims challenge, STS can then issue CAE
access tokens to resources knowing when the resource emits claims challenge the
client will be capable to handle.
Implementation details: Client capability is implemented using "claims" parameter
on the wire, for now. MSAL will combine them into
`claims parameter <https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0-final.html#ClaimsParameter`_
which you will later provide via one of the acquire-token request.
• azure_region (str) --
AAD provides regional endpoints for apps to opt in to keep their traffic remain
inside that region.
As of 2021 May, regional service is only available for acquire_token_for_client()
sent by any of the following scenarios:
1. An app powered by a capable MSAL (MSAL Python 1.12+ will be provisioned)
2. An app with managed identity, which is formerly known as MSI. (However MSAL
Python does not support managed identity, so this one does not apply.)
3. An app authenticated by Subject Name/Issuer (SNI).
4. An app which already onboard to the region's allow-list.
This parameter defaults to None, which means region behavior remains off.
App developer can opt in to a regional endpoint, by provide its region name, such
as "westus", "eastus2". You can find a full list of regions by running az account
list-locations -o table, or referencing to this doc.
An app running inside Azure Functions and Azure VM can use a special keyword
ClientApplication.ATTEMPT_REGION_DISCOVERY to auto-detect region.
NOTE:
Setting azure_region to non-None for an app running outside of Azure
Function/VM could hang indefinitely.
You should consider opting in/out region behavior on-demand, by loading
azure_region=None or azure_region="westus" or azure_region=True (which means
opt-in and auto-detect) from your per-deployment configuration, and then do app
= ConfidentialClientApplication(..., azure_region=azure_region).
Alternatively, you can configure a short timeout, or provide a custom
http_client which has a short timeout. That way, the latency would be under
your control, but still less performant than opting out of region feature.
New in version 1.12.0.
• exclude_scopes (list[str]) -- (optional) Historically MSAL hardcodes
offline_access scope, which would allow your app to have prolonged access to
user's data. If that is unnecessary or undesirable for your app, now you can use
this parameter to supply an exclusion list of scopes, such as exclude_scopes =
["offline_access"].
• http_cache (dict) --
MSAL has long been caching tokens in the token_cache. Recently, MSAL also
introduced a concept of http_cache, by automatically caching some finite amount of
non-token http responses, so that long-lived PublicClientApplication and
ConfidentialClientApplication would be more performant and responsive in some
situations.
This http_cache parameter accepts any dict-like object. If not provided, MSAL
will use an in-memory dict.
If your app is a command-line app (CLI), you would want to persist your http_cache
across different CLI runs. The following recipe shows a way to do so:
# Just add the following lines at the beginning of your CLI script
import sys, atexit, pickle
http_cache_filename = sys.argv[0] + ".http_cache"
try:
with open(http_cache_filename, "rb") as f:
persisted_http_cache = pickle.load(f) # Take a snapshot
except (
FileNotFoundError, # Or IOError in Python 2
pickle.UnpicklingError, # A corrupted http cache file
):
persisted_http_cache = {} # Recover by starting afresh
atexit.register(lambda: pickle.dump(
# When exit, flush it back to the file.
# It may occasionally overwrite another process's concurrent write,
# but that is fine. Subsequent runs will reach eventual consistency.
persisted_http_cache, open(http_cache_file, "wb")))
# And then you can implement your app as you normally would
app = msal.PublicClientApplication(
"your_client_id",
...,
http_cache=persisted_http_cache, # Utilize persisted_http_cache
...,
#token_cache=..., # You may combine the old token_cache trick
# Please refer to token_cache recipe at
# https://msal-python.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#msal.SerializableTokenCache
)
app.acquire_token_interactive(["your", "scope"], ...)
Content inside http_cache are cheap to obtain. There is no need to share them
among different apps.
Content inside http_cache will contain no tokens nor Personally Identifiable
Information (PII). Encryption is unnecessary.
New in version 1.16.0.
acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow(auth_code_flow, auth_response, scopes=None, **kwargs)
Validate the auth response being redirected back, and obtain tokens.
It automatically provides nonce protection.
Parameters
• auth_code_flow (dict) -- The same dict returned by initiate_auth_code_flow().
• auth_response (dict) -- A dict of the query string received from auth server.
• scopes (list[str]) --
Scopes requested to access a protected API (a resource).
Most of the time, you can leave it empty.
If you requested user consent for multiple resources, here you will need to
provide a subset of what you required in initiate_auth_code_flow().
OAuth2 was designed mostly for singleton services, where tokens are always meant
for the same resource and the only changes are in the scopes. In AAD, tokens can
be issued for multiple 3rd party resources. You can ask authorization code for
multiple resources, but when you redeem it, the token is for only one intended
recipient, called audience. So the developer need to specify a scope so that we
can restrict the token to be issued for the corresponding audience.
Returns
• A dict containing "access_token" and/or "id_token", among others, depends on what
scope was used. (See https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749#section-5.1)
• A dict containing "error", optionally "error_description", "error_uri". (It is
either this or that)
• Most client-side data error would result in ValueError exception. So the usage
pattern could be without any protocol details:
def authorize(): # A controller in a web app
try:
result = msal_app.acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow(
session.get("flow", {}), request.args)
if "error" in result:
return render_template("error.html", result)
use(result) # Token(s) are available in result and cache
except ValueError: # Usually caused by CSRF
pass # Simply ignore them
return redirect(url_for("index"))
acquire_token_by_authorization_code(code, scopes, redirect_uri=None, nonce=None,
claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
The second half of the Authorization Code Grant.
Parameters
• code -- The authorization code returned from Authorization Server.
• scopes (list[str]) --
(Required) Scopes requested to access a protected API (a resource).
If you requested user consent for multiple resources, here you will typically want
to provide a subset of what you required in AuthCode.
OAuth2 was designed mostly for singleton services, where tokens are always meant
for the same resource and the only changes are in the scopes. In AAD, tokens can
be issued for multiple 3rd party resources. You can ask authorization code for
multiple resources, but when you redeem it, the token is for only one intended
recipient, called audience. So the developer need to specify a scope so that we
can restrict the token to be issued for the corresponding audience.
• nonce -- If you provided a nonce when calling get_authorization_request_url(),
same nonce should also be provided here, so that we'll validate it. An exception
will be raised if the nonce in id token mismatches.
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
A dict representing the json response from AAD:
• A successful response would contain "access_token" key,
• an error response would contain "error" and usually "error_description".
acquire_token_by_refresh_token(refresh_token, scopes, **kwargs)
Acquire token(s) based on a refresh token (RT) obtained from elsewhere.
You use this method only when you have old RTs from elsewhere, and now you want to migrate
them into MSAL. Calling this method results in new tokens automatically storing into MSAL.
You do NOT need to use this method if you are already using MSAL. MSAL maintains RT
automatically inside its token cache, and an access token can be retrieved when you call
acquire_token_silent().
Parameters
• refresh_token (str) -- The old refresh token, as a string.
• scopes (list) --
The scopes associate with this old RT. Each scope needs to be in the Microsoft
identity platform (v2) format. See Scopes not resources.
Returns
• A dict contains "error" and some other keys, when error happened.
• A dict contains no "error" key means migration was successful.
acquire_token_by_username_password(username, password, scopes, claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
Gets a token for a given resource via user credentials.
See this page for constraints of Username Password Flow.
https://github.com/AzureAD/microsoft-authentication-library-for-python/wiki/Username-Password-Authentication
Parameters
• username (str) -- Typically a UPN in the form of an email address.
• password (str) -- The password.
• scopes (list[str]) -- Scopes requested to access a protected API (a resource).
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
A dict representing the json response from AAD:
• A successful response would contain "access_token" key,
• an error response would contain "error" and usually "error_description".
acquire_token_for_client(scopes, claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
Acquires token for the current confidential client, not for an end user.
Parameters
• scopes (list[str]) -- (Required) Scopes requested to access a protected API (a
resource).
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
A dict representing the json response from AAD:
• A successful response would contain "access_token" key,
• an error response would contain "error" and usually "error_description".
acquire_token_on_behalf_of(user_assertion, scopes, claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
Acquires token using on-behalf-of (OBO) flow.
The current app is a middle-tier service which was called with a token representing an end
user. The current app can use such token (a.k.a. a user assertion) to request another
token to access downstream web API, on behalf of that user. See detail docs here .
The current middle-tier app has no user interaction to obtain consent. See how to gain
consent upfront for your middle-tier app from this article.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/v2-oauth2-on-behalf-of-flow#gaining-consent-for-the-middle-tier-application
Parameters
• user_assertion (str) -- The incoming token already received by this app
• scopes (list[str]) -- Scopes required by downstream API (a resource).
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
A dict representing the json response from AAD:
• A successful response would contain "access_token" key,
• an error response would contain "error" and usually "error_description".
acquire_token_silent(scopes, account, authority=None, force_refresh=False, claims_challenge=None,
**kwargs)
Acquire an access token for given account, without user interaction.
It is done either by finding a valid access token from cache, or by finding a valid refresh
token from cache and then automatically use it to redeem a new access token.
This method will combine the cache empty and refresh error into one return value, None. If
your app does not care about the exact token refresh error during token cache look-up, then
this method is easier and recommended.
Internally, this method calls acquire_token_silent_with_error().
Parameters
claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in the
ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains lists
of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
• A dict containing no "error" key, and typically contains an "access_token" key, if
cache lookup succeeded.
• None when cache lookup does not yield a token.
acquire_token_silent_with_error(scopes, account, authority=None, force_refresh=False,
claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
Acquire an access token for given account, without user interaction.
It is done either by finding a valid access token from cache, or by finding a valid refresh
token from cache and then automatically use it to redeem a new access token.
This method will differentiate cache empty from token refresh error. If your app cares the
exact token refresh error during token cache look-up, then this method is suitable.
Otherwise, the other method acquire_token_silent() is recommended.
Parameters
• scopes (list[str]) -- (Required) Scopes requested to access a protected API (a
resource).
• account -- one of the account object returned by get_accounts(), or use None when
you want to find an access token for this client.
• force_refresh -- If True, it will skip Access Token look-up, and try to find a
Refresh Token to obtain a new Access Token.
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
• A dict containing no "error" key, and typically contains an "access_token" key, if
cache lookup succeeded.
• None when there is simply no token in the cache.
• A dict containing an "error" key, when token refresh failed.
get_accounts(username=None)
Get a list of accounts which previously signed in, i.e. exists in cache.
An account can later be used in acquire_token_silent() to find its tokens.
Parameters
username -- Filter accounts with this username only. Case insensitive.
Returns
A list of account objects. Each account is a dict. For now, we only document its
"username" field. Your app can choose to display those information to end user, and
allow user to choose one of his/her accounts to proceed.
get_authorization_request_url(scopes, login_hint=None, state=None, redirect_uri=None,
response_type='code', prompt=None, nonce=None, domain_hint=None, claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)
Constructs a URL for you to start a Authorization Code Grant.
Parameters
• scopes (list[str]) -- (Required) Scopes requested to access a protected API (a
resource).
• state (str) -- Recommended by OAuth2 for CSRF protection.
• login_hint (str) -- Identifier of the user. Generally a User Principal Name (UPN).
• redirect_uri (str) -- Address to return to upon receiving a response from the
authority.
• response_type (str) --
Default value is "code" for an OAuth2 Authorization Code grant.
You could use other content such as "id_token" or "token", which would trigger an
Implicit Grant, but that is not recommended.
• prompt (str) -- By default, no prompt value will be sent, not even "none". You
will have to specify a value explicitly. Its valid values are defined in Open ID
Connect specs https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#AuthRequest
• nonce --
A cryptographically random value used to mitigate replay attacks. See also OIDC
specs.
• domain_hint --
Can be one of "consumers" or "organizations" or your tenant domain "contoso.com".
If included, it will skip the email-based discovery process that user goes through
on the sign-in page, leading to a slightly more streamlined user experience. More
information on possible values here and here.
• claims_challenge -- The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims
requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in
the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in
the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains
lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
The authorization url as a string.
initiate_auth_code_flow(scopes, redirect_uri=None, state=None, prompt=None, login_hint=None,
domain_hint=None, claims_challenge=None, max_age=None)
Initiate an auth code flow.
Later when the response reaches your redirect_uri, you can use
acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow() to complete the authentication/authorization.
Parameters
• scopes (list) -- It is a list of case-sensitive strings.
• redirect_uri (str) -- Optional. If not specified, server will use the
pre-registered one.
• state (str) -- An opaque value used by the client to maintain state between the
request and callback. If absent, this library will automatically generate one
internally.
• prompt (str) -- By default, no prompt value will be sent, not even "none". You
will have to specify a value explicitly. Its valid values are defined in Open ID
Connect specs https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#AuthRequest
• login_hint (str) -- Optional. Identifier of the user. Generally a User Principal
Name (UPN).
• domain_hint --
Can be one of "consumers" or "organizations" or your tenant domain "contoso.com".
If included, it will skip the email-based discovery process that user goes through
on the sign-in page, leading to a slightly more streamlined user experience. More
information on possible values here and here.
• max_age (int) --
OPTIONAL. Maximum Authentication Age. Specifies the allowable elapsed time in
seconds since the last time the End-User was actively authenticated. If the
elapsed time is greater than this value, Microsoft identity platform will actively
re-authenticate the End-User.
MSAL Python will also automatically validate the auth_time in ID token.
New in version 1.15.
Returns
The auth code flow. It is a dict in this form:
{
"auth_uri": "https://...", // Guide user to visit this
"state": "...", // You may choose to verify it by yourself,
// or just let acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow()
// do that for you.
"...": "...", // Everything else are reserved and internal
}
The caller is expected to:
1. somehow store this content, typically inside the current session,
2. guide the end user (i.e. resource owner) to visit that auth_uri,
3. and then relay this dict and subsequent auth response to
acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow().
remove_account(account)
Sign me out and forget me from token cache
TOKENCACHE
One of the parameters accepted by both PublicClientApplication and ConfidentialClientApplication is the
TokenCache.
class msal.TokenCache
This is considered as a base class containing minimal cache behavior.
Although it maintains tokens using unified schema across all MSAL libraries, this class does not
serialize/persist them. See subclass SerializableTokenCache for details on serialization.
add() Handle a token obtaining event, and add tokens into cache.
Known side effects: This function modifies the input event in place.
You can subclass it to add new behavior, such as, token serialization. See SerializableTokenCache for
example.
class msal.SerializableTokenCache
This serialization can be a starting point to implement your own persistence.
This class does NOT actually persist the cache on disk/db/etc.. Depending on your need, the
following simple recipe for file-based persistence may be sufficient:
import os, atexit, msal
cache = msal.SerializableTokenCache()
if os.path.exists("my_cache.bin"):
cache.deserialize(open("my_cache.bin", "r").read())
atexit.register(lambda:
open("my_cache.bin", "w").write(cache.serialize())
# Hint: The following optional line persists only when state changed
if cache.has_state_changed else None
)
app = msal.ClientApplication(..., token_cache=cache)
...
Variables
has_state_changed (bool) -- Indicates whether the cache state in the memory has changed
since last serialize() or deserialize() call.
add(event, **kwargs)
Handle a token obtaining event, and add tokens into cache.
Known side effects: This function modifies the input event in place.
deserialize(state: Optional[str]) -> None
Deserialize the cache from a state previously obtained by serialize()
serialize() -> str
Serialize the current cache state into a string.
AUTHOR
Microsoft
COPYRIGHT
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