Provided by: liblwp-authen-oauth2-perl_0.20-1_all 

NAME
LWP::Authen::OAuth2 - Make requests to OAuth2 APIs.
VERSION
version 0.20
SYNOPSIS
OAuth 2 is a protocol that lets a user tell a service provider that a consumer has permission to use the
service provider's APIs to do things that require access to the user's account. This module tries to
make life easier for someone who wants to write a consumer in Perl.
Specifically it provides convenience methods for all of the requests that are made to the service
provider as part of the permission handshake, and after that will proxy off of LWP::UserAgent to let you
send properly authenticated requests to the API that you are trying to use. When possible, this will
include transparent refresh/retry logic for access tokens expiration.
For a full explanation of OAuth 2, common terminology, the requests that get made, and the necessary
tasks that this module does not address, please see LWP::Authen::OAuth2::Overview
This module will not help with OAuth 1. See the similarly named but unrelated LWP::Authen::OAuth for a
module that can help with that.
Currently LWP::Authen::OAuth2 provides ready-to-use classes to use OAuth2 with
• Dwolla
LWP::Authen::OAuth2::ServiceProvider::Dwolla
implemented by Adi Fairbank <https://github.com/adifairbank>
• Google
LWP::Authen::OAuth2::ServiceProvider::Google
• Line
LWP::Authen::OAuth2::ServiceProvider::Line
implemented by Adam Millerchip <https://github.com/amillerchip>
• Strava
LWP::Authen::OAuth2::ServiceProvider::Strava
implemented by Leon Wright <https://github.com/techman83>
• Withings
LWP::Authen::OAuth2::ServiceProvider::Withings
implemented by Brian Foley <https://github.com/foleybri>
• Yahoo
LWP::Authen::OAuth2::ServiceProvider::Yahoo
implemented by Michael Stevens <https://github.com/michael-stevens>
You can also access any other OAuth2 service by setting up a plain "LWP::Authen::OAuth2" object. If you
do, and the service provider might be of interest to other people, please submit a patch so we can
include it in this distribution, or release it as a standalone package.
Here are examples of simple usage.
use LWP::Authen::OAuth2;
# Constructor
my $oauth2 = LWP::Authen::OAuth2->new(
client_id => "Public from service provider",
client_secret => "s3cr3t fr0m svc prov",
service_provider => "Google",
redirect_uri => "https://your.url.com/",
# Optional hook, but recommended.
save_tokens => \&save_tokens,
save_tokens_args => [ $dbh ],
# This is for when you have tokens from last time.
token_string => $token_string.
);
# URL for user to go to to start the process.
my $url = $oauth2->authorization_url();
# The authorization_url sends the user to the service provider to
# say that you want to be authorized. After the user confirms that
# request, the service provider sends the user back to you with a
# code. This might be a CGI parameter, something that the user is
# supposed to paste to you - that's between you and the service
# provider.
# Assuming that you have your code, get your tokens from the service
# provider.
$oauth2->request_tokens(code => $code);
# Get your token as a string you can easily store, pass around, etc.
# If you have a save_tokens callback, that gets passed this string
# whenever the tokens change.
#
# This string bears a suspicious resemblance to serialized JSON.
my $token_string = $oauth2->token_string,
# Access the API. Consult the service_provider's documentation for when
# to use which type of request. Note that argument processing is the
# same as in LWP. Thus the parameters array and headers hash are both
# optional.
$oauth2->get($url, %header);
$oauth2->post($url, \@parameters, %header);
$oauth2->put($url, %header);
$oauth2->delete($url, %header);
$oauth2->head($url, %header);
# And if you need more flexibility, you can use LWP::UserAgent's request
# method
$oauth2->request($http_request, $content_file);
# In some flows you can refresh tokens, in others you have to go through
# the handshake yourself. This method lets you know whether a refresh
# looks possible.
$oauth2->can_refresh_tokens();
# This method lets you know when it is time to reauthorize so that you
# can find out in a nicer way than failing an API call.
$oauth2->should_refresh();
CONSTRUCTOR
When you call "LWP::Authen::OAuth2->new(...)", arguments are passed as a key/value list. They are
processed in the following phases:
Construct service provider
Service provider collects arguments it wants
LWP::Authen::OAuth2 overrides defaults from arguments
Sanity check
Here are those phases in more detail.
Construct service provider
There are two ways to construct a service provider.
Prebuilt class
To load a prebuilt class you just need one or two arguments.
"service_provider => $Foo,"
In the above construct, $Foo identifies the base class for your service provider. The actual
class will be the first of the following two classes that can be loaded. Failure to find
either is an error.
LWP::Authen::OAuth2::ServiceProvider $Foo
$Foo
A list of prebuilt service provider classes is in LWP::Authen::OAuth2::ServiceProvider as
well as instructions for making a new one.
"client_type => $name_of_client_type"
Some service providers will keep track of your client type ("webserver" application,
"installed" application, etc), and will treat them differently. A base service provider
class can choose to accept a "client_type" parameter to let it know what to expect.
Whether this is done, and the allowable values, are up to the service provider class.
Built on the fly
The behavior of simple service providers can be described on the fly without needing a prebuilt
class. To do that, the following arguments can be filled with arguments from your service
provider:
"authorization_endpoint => $auth_url,"
This is the URL which the user is directed to in the authorization request.
"token_endpoint => $token_url,"
This is the URL which the consumer goes to for tokens.
Various optional fields
LWP::Authen::OAuth2::ServiceProvider documents many methods that are available to customize
the actual requests made, and defaults available. Simple service providers can likely get by
without this, but here is a list of those methods that can be specified instead in the
constructor:
# Arrayrefs
required_init
optional_init
authorization_required_params
authorization_optional_params
request_required_params
request_optional_params
refresh_required_params
refresh_optional_params
# Hashrefs
authorization_default_params
request_default_params
refresh_default_params
Service provider collects arguments it wants
In general, arguments passed into the constructor do not have to be passed into individual method
calls. Furthermore in order to be able to do the automatic token refresh for you, the
constructor must include the arguments that will be required.
By default you are required to pass your "client_id" and "client_secret". And optionally can
pass a "redirect_uri" and "scope". (The omission of "state" is a deliberate hint that if you use
that field, you should be generating random values on the fly. And not trying to go to some
reasonable default.)
However what is required is up to the service provider.
LWP::Authen::OAuth2 overrides defaults from arguments
The following defaults are available to be overridden in the constructor, or can be overridden
later. In the unlikely event that there is a conflict with the service provider's arguments,
these will have to be overridden later.
"error_handler => \&error_handler,"
Specifies the function that will be called when errors happen. The default is "Carp::croak".
"is_strict => $bool,"
Is strict mode on? If it is, then excess parameters to requests that are part of the
authorization process will trigger errors. If it is not, then excess arguments are passed to
the service provider as is, who according to the specification is supposed to ignore them.
Strict mode is the default.
"early_refresh_time => $seconds,"
How many seconds before the end of estimated access token expiration you will have
"should_refresh" start returning true.
"prerefresh => \&prerefresh,"
A handler to be called before attempting to refresh tokens. It is passed the $oauth2 object.
If it returns a token string, that will be used to generate tokens instead of going to the
service provider.
The purpose of this hook is so that, even if you have multiple processes accessing an API
simultaneously, only one of them will try to refresh tokens with the service provider.
(Service providers may dislike having multiple refresh requests arrive at once from the same
consumer for the same user.)
By default this is not provided.
"save_tokens => \&save_tokens,"
Whenever tokens are returned from the service provider, this callback will receive a token
string that can be stored and then retrieved in another process that needs to construct a
$oauth2 object.
By default this is not provided. However if you intend to access the API multiple times from
multiple processes, it is recommended.
"save_tokens_args => [ args ],"
Additional arguments passed to the save_tokens callback function after the token string. This
can be used to pass things like database handles or other data to the callback along with the
token string. Provide a reference to an array of arguments in the constructure. When the
callback is called the arguments are passed to the callback as an array, so in the example
below $arg1 will be "foo" and $arg2 will be "bar"
...
save_tokens => \&save_tokens,
save_tokens_args => [ "foo", "bar" ],
...
sub save_tokens {
my ($token_string, $arg1, $arg2) = @_;
...
}
"token_string => $token_string,"
Supply tokens generated in a previous request so that you don't have to ask the service
provider for new ones. Some service providers refuse to hand out tokens too quickly, so this
can be important.
"user_agent => $ua,"
What user agent gets used under the hood? Defaults to a new LWP::UserAgent created on the
fly.
Sanity check
Any arguments that are left over are assumed to be mistakes and a fatal warning is generated.
METHODS
Once you have an object, the following methods may be useful for writing a consumer.
"$oauth2->authorization_url(%opts)"
Generate a URL for the user to go to to request permissions. By default the "response_type" and
"client_id" are defaulted, and all of "redirect_uri", "state" and "scope" are optional but not required.
However in practice this all varies by service provider and client type, so look for documentation on
that for the actual list that you need.
"$oauth2->request_tokens(%opts)"
Request tokens from the service provider (if possible). By default the "grant_type", "client_id" and
"client_secret" are defaulted, and the "scope" is required. However in practice this all varies by
service provider and client type, so look for documentation on that for the actual list that you need.
"$oauth2->get(...)"
Issue a "get" request to an OAuth 2 protected URL, just like you would using LWP::UserAgent to a normal
URL.
"$oauth2->head(...)"
Issue a "head" request to an OAuth 2 protected URL, just like you would using LWP::UserAgent to a normal
URL.
"$oauth2->post(...)"
Issue a "post" request to an OAuth 2 protected URL, just like you would using LWP::UserAgent to a normal
URL.
"$oauth2->delete(...)"
Issue a "delete" request to an OAuth 2 protected URL, similar to the previous examples. (This shortcut
is not by default available with LWP::UserAgent.)
"$oauth2->put(...)"
Issue a "put" request to an OAuth 2 protected URL, similar to the previous examples. (This shortcut is
not by default available with LWP::UserAgent.)
"$oauth2->request(...)"
Issue any "request" that you could issue with LWP::UserAgent, except that it will be properly signed to
go to an OAuth 2 protected URL.
"$oauth2->make_api_call($uri, $params, $headers)"
This is a convenience method which makes a call to an OAuth2 API endpoint given by $uri, and returns the
JSON response decoded to a hash. If the $params hashref arg is set, its contents will be JSON encoded
and sent as POST request content; otherwise it will make a GET request. Optional $headers may be sent
which will be passed through to "$oauth->get()" or "$oauth->post()".
If the call succeeds, it will return the response's JSON content decoded as hash, or if no response body
was returned, a value of 1 to indicate success. On failure returns undef, and error message is available
from "$oauth2->api_call_error()".
"$oauth2->api_call_error()"
If an error occurred in "$oauth2->make_api_call()", this method will return it. The error message comes
from "HTTP::Response->error_as_HTML()".
"$oauth2->api_url_base()"
Returns the base URL of the service provider, which is sometimes useful to be used in the content of
OAuth2 API calls.
"$oauth2->can_refresh_tokens"
Is sufficient information available to try to refresh tokens?
"$oauth2->should_refresh()"
Is it time to refresh tokens?
"$oauth2->set_early_refresh_time($seconds)"
Set how many seconds before the end of token expiration the method "should_refresh" will start turning
true. Values over half the initial expiration time of access tokens will be ignored to avoid refreshing
too often. This defaults to 300.
"$oauth2->expires_time()"
Returns the raw epoch expiration time of the current access token. Typically this is 3600 seconds
greater than the time of token creation.
"$oauth2->set_is_strict($mode)"
Set strict mode on/off. See the discussion of "is_strict" in the constructor for an explanation of what
it does.
"$oauth2->set_error_handler(\&error_handler)"
Set the error handler. See the discussion of "error_handler" in the constructor for an explanation of
what it does.
"$oauth2->set_prerefresh(\&prerefresh)"
Set the prerefresh handler. See the discussion of "prerefresh_handler" in the constructor for an
explanation of what it does.
"$oauth2->set_save_tokens($ua)"
Set the save tokens handler. See the discussion of "save_tokens" in the constructor for an explanation
of what it does.
"$oauth2->set_user_agent($ua)"
Set the user agent. This should respond to the same methods that a LWP::UserAgent responds to.
"$oauth2->user_agent()"
Get the user agent. The default if none was explicitly set is a new LWP::UserAgent object.
Contributors
• Leon Wright <https://github.com/techman83>
• Thomas Klausner <https://github.com/domm>
• Alex Dutton <https://github.com/alexdutton>
• Chris <https://github.com/TheWatcher>
• Adi Fairbank <https://github.com/adifairbank>
• Adam Millerchip <https://github.com/amillerchip>
• Andre Bras <https://github.com/whity>
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Rent.com <http://www.rent.com> for their generous support in letting me develop and release
this module. My thanks also to Nick Wellnhofer <wellnhofer@aevum.de> for Net::Google::Analytics::OAuth2
which was very enlightening while I was trying to figure out the details of how to connect to Google with
OAuth2.
Thanks to
• Thomas Klausner <https://github.com/domm> for reporting that client type specific parameters were not
available when the client type was properly specified
• Alex Dutton <https://github.com/alexdutton> for making "ServiceProvider" work without requiring
subclassing.
• Leon Wright <https://github.com/techman83> for adding a Strava Service Provider and various bug
fixes
• Adi Fairbank <https://github.com/adifairbank> for adding a Dwolla Service Provider and some other
improvements
• Adam Millerchip <https://github.com/amillerchip> for adding a Line Service Provider and some
refactoring
• Michael Stevens <https://github.com/mstevens> for adding a "Yahoo | https://developer.yahoo.com"
Service Provider and some dist cleanup
• Nick Morrott for fixing some documentation typos
AUTHORS
• Ben Tilly, <btilly at gmail.com>
• Thomas Klausner <domm@plix.at>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2013 - 2022 by Ben Tilly, Rent.com, Thomas Klausner.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5
programming language system itself.
perl v5.36.0 2023-02-04 LWP::Authen::OAuth2(3pm)