In this article, we take a look and understand what is OAuth Authentication in FileMaker? With the release of FileMaker 16, users can log in to a FileMaker database using OAuth 2.0. A feature that will ease the lives of FileMaker developers and their client’s lives as well. What is Authentication, External Authentication, and OAuth Authentication?
Authentication
Authentication is the process of recognizing a user’s identity. In authentication, an incoming request is matched with a set of identifying credentials. In FileMaker, Authentication is done by verifying a pair of Username and Password.
External Authentication
External Authentication means we are not using FileMaker’s authentication mechanism and using a third party to do the authentication. FileMaker accepts authentication with these external entities
- Windows Active Directory
- Apple Open Directory
- Local Groups/Accounts on FileMaker Server OS
- And now- New OAuth 2.0 Authentication
The advantages of using external authentication are-
- Account Management: You can continue to manage accounts with an external provider and can use existing credentials to authenticate FileMaker users. This makes account management simple.
- Authentication features: You can use other authentication features provided by the authentication provider e.g. Two-Factor Authentication
OAuth Authentication
OAuth is an open protocol to allow secure authorization in a simple and standard method from web, mobile and desktop applications but without giving them the passwords. Companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter permit users to login using their accounts with third-party applications or websites.
It allows access tokens to be issued to third-party clients by an authorization server, with the approval of the resource owner. The third party then uses the access token to access the protected resources hosted by the resource server.
OAuth Authentication in FileMaker
With the release of FileMaker 16, OAuth Authentication is available on FileMaker Server as an external authentication provider.
OAuth supported providers are
- Amazon
- Microsoft Azure
Requirements
- The database must be hosted on FileMaker Server 16 or higher
- Fully Qualified Domain with SSL Certificate Required
To use OAuth Authentication, we need to host the database on FileMaker Server 16 or higher which have a Fully Qualified Domain Name and SSL Certificate.
If you are interested in more details on implementation, please click here.