Hi,
We plan to recreate our existing system using Backendless. Since we already have our own database with users/login details on it. Is it possible if we develop our own authentication provider?
Any inputs on it? Thank you so much.
Hello @Ava!
Sorry, it’s not quite clear to me what you mean by your own authentication provider, could you explain in more detail?
Regards,
Alexander
Do we still need to store the users in Backendless if we are going to use custom user authentication and token management would be handled by another service provider? What are some of the things that we will need to do to use a custom authentication provider and how do I authorize the user in backendless?
Do we still need to store the users in Backendless if we are going to use custom user authentication and token management would be handled by another service provider? What are some of the things that we will need to do to use a custom authentication provider and how do I authorize the user in backendless?
Hi @Ava ,
Is it possible if we develop our own authentication provider?
It is not possible, at the current moment, to fully integrate external authentication provider with Backendless. In order to use Backendless security framework you need to operate with Backendless user authentication token.
But you can integrate your authentication provider as “login” provider to your app. In this case when user logins to the application, Backendless will make a request to your system to obtain information about user. If user was found on your end, Backendless would issue its own auth token for further interaction with API.
There are few drawbacks with this approach:
- There will be separate auth token for user for interaction with Backendless API.
- Base information about user will be duplicated to Backendless app.
- You need to implement OAuth2-like endpoints and authorization flow on your side since your authentication provider will be integrated with Backendless as custom OAuth2 login provider ( “Users” > “Login Providers” > “Add new login provider” )
Alternatively you can organize interaction with Backendless via custom API services (CloudCode services). In this case you will be able to use your system tokens but your code will be responsible for handling and checking these tokens. With this approach you will not duplicate user data but also will not utilize Backendless security.
I would suggest you to consider first variant since with it you will not need to create custom CloudCode proxy-services and will fully utilize Backendless Security.
Regards, Andriy
I see. do you support Active Directory Integration?