Generating authentication tokens for end-users via the API

The API provides a method to generate an OpenAthens authentication token for a given account, e.g. when you want to have a sign-in form in your own portal.

Generating a new token

Prerequisites

To generate a new token, a client application must

authenticate to the API using an API key as described in Authenticating to the API. You should use the read-only 'https://login.openathens.net/api/v1/...' address.

Procedure

Perform a POST request to the following URL:

/api/v1/example.org/account/session

With the following querystring parameter:

Querystring Parameter	Description
returnUrl	The URL that the user will be returned to after the session has been established. This will usually be a link to a page in the application making the request, e.g. a resource catalogue or library portal.

The request must be accompanied with the ‘returnUrl’ parameter.

Request payload

This should be an application/vnd.eduserv.iam.user.credential-v1+json object containing a user identifier and a password

Accounts are identified using one of two unique identifiers and the password

Object field

Description

username

Containing one of either:

The account username, or
The unique email address associated with the account – i.e. the ‘uniqueEmailAddress’ attribute, if set

password

The account's password

Response payload

The response payload is an application/vnd.eduserv.iam.auth.transferToken-v1+json object.

application/vnd.eduserv.iam.auth.transferToken-v1+json object

Object field	Description
username	The account username
expiry	The time at which the given token expires
sessionInitiatorUrl	The location to which the user should be redirected to establish the session

Response codes

HTTP Response Code	Description
200	The token was generated
400	The request was invalid
403	Forbidden
404	The account could not be found

The user should be redirected to the URL specified by ‘sessionInitiatorUrl’. The format of the URL that is returned may change so calling applications must not alter or infer the structure of this URL in any way.

When the user is passed to the returnUrl, it will contain an additional status parameter to indicate whether the request was successful. This may optionally be used by the calling application to take action depending on whether the operation was successful or otherwise. Aside from token expiry though, there are almost no reasons why a failure would occur.

Status	Description
Success	The OpenAthens session was established successfully.
TokenExpired	The session initiator token in the request has expired (tokens are valid for 60 seconds after they are issued).
SessionFailure	The OpenAthens system was unable to establish the session (non-specfic error).

Example

CODE

Request:
POST /api/v1/example.org/account/session?returnUrl=<returnUrl> HTTP/1.1
Authorization: OAApiKey <api-key>
Content-Type: application/vnd.eduserv.iam.user.credential-v1+json
{
 "username":"example_username",
 "password":"8d34-abO3-3Pda"
}

Response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/vnd.eduserv.iam.auth.transferToken-v1+json
{
   "username" : "example_username",
   "expiry" : "2020-08-20T15:48:00Z",
   "sessionInitiatorUrl" : "https://login.openathens.net/account/sso?
token=FGdsghjytj6y54y46J54yrthTR45yersdfhewkjfhwjkfhejkhfwjkfhjkfhewjkfhfkwjefwe",
   "links": [
   {
      "username" : "example_username",
      "href" : "/api/v1/example.org/account/example_account",
      "rel" : "self",
      "type" : "application/vnd.eduserv.iam.account-v1+json",
      "method" : "get",
   }
 ]}

Legacy method

This method involves an additional API call and response, so will be marginally slower for customers who are far from the UK. It has been superseded, but will continue to be supported through at least 2021.

Procedure

Perform a GET request to the following URL:

/api/v1/example.org/organisation/<id>/account/session

With the following querystring parameters:

Querystring Parameter

Description

username

email

persistentUID

Exactly one of these parameters must be included to identify the account.

returnUrl

The URL that the user will be returned to after the session has been established. This will usually be a link to a page in the application making the request, e.g. a resource catalogue

The request must also be accompanied with a ‘returnUrl’ parameter.

Accounts are identified using one of the following two unique identifiers:

The OpenAthens account username
The unique email address associated with the account – i.e. the ‘uniqueEmailAddress’ attribute, if set.

To generate a token for an individual account based on username perform a GET request to:

/api/v1/example.org/organisation/<id>/account/session?username=expuser01&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.org%2Fmy-app

To generate a token for an individual account based on email address perform a GET request to:

/api/v1/example.org/organisation/<id>/account/session?email=alex@example.org&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.org%2Fmy-app

To generate a token for an individual account based on PUID perform a GET request to:

/api/v1/example.org/organisation/<id>/account/session?persistentUID=abcd1234%3A456789a&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.org%2Fmy-app