This repository contains the code of the backend used by the mobile applications of the IO project.
- What is this?
- How to run the application
- Redis Database
- Mobile App compatibility
- How to contribute
- Troubleshooting
This is the backend that supports the io-app mobile application.
This project is part of the Italian Digital Citizenship initiative, see the main repository for further information.
The io-app application will authenticate to the backend in two steps:
- an initial user initiated SPID authentication process (SAML2 based) that identifies the user and, on success, triggers the creation of a new authentication session (associated to a session token)
- subsequent requests to the backend will be authenticated via a bearer session token
When a client (the mobile app or a browser) wants to login with the backend it will call the /login endpoint with the
IDP entityID as parameter in the query string. The backend will then builds an authorization URL and performs a redirect
to the chosen IDP. The authentication process will continue to the IDP website. If the authentication process ends with
success the IDP will redirect the client to an HTML page with a form that will auto-post itself to the
/assertionConsumerService endpoint with a SAMLResponse as an hidden field. The backend will parse and validate the
SAMLResponse to extract all the user attributes (fiscal code, first name, last name, email), then it will generates an
unique alphanumeric string as token and saves an User object to the SessionStorage service using the token as key.
Finally the backend will redirect the client to the value of the environment variable CLIENT_REDIRECTION_URL with the
token in the query string. The client must saves the token and use it in all API request.
The code that manage this flow are in the spid-passport package (more info
here), and in the src/strategies/spidStrategy.ts and
src/controllers/authenticationController.ts files.
All API requests sent by the client to the backend must have an Authorization: Bearer header with the value of the
token obtained from the SPID authentication process. The token is used to retrieve the User object from the
SessionStorage service.
The code that manage this flow are in the src/strategies/bearerSessionTokenStrategy.ts file.
- Docker and Docker Compose
To fully simulate the SPID authentication process we use the images provided by the spid-testenv2 project.
A Linux/macOS environment is required at the moment.
-
clone the project in a folder called
io-backend -
go to the project's folder
-
run
scripts/build-tools.shto build thetoolsDocker image -
run
scripts/yarn.shto install backend dependencies -
run
scripts/generate-proxy-api-models.shto generate the models defined in api_proxy.yaml and api_notifications.yaml -
run
scripts/build.shto compile the Typescript files -
run
scripts/generate-test-certs-task.shto create SAML (SPID) certificates -
run
docker-compose up -dto start the containers -
edit your
/etc/hostsfile by adding:127.0.0.1 spid-testenv2 127.0.0.1 io-backend -
copy
.env.exampleto.envand fill the variables with your values -
point your browser to https://io-backend/metadata and copy the source of the page to a new
testenv2/conf/sp_metadata.xmlfile -
run
docker-compose up -dto restart the containers -
point your browser to https://io-backend
If you are using Docker with a Docker Machine replace 127.0.0.1 with the IP of the Docker Machine
(More details here).
backend: the backend Node application that serves the web and mobile applicationsspid-testenv2: the test IDP server
App backend is reachable at https://io-backend
IDP is reachable at https://spid-testenv2:8088 \
Those are all Environment variables needed by the application:
| Variable name | Description | type |
|---|---|---|
| API_KEY | The key used to authenticate to the API backend | string |
| API_URL | The API backend URL | string |
| CLIENT_REDIRECTION_URL | The path where the user will be redirected after a successful SPID login | string |
| CLIENT_ERROR_REDIRECTION_URL | The path where the user will be redirected when en error occurs during SPID login | string |
| PORT | The HTTP port the Express server is listening to | int |
| REDIS_URL | The URL of a Redis instance | string |
| TOKEN_DURATION_IN_SECONDS | The number of seconds a session token is considered valid | int |
| SAML_CALLBACK_URL | The absolute URL of the assertion consumer service endpoint | string |
| SAML_ISSUER | The issuer id for this Service Provider | string |
| SAML_ATTRIBUTE_CONSUMING_SERVICE_INDEX | The index in the attribute consumer list | int |
| PRE_SHARED_KEY | The key shared with the API backend to authenticate the webhook notifications | string |
| ALLOW_NOTIFY_IP_SOURCE_RANGE | The range in CIDR form of allowed IPs for the webhook notifications | string |
| AZURE_NH_HUB_NAME | The hub name configured in the Azure Notification HUB | string |
| AZURE_NH_ENDPOINT | The endpoint URL configured in the Azure Notification HUB | string |
| ALLOW_PAGOPA_IP_SOURCE_RANGE | The range in CIDR form of allowed IPs for the PagoPA API | string |
| AUTHENTICATION_BASE_PATH | The root path for the authentication endpoints | string |
| API_BASE_PATH | The root path for the api endpoints | string |
| PAGOPA_API_URL | The url for the PagoPA api endpoints | string |
| PAGOPA_API_URL_TEST | The url for the PagoPA api endpoints in test mode | string |
| PAGOPA_BASE_PATH | The root path for the PagoPA endpoints | string |
| SPID_AUTOLOGIN | The user used in the autologin feature, omit this to disable autologin | string |
| IDP_METADATA_URL | Url to download IDP metadata from | string |
| IDP_METADATA_REFRESH_INTERVAL_SECONDS | The number of seconds when the IDPs Metadata are refreshed | int |
| CACHE_MAX_AGE_SECONDS | The value in seconds for duration of in-memory api cache | int |
| APICACHE_DEBUG | When is true enable the apicache debug mode |
boolean |
| ALLOW_MULTIPLE_SESSIONS | When is true allow multiple sessions for an user (default false) |
boolean |
Application logs are saved into the logs folder.
The setup procedure adds some test users to the test IDP server, the full list could be retrieved in
testenv2/conf/users.json. To add more users simply add more items to this file and restart the spid-testenv2
container.
Is possible link the API to AppInsignts service by setting the ENV variable APPINSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATIONKEY. Stats of API CPU and RAM usage, API call execution time, success or failure of API calls are collected.
Realtime data collection is enabled.
Redis Database stores data required only by application side functionalities. Below a table with an example of data for an hypothetical user with fiscal code MRARSS80A01H501T and with session token HexToken.
| Key | Value | type | expire in |
|---|---|---|---|
| SESSION-HexToken | a JSON representing the user object | User |
TOKEN_DURATION_IN_SECONDS |
| WALLET-WalletHexToken | "SESSION-HexToken" |
String |
TOKEN_DURATION_IN_SECONDS |
| SESSIONINFO-HexToken | a JSON representing the SessionInfo object |
SessionInfo |
TOKEN_DURATION_IN_SECONDS |
| USERSESSIONS-MRARSS80A01H501T | a Set of SessionInfo Keys | Set<SessionInfoKey> |
never |
To handle Backend compatibility with several Mobile App versions, the oldest mobile app version supported by the backend is stored into the property min_app_version inside the package.json. This value is provided to the app through the /info API.
If the mobile app version is lower an upgrade is required.
To handle the mobile app compatibility with the latest implementation of PagoPA APIs, the backend exposes through the /info API a property called min_app_version_pagopa defined into package.json file. If the mobile app version is lower of this value, all the functions that require PagoPa are disabled to avoid compatibility issues.
A Linux/macOS environment is required at the moment.
- use
nodenvto run the correct version of Nodejs as specified inapp/.node-version - run Jest tests directly or with
scripts/test.sh
In general follow the Node Best Practices.
The backend implements a SAML Service Provider - for authenticating the clients
it needs a certificate that you can generate with the following command
(you need to have openssl available in your path):
$ yarn generate:test-certs
For production, the SPID certificate must be generated with the following command:
$ openssl req -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 365 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem
Then, the key and the certificate must be stored in the Kubernetes secrets:
$ kubectl create secret generic spid-cert --from-file=./cert.pem --from-file=./key.pem
In a world of evolutionary architecture, it's important to record certain design decisions for the benefit of future team members as well as for external oversight. Architecture Decision Records is a technique for capturing important architectural decisions along with their context and consequences. We store these details in source control, along with code, as then they can provide a record that remains in sync with the code itself.
We use ADRs to track architectural decisions of this initiative.
This repository is configured for Nat Pryce's adr-tools.
Here's the decisions we taken so far:
I installed on my mac but seems that https://io-backend:80 is not working (ping io-backend return a host error)
Check out /etc/hosts Remember that in some cases you need to use your docker-machine ip (get it from >docker-machine ip) instead of localhost.
I followed all the steps but when i go to https://io-backend it shows me the same as https://io-backend:8080
This problem seems to be dependent on how Docker for Mac (doesn't) manage well the /etc/hosts file. If you install Docker Toolbox it works fine (and can coexist) (Read more at https://medium.com/@itseranga/set-hosts-in-docker-for-mac-2029276fd448)
