Authenticating from JavaScript

Authenticating from JavaScript is different to standard API authentication, since the standard authentication mechanism would expose the AppSecret in a purely client-based application, which would be a serious security breach.

First of all, any domain that needs to access the API using JavaScript must be registered in dialogportal™. Contact the Account Manager in charge of your solution at Fluid for assistance with this.

For a JavaScript application to be allowed to make calls to the API, it must send an API authentication token as a URL argument or HTTP header with every request. This token must be created using the dialogportal™ JavaScript authentication SDK.

Step 1 - Include the SDK

Include the dialogportal™ JavaScript authentication SDK. Adding the following line to the HEAD section of your HTML page does this:

<script>document.writeln('<script src="https://api.dialogportal.com/v1/authentication/auth.js?s=' + Math.random().toString(36).substr(2,16) + '"><\/script>');</script>

Step 2 - Authenticate

Authentication is done with the JavaScript function rs.api.auth.getTokenAsync(). It takes three arguments: AppID, event handler in case of success and finally the event handler in case of error. The following sample shows how to do it (Replace APP_KEY):

function authenticate() {
	rs.api.auth.getTokenAsync(APP_KEY, authSuccess, error);
}

function authSuccess() {
	alert("Success! " + rs.api.auth.token);
}

function error(status, textStatus, errorThrown) {
	alert(status + ", " + textStatus + ", " + errorThrown);
}

Step 3 - Use the authentication token

After successfully authenticated, you should add the authentication token rs.api.auth.token as an argument to all API requests. The following sample shows how to authenticate a user/entity and then output the details returned from the API using jQuery:

function authenticateUser() {
	$.ajax({
		type: "POST",
		contentType: "application/json; charset=UTF-­‐8",
		dataType: "json",
		data: "{ 'authType': 'native', 'loginID': 'you@know.Me', 'password': 'password' }",
		url: "https://api.dialogportal.com/v1/user/authenticate?apiauthtoken=" + rs.api.auth.token,
		processData: false,
		success: authenticateUserSuccess, 
		error: error
	});
}
 
function authenticateUserSuccess(data) {
	var s = "";
	for (var i in data)
		s += i + ": " + data[i] + "\n";
	alert(s);
}