I'm fine with changing the example to make it clearer that b64token allows a
wider range of characters than just those legal for base64 and base64url
encodings of data values.
I'll add it to my to-do list for any additional edits for the Bearer spec.
-- Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: oauth-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:oauth-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of
Manger, James H
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 3:33 PM
To: Brian Campbell; oauth
Subject: Re: [OAUTH-WG] question about the b64token syntax in
draft-ietf-oauth-v2-bearer
Brian,
> On casual reading of "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Protocol: Bearer
> Tokens"* I've encountered several people (including myself) who have
> made the assumption that the name b64token implies that some kind of
> base64 encoding/decoding on the access token is taking place between
> the client and RS.
>
> Digging a bit deeper in to "HTTP/1.1, part 7: Authentication"**,
> however, I see that b64token is just an ABNF syntax definition
> allowing for characters typically used in base64, base64url, etc.. So
> the b64token doesn't define any encoding or decoding but rather just
> defines what characters can be used in the part of the Authorization
> header that will contain the access token.
>
> Do I read this correctly?
Yes.
> If so, I feel like some additional clarifying text in the Bearer
> Tokens draft might help avoid what is (based on my small sample) a
> common point of misunderstanding.
Changing the example bearer token should be a simple way to avoid some
confusion by showing that it does not have to be base64 encoding. How about
changing:
Authorization: Bearer vF9dft4qmT
to
Authorization: Bearer vF9.dft4.qmT
The Bearer spec has lots of (unnecessary) text about OAuth, but doesn't quite
manage to be precise about how OAuth and Bearer connect. It could explicitly
state that the string value of the "access_token" member of an access token
response is the bearer token. The "access_token" string value (after unescaping
any JSON-escapes) MUST match the b64token ABNF so it can be used with the
Bearer HTTP scheme. Such text could be put in ยง5.1.1 where the "Bearer" OAuth
access token type is defined.
> Also, does the use of b64token implicitly limit the allowed characters
> that an AS can use to construct a bearer access token?
Yes.
> * http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-oauth-v2-bearer-17#section-2.1
> **
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-18#section-2.1
--
James Manger
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