Authentication and access management with OAuth

An Ampersand application may grant access to named users. We have done this before using the open standard OAuth (Open Authorization). This allows access to specific private data on a different website, without requiring the user to hand over their credentials (e.g. username/password).

Setting up with Github as access provider

I made a separate Github organization, RAP-OUNL, to serve as access provider for RAP4.

callback URL: http://example.com/AmpersandPrototypes/RAP4/api/v1/oauthlogin/callback/github

Experimenting from a laptop

For experimentation purposes, I added the following line to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc on my Windows 7 laptop.

127.0.0.1 example.com

Then I flushed the local name server in a command line window.

C:\> ipconfig /flushdns

Then I brought up a browser window, to see that example.com is a valid URL. Now I can experiment with OUauth from the laptop, because the OAuth server can return messages to example.com.