handshake

A Python library to create and validate authentication tokens.

handshake is used to generate and validate arbitrary authentication tokens that contain arbitrary metadata and support expiration. It uses basic cryptographic primitives (hashing, HMACs) and is based around the concept of a shared private secret for security.

Example usage would be to create namespaced authentication tokens for clients of an API which another service can check is valid and hasn't expired. The tokens are safe to be made public, put in headers etc. and can be used like session tokens.

The tokens are strings in the format of:

arbitrary:data:here:timestamp:random:signature

All fields other than timestamp, random and signature are optional. Signatures are in the format of:

HMAC(arbitrary:data:here:timestamp:random){shared_secret}

The library is designed to allow whatever metadata is required into the token, such as the first parameter could be a namespace and the second parameter an object id. This allows tokens to be easily split between internal systems and uses while containing metadata or IDs for other objects.

For example, you could use handshake to allow an API to generate tokens which a client stores for a variable amount of time and can verify their state with other services. The arbitrary data prefix can be used to store an application namespace and the UUID of the object being referenced (such as user:uuid or service:recordtype:uuid). This library is of most use if you have multiple diverse systems, microservices or other distributed endpoints that require ad-hoc authentication and something like JWT or OAuth is overkill.

Installation

handshake is pure Python and has no dependancies. You can install handshake via pip:

$ pip install handshake

Any modern version of Python3 will be compatible.

Usage

handshake has one class providing two basic public functions. Examples:

import os
from handshake import AuthToken

# The shared secret, keep this private, can be str or bytes but needs to be
# from a cryptographically secure source
secret = os.urandom(128)

# Create the instance
token = AuthToken(secret)

# Basic token with no additional parameters
plain_token = token.create()
token.verify(plain_token)

# The token must be no more than 300 seconds old
plain_token = token.create()
token.verify(plain_token, time_range=300)

# Namespaced but no specific item, namespace is arbitrary
namespaced_token = token.create('namespace')
token.verify(namespaced_token)

# Namespaced and with an arbitrary item ID
from uuid import uuid4
client_token = token.create('user', uuid4())
token.verify(client_token)

# Lots of metadata
client_token = token.create('network', 'node', '12345', '67890')
token.verify(client_token)

# Use blake2s for hashes and signatures
from hashlib import blake2s
token = AuthToken(secret, hashfunc=blake2s)
blake2s_token = token.create()
token.verify(blake2s_token)

If a token fails to validate it raise the relevent exception:

# Create a token with one secret
token = AuthToken('a fixed secret string')
plain_token = token.create()

# Attempt to verify it with a different token, this is invalid
token_with_different_secret = AuthToken('not the same secret string')
token_with_different_secret.verify(plain_token)
# ... a child of handshake.errors.InvalidTokenError exception is raised

Limitations

The secret must be at least 16 bytes or characters and no more than 1024 bytes or characters. The total generated token length cannot be longer than 2048 characters.

Full API synopsis

handshake.AuthToken(secret=str_or_bool, hashfunc=function)

Initiates an AuthToken object using the specified secret. The secret is required. It must be either a string or a bytes and must be between 32 and 1024 characters or bytes in length. The secret should be sourced from a cryptographically safe random source, such as os.urandom.

hashfunc defaults to hashlib.sha256 but you can replace it with another hash function if you need to.

handshake.AuthToken.create(*arbitrary str)

Creates an authentication token.

handshake.AuthToken.verify(token=str, time_range=int)

Verifies an authentication token created with handshake.AuthToken.create().

time_range is an optional integer which if set specifies the valid time range the token must have been generated within. This is used to verify expiring tokens. It defaults to 0 which disables time range validation.

If the token is valid a tuple containing any arbitrary data in the token. For example a token of

arbitrary:data:here:timestamp:random:signature

If valid would return a tuple of:

('arbitrary', 'data', 'here')

If the token is invalid for any reason a handshake.errors.InvalidTokenError exception is raised (or a child exception of handshake.errors.InvalidTokenError). You can handle different errors by catching them specifically and the exception names describe the event:

import os
from handshake import AuthToken, errors

secret = os.urandom(128)
token = AuthToken(secret)
test_token = token.create()

try:
    token.verify(test_token)
except errors.TokenExpiredError as e:
    print(e)
except errors.TokenSignatureError as e:
    print(e)
except errors.InvalidTokenError as e:
    print(e)

Tests

There is a test suite that you can run by cloning this repository and executing:

$ make test

Contributing

All properly formatted and sensible pull requests, issues and comments are welcome.