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How to Go Passwordless with idemeum JavaScript SDK

by idemeumApril 29th, 2021

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idemeum is a passwordless and private digital identity platform. With one SDK and simple configuration you get it all - one-click, WebAuthn, or QR-code login experience. Manage authentication state with isLoggedIn Log the user in and out with login and logout. Set up a simple HTML page to use the JavaScript SDK for your single-page application. Use the JavaScript JavaScript SDK to create a simple log in button and login to show the user is logged in.

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featured image - How to Go Passwordless with idemeum JavaScript SDK

Passwordless technology can be confusing... In our previous post, we took a deep dive into various passwordless solutions with the goal to understand how it all works.

What exactly do you do if you want to go passwordless?

You can do it yourself, but the development and proper implementation will require significant resource investment. Master FIDO2 / WebAuthn, secure JWT tokens, manage sessions, deal with token validation, OIDC flows - just to name a few areas that need to be considered for secure and scalable passwordless implementation.

At idemeum we faced the same challenge, and we decided to simplify things with our JavaScript SDK. Our goal was simple - provide you with a seamless intuitive integration experience, yet give you the flexibility to implement the login flows that you need. With one SDK and simple configuration you get it all - one-click, WebAuthn, or QR-code login experience. You choose what works best for your use case through simple developer portal settings.

idemeum JS SDK provides 4 methods to help you with your login needs:

login

logout

userClaims

isLoggedIn

. By leveraging these methods you can enable passwordless, secure, and private login for your single-page application.

In this guide, we will go through the following steps to implement passwordless login with idemeum JavaScript SDK:

Initialize idemeum SDK
Manage authentication state with
```
isLoggedIn
```
Log the user in and out with
```
login
```
and
```
logout
```
Get and validate user claims with
```
userClaims
```

1. Initialize idemeum JavaScript SDK

Basic HTML setup

Our application will display a simple log in button. Upon clicking the button, user will be authenticated by idemeum. After successful authentication idemeum will return ID and Access tokens to the application, and the user will be greeted.

As a first step, let's set up a simple

index.html

page that we will be using for our application. We will set up some very simple css styles in order to format how things are organized in our page.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <title>idemeum JS SDK</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/src/styles.css" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <h2>idemeum JS authentication sample</h2>
    <h4>Welcome to Application!</h4>
    <div id="initial">Loading...</div>
  </body>
</html>

And our simple

styles.css

file.

/* our css style sheet that we save in styles.css and then import in out index page */

body {
  font-family: sans-serif;
}

#initial {
  align-self: center;
  justify-self: center;
  background-color: #eee;
  text-align: center;
  width: 300px;
  padding: 27px 18px;
}

Import idemeum JS SDK

We can now import idemeum JavaScript SDK.

For this guide, we will simply import the script from idemeum CDN.

<script src="https://asset.idemeum.com/webapp/SDK/idemeum.js"></script>

Initialize idemeum SDK

We can now initialize idemeum SDK instance. Do not forget to use your

clientId

that you obtained from idemeum developer portal.

      var idemeum = new IdemeumManager(
        // 👇 Replace clientId with the the one you get from idemeum developer portal
        (clientId = "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000")
      );

2. Manage user authentication state

idemeum SDK helps you manage authentication state of the user, so that you can determine if the user is logged in or not, and then take actions depending on the outcome. idemeum

isLoggedIn

returns Boolean value to identify the user authentication state.

In our application, we will follow the following logic.

If the user is logged in, we will greet the user and display user claims.
In case the user is not logged in, we will not show any content and will simply display the
```
login
```
button.

As you can see in the code below, we are simply using

login

method for button

onclick

event.

      function isUserLoggedIn() {
        // Process the user logged-in state. 
        idemeum.isLoggedIn().then(
          function (data) {
            //  Display user claims if the user is logged in
            renderUserClaims();
          },
          function (errorData) {
            // Display the login button if the user is NOT logged in
            html = `<button id="btn-login" onclick="login()">Log in</button>`;
            document.getElementById("initial").innerHTML = html;
          }
        );
      }

And we can trigger

isUserLoggedIn()

simply when the body of the document loads.

    <body onload="isUserLoggedIn()">

3. Log the user in

When user clicks

Login

button, idemeum SDK will trigger the

login

method. Let's define what will need to happen in our application. On success our application will receive ID and Access tokens from idemeum. We will need to process and validate those tokens. In case there is failure, we can process that as well in our code.

      function login() {
        idemeum.login({
          onSuccess: function (signinResponse) {
            // Your application will receive ID and Access tokens from idemeum
            // renderUserClaims() (defined below) validates the oidc token and fetches the user approved claims
            renderUserClaims();
          },
          onError: function (errorResponse) {
            // If there is an error you can process it here
          }
        });
      }

4. Get and validate user claims

idemeum SDK returns ID and Access tokens upon successful user login. For token validation you can:

Validate token yourself using any of the open source JWT token validation libraries.
Use idemeum SDK that provides
```
userClaims
```
method to validate tokens.

In our guide we will rely on idemeum SDKs to validate tokens and extract user identity claims. In the code below we will take user claims (first name, last name, and email), and we will display these claims when the user is logged in.

      function renderUserClaims() {
        idemeum
          .userClaims()
          .then(function (userClaimsResponse) {
            //fetch user approved claims from OIDC token
            htmlStart = `<div>
                          <p align="left">You are currently logged in.</p>
                          <pre id="ipt-user-profile" align="left">User profile:<br>`;
            htmlProfile =
              "<b><h3 style='color:Tomato;'>First Name:" +
              userClaimsResponse.given_name +
              "</h3></b><br>" +
              "<b><h3 style='color:Tomato;'>Last Name:" +
              userClaimsResponse.family_name +
              "</h3></b><br>" +
              "<b><h3 style='color:Tomato;'>Email:" +
              userClaimsResponse.email;

            htmlEnd = `
                    </pre>
                    </div>
                    <button id="btn-logout" onclick="idemeum.logout();isUserLoggedIn();">Log out</button>`;
            document.getElementById("initial").innerHTML =
              htmlStart + htmlProfile + htmlEnd;
          })
          .catch(function (errorResponse) {
            // If there is an error you can process it here
          });
      }