Authenticating¶

Logging In¶

Review Board offers several methods for authentication when using the API: API tokens, usernames and passwords, and OAuth2 access tokens.

Token-based authentication is the preferred method, as it offers a safe, secure way of providing an application or third-party service with a way to access Review Board under your account without exposing your password. It also offers policy-based access through API token policies, which can restrict what a client is able to do while authenticated with that token.

If not logged in, any request that requires authentication will fail with an HTTP 403 Unauthorized status. This response will contain a WWW-Authenticate header to set Basic realm="Web API".

Some clients, such as browsers, may choose to respond to this with a password-based authentication request, but custom clients may use either method.

After a successful login, the client will receive a rbsessionid cookie that the client should use for all further requests.

Token-based Authentication¶

New in version 2.5.

API Tokens offer a secure way of granting access. These do not require storing credentials, and can be restricted in scope, set to expire, or revoked at will.

Users will first need to create one or more tokens for their account. This is done through the My Account -> API Tokens page. Simply click Generate a new API token, optionally set the policy, expiration date, and a description, and you’re done. Tokens may also be created using the API.

The policy, description, and expiration date and time can be changed at any time through the API Tokens page or the API.

API token policies can limit the scope of the API resources which may be used. There are two built-in access levels: Full access and Read-only. You can also customize the access per resource and method. See API Token Policies for details on writing your own policies.

To authenticate with a token, the client must send an Authorization header as part of its next API request. The contents of this will be token token_value, where token_value is the token you’ve chosen from your My Account page.

For example, if your auth token is rbp_1igOK942jXVw81o9FxI0TaDRgk0vHGXXIQ2CloYdPdeZiou4, you would send:

Authorization: token rbp_1igOK942jXVw81o9FxI0TaDRgk0vHGXXIQ2CloYdPdeZiou4

Password-based Authentication¶

Review Board makes use of Basic HTTP Authentication for logging in using a user’s username and password.

When authenticating with Review Board (either preemptively, or in response to an HTTP 403 Unauthorized response), the client may send an Authorization header as part of its next API request. The contents of this will be Basic base64-auth. The base64-auth part is a base64-encoded representation of the string username:password.

For example, for a username and password of joe and mypass, you will base64-encode the string joe:mypass to get the resulting string am9lOm15cGFzcw==, which you would then send as Basic am9lOm15cGFzcw==:

Authorization: Basic am9lOm15cGFzcw==

OAuth2 Authentication¶

New in version 3.0.

For building services which integrate with Review Board, you can use OAuth2 to allow your users to connect their Review Board accounts without having to divulge their username and password. This mechanism is also simpler for users than having to create an API token.

To make a request with an OAuth2 Access Token, the client must send an Authorization header as part of the API request. The contents of this will be Bearer token_value where token_value is the access token returned by the authorization flow.

For example, if your access token is 123456, you would send:

Authorization: Bearer 123456

Logging Out¶

Basic HTTP Authentication doesn’t really provide a way to log clients out, so it’s up to the client to simply stop storing the rbsessionid cookie and stop sending a populated Authorization header. Nothing needs to be done on the server to tell Review Board you’re no longer logged in.