OAuth refresh token usage

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2023年04月14日 16:08

Hi,

According to this page https://developer.box.com/guides/authentication/tokens/refresh/#:~:text=A%20Refresh%20Token%20is%20valid,need%20to%20be%20re%2Dauthorized, the refresh token can be used for only once. However, when I send refresh request with the same refresh token multiple times, I get the same access token and refresh token. Also, the refresh token seems valid until the new refresh token is used. This seems not aligning with the description (please see it below). Is the statement out of date or I misunderstand it?

Thanks!

Snipped from https://developer.box.com/guides/authentication/tokens/refresh/#:~:text=A%20Refresh%20Token%20is%20valid,need%20to%20be%20re%2Dauthorized

Refresh token expiration

A Refresh Token is valid for 60 days and can be used to obtain a new Access Token and Refresh Token only once. If the Access Token and Refresh Token are not refreshed within 60 days, the user will need to be re-authorized.

Every time an application uses the Refresh Token to get a new Access Token the Refresh Token is invalidated and a new Refresh Token is returned with the new Access Token.

This new Refresh Token is then again only valid for 1 use within 60 days.

2件のコメント

Rui Barbosa

2023年05月03日 20:55
Hi Nick,

Thanks for reporting this, I'll ask around.
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Rui Barbosa

2023年05月04日 16:44
Hi Nick,

We indeed need to fix the documentation for a bit more clarity.

The behavior you described is by design.

The use case that it is trying to cover is to avoid a race condition when refreshing tokens on a multiple threads situation.

Imagine you have a web app, being used simultaneously by hundreds of users.

There is the chance that when a token needs to be refreshed, the refresh end point could be called multiple times, with the same refresh token, by the multiple threads.

Assuming the web app would persist the new refresh token for each thread, it would run the risk of doing so for a refresh token that in the mean time would be invalidated by the other threads.

So, while the access token received from the refresh end point is valid, calling the refresh end point with the old refresh token will return the same pair of tokens.

If you continue to do this after the new access token expires, then you will get an invalid refresh token error, which means that by this time (60 minutes after the initial refresh) you should have persisted the new refresh token and used it to get a new pair.

You can see this in action looking at the expires_in, every time you call the refresh the expires in decreases.
```
{
    "access_token": "nxxxK",
    "expires_in": 3733,
    "restricted_to": [],
    "refresh_token": "KxxxKpq",
    "token_type": "bearer"
}
```
Some time after:
```
{
    "access_token": "nxxxK",
    "expires_in": 3056,
    "restricted_to": [],
    "refresh_token": "KxxKpq",
    "token_type": "bearer"
}
```
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