I'd like to use this library to interact with the graph API for my AD - https://github.com/microsoftgraph/microsoft-graph-docs/blob/master/concepts/nodejs.md
However, all of the existing javascript libraries I've found to return access tokens expect a return URL to be passed in, as well as some other web-specific stuff, leading me to believe this is some kind of requirement on Microsoft's end.
Is there any good way to authenticate/receive an access token while running a backend node script (nothing web related) so that I can begin to make calls against the Microsoft Graph API? Thanks in advance for the advice.
To run a back-end non-user-authenticated daemon connected to the Graph API, you want to use the app-only authentication flow. Here's a quick summary of the official steps:
- Create your Azure AD Tenant. Note the
yourtenant.onmicrosoft.com
name, and copy this value down.
- Register an application through the global
Azure Active Directory
blade's App Registrations
section, not directly within the tenant properties. Copy the Application ID
; we'll need it later.
- Create a key tied to the registration and remember to copy it down. Once you click out, you can't get the key value back, so make sure to copy it.
- Also update the registration's permissions to what you need, click
Save
, and then also hit the Grant Permissions
button.
- Make an HTTP request to the
login.microsoftonline.com
domain to obtain an access token.
- Use the access token to make Graph API requests.
Here's a link to Microsofts Node.js example, and here's a link to the direct documentation on the HTTP call to make to retrieve an access token. And here's a super stripped-down example that will output the retrieved access token. Replace the [Tenant]
, [ApplicationID]
, and [Key]
values:
const request = require("request");
const endpoint = "https://login.microsoftonline.com/[Tenant].onmicrosoft.com/oauth2/token";
const requestParams = {
grant_type: "client_credentials",
client_id: "[ApplicationID]",
client_secret: "[Key]",
resource: "https://graph.windows.net"
};
request.post({ url:endpoint, form: requestParams }, function (err, response, body) {
if (err) {
console.log("error");
}
else {
console.log("Body=" + body);
let parsedBody = JSON.parse(body);
if (parsedBody.error_description) {
console.log("Error=" + parsedBody.error_description);
}
else {
console.log("Access Token=" + parsedBody.access_token);
}
}
});
Once we have the access_token, we can call out to the Graph API. Assuming the apps permissions were configured correctly and applied from step #4, we can start making Graph API requests:
function testGraphAPI(accessToken) {
request.get({
url:"https://graph.windows.net/[Tenant]/users?api-version=1.6",
headers: {
"Authorization": accessToken
}
}, function(err, response, body) {
console.log(body);
});
}
BU0's answer didn't work correctly for me because Microsoft changed their way of using the graph API so I wasn't able to get all the data I needed. Here's how I did it using BU0 answer and this tutorial:
const request = require("request");
const endpoint = "https://login.microsoftonline.com/[Tenant]/oauth2/v2.0/token";
const requestParams = {
grant_type: "client_credentials",
client_id: "[ApplicationID]",
client_secret: "[Key]",
scope: "https://graph.microsoft.com/.default"
};
request.post({ url:endpoint, form: requestParams }, function (err, response, body) {
if (err) {
console.log("error");
}
else {
console.log("Body=" + body);
let parsedBody = JSON.parse(body);
if (parsedBody.error_description) {
console.log("Error=" + parsedBody.error_description);
}
else {
console.log("Access Token=" + parsedBody.access_token);
}
}
});
function testGraphAPI(accessToken) {
request.get({
url:"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users",
headers: {
"Authorization": "Bearer " + accessToken
}
}, function(err, response, body) {
console.log(body);
});
}
I had somewhat of an issue for using the url string for the const endpoint
https://login.microsoftonline.com/[Tenant]/oauth2/v2.0/token
Instead, I passed tenant in this way instead from Microsoft graph api docs:
https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenant}/oauth2/v2.0/authorize
Reference from docs -> Request an authorization code