Laravel’s 5.3 passport and api routes

The problem with Laravel 5.3 passport is that unlike previous OAuth 2.0 Server for Laravel library offered by lucadegasperi, it has no API to make clients directly. So as if now the client can only be made through the front-end. FYI we wanted to use laravel passport solely for our mobile app so while creating and registering user we would have only EMAIL & Password and in some cases only Facebook UserID for facebook sign-in. So the following approach worked pretty well for our case and might differ for your scenario but may help you in the longer term to play around with laravel passport.

Note: Before following the below its assumed you have enabled Password Grant in your application.

So the way we solved it for our project on laravel 5.3 is as follows:

1. in the oauth_clients convert the id field into a normal field i.e. remove it as being primary key and make the data type as varchar so that we can store email address as client_ids as they are also unique for your system. Incase of Facebook login we store Facebook user IDs here in this column which again will be unique for each our client. Also for other tables like: oauth_access_tokens, oauth_auth_codes & oauth_personal_access_clients change client_id to VARCHAR(255) so that it can store email addresses or Facebook User IDs.

2. Now go to your models and create a model for oauth_clients table so that you can create client programmatically from the code while creating users.

   <?php
   namespace App;
   
   
   use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
   
   class OauthClient extends Model
   {
       protected $table="oauth_clients";
   }
   

3. Then in your api.php route file add the following route:

   Route::post('/register-user', function (Request $request) {
   
       $name     = $request->input('name');
       $email    = $request->input('email'),
       $password = $request->input('password'),    
   
       // save new user
       $user = \App\User::create([
         'name'     => $name,
         'email'    => $email,
         'password' => bcrypt($password),
       ]);
   
   
       // create oauth client
       $oauth_client = \App\OauthClient::create([
           'user_id'                => $user->id,
           'id'                     => $email,
           'name'                   => $name,
           'secret'                 => base64_encode(hash_hmac('sha256',$password, 'secret', true)),
           'password_client'        => 1,
           'personal_access_client' => 0,
           'redirect'               => '',
           'revoked'                => 0,
       ]);
   
   
       return [
           'message' => 'user successfully created.'
       ];
   });
   

In the above code snippet, you have to note that to generate the oauth_client secret you have to use some strong formula of encryption that you feel comfortable using it with your application. Also, use the same technique to generate the secret key on your mobile app for the respective client/user.

4. Now you can use the standard POST API offered by laravel passport to request access token through password grant using “oauth/token” using the following parameters:

   grant_type : 'password'
   client_id  : '<email with which the user is registered>'
   client_secret : '<generate the client secret from the mobile app>'
   username : '<email with which the user is registered>'
   password : '<password entered by the user>'
   scope : '<leave empty as default>'
   

5. The above will give you a response, if everything is correct, similar to :

   {
     "token_type": "Bearer",
     "expires_in": 3155673600,
     "access_token": "eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImp0aSI6IjMwZmM0MDk1NWY5YjUwNDViOTUzNDlmZjc2M2ExNDUxOTAxZjc5YTA5YjE4OWM1MjEzOTJlZmNiMDgwOWQzMzQwM2ExZWI4ZmMyODQ1MTE3In0.eyJhdWQiOiJzaHVqYWhtQGdtYWlsLmNvbSIsImp0aSI6IjMwZmM0MDk1NWY5YjUwNDViOTUzNDlmZjc2M2ExNDUxOTAxZjc5YTA5YjE4OWM1MjEzOTJlZmNiMDgwOWQzMzQwM2ExZWI4ZmMyODQ1MTE3IiwiaWF0IjoxNDc4MTQ1NjMyLCJuYmYiOjE0NzgxNDU2MzIsImV4cCI6NDYzMzgxOTIzMiwic3ViIjoiMSIsInNjb3BlcyI6W119.dj3g9b2AdPCK-im5uab-01SP71S7AR96R0FQTKKoaZV7M5ID1pSXDlmZw96o5Bd_Xsy0nUqFsPNRQsLvYaOuHZsP8v9mOVirBXLIBvPcBc6lDRdNXvRidNqeh4JHhJu9a5VzNlJPm3joBYSco4wYzNHs2BPSxXuuD3o63nKRHhuUHB-HwjVxj2GDwzEYXdZmf2ZXOGRJ99DlWGDvWx8xQgMQtd1E9Xk_Rs6Iu8tycjBpKBaC24AKxMI6T8DpelnFmUbMcz-pRsgCWCF_hxv6FpXav3jr1CLhhT58_udBvXjQAXEbtHeB7W_oaMcaqezHdAeOWDcnqREZHsnXHtKt0JpymcTWBkS2cg7sJzy6P9mOGgQ8B4gb8wt44_kHTeWnokk4yPFRZojkHLVZb8YL6hZxLlzgV1jCHUxXoHNe1VKlHArdlV8LAts9pqARZkyBRfwQ8oiTL-2m16FQ_qGg-9vI0Suv7d6_W126afI3LxqDBi8AyqpQzZX1FWmuJLV0QiNM0nzTyokzz7w1ilJP2PxIeUzMRlVaJyA395zq2HjbFEenCkd7bAmTGrgEkyWM6XEq1P7qIC_Ne_pLNAV6DLXUpg9bUWEHhHPXIDYKHS-c3N9fPDt8UVvGI8n0rPMieTN92NsYZ_6OqLNpcm6TrhMNZ9eg5EC0IPySrrv62jE",
     "refresh_token": "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"
   }
   

Its only a temporary solution till laravel supports an external API for applications which only has a mobile as the only possible interface for creating oAuth clients and user.

Hope it helps you!
Cheers.