To increase the security of our admin tokens, we have enhanced the ability to generate new admin tokens with shorter expiration time and the ability to revoke admin tokens.

Generating New Admin Access Token

Previously, all generated access tokens had an expiration time of 10 years by default. From now on, the expiration time for all newly generated access tokens will be reduced to 1 year. This new enhancement only affects the newly generated tokens. So if you want a token with a shorter expiration time, you will need to generate a new token through the console.

This is not available for Super Admin.

To retrieve your current admin token:

• In the Console, go to Settings > Admin Users

• Click the ellipses (...) next to your user name to retrieve your current admin token.

• Click the Generate button to generate (create) a new token, which will invalidate the existing token.

• Click the Confirm button.

Once the new token is generated, the admin will be notified to get switched from the old token to the new token within 24 hours.

Please remember to generate a new token before it expires. Otherwise, you will get "token expired" error if you use an expired token for API calls.

Revoke Admin Token

In case the admin token has been compromised, admin users can now revoke their own admin token, and Super Admins can revoke another admin's token. Revoking tokens are done by passing the username parameter.

After revocation, that admin's token becomes invalid and the admin will be automatically logged out of Console. When that admin logs in again, a new token will be generated. The admin must use this new token for future API calls, otherwise they will receive an "Invalid token' error.

Feature Explanation

Network Level Push Notification Settings

The first step in using push notifications is to enable network-level push notifications settings. Please follow the steps below to achieve this.

*Only 'Super Administrator' and 'Administrator' have the ability to disable or enable this feature.

Step 1:

• In the Console page, navigate to Settings > Push Notifications

• Turn ON the Network Notification Settings toggle button.

Step 2:

Double-check that all events such as Chat, Post and Comments are correctly enabled. After the network level settings are turned ON, the notification events can be adjusted individually.

Use Server Key to securely authenticate your client with Amity Social Cloud server

With secure mode off, Amity SDK generates an access token on the client side when given a userId and apiKey. This can lead to malicious users abusing the endpoint and spying on someone else's session.

With secure mode on, an additional authentication token that is generated from your own backend server using a separate Server Key is required. You must turn on secure mode in your production system or the system will be vulnerable to such kind of attack.

How to generate a server key

Amity provides a way to get the server key easily via the ASC Console as followed:

1. Login to your ASC Console

2. Go to Setting -> Security

3. Enable secure mode via the toggle.

4. Click "Generate new server key" to generate your server key

5. Click Continue (please make sure you read the warning message and are aware of the impact)

6. The server key will be shown, please copy and securely store into your backend system. The key will only be shown once.

How to use server key to create auth token

Once secure mode is enabled and server key is generated, all client authentication request will require an authentication token and your backend server will need to make a server-to-server call, while passing server key into Amity Social Cloud server in order to get the authentication token. Please follow the following steps to generate auth token:

1. Client initiates a call to the backend.

2. Client's servers make a request to endpoint https://api.<region code>.amity.co/api/v4/authentication/token on SDK API server, with server key and userId. Refer to the table below for the correct region code and endpoint.

   For EU and US, you need to specify the region in the endpoint link. For SG, however, it is optional.

3. Receive the auth token back and find a way to pass it up from server-side to client-side and give it to the SDK.

Use your auth token in your SDK

To use auth token on the client side, please see the Getting Started guide.

How to get API key

An API key will be provided when you create the application.

1. Open Amity Social Cloud Console.

2. On the left menu, select Settings to expand its submenu.

3. Select Security.

4. On the Security page, you will find the apiKey.

Authentication

There are 2 modes of Authentication:

1. Unsecure mode

2. Secure mode

Unsecure mode

With secure mode disabled, you can connect directly to the Amity server.

1. Call /api/v3/session using the API key and user id. Refer to Get API key section for the instructions on how to get the API key.

curl -X 'POST' \
  'https://api.<region>.amity.co/api/v3/sessions' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'x-api-key: <your-api-key>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "userId": "string",
  "deviceId": "string",
  "displayName": "string"
}'

2. In the Responses, you will find that the server will return an access token in the Response body.

{
  "accessToken": "<accessToken>",
  "refreshToken": "<refreshToken>",
  "users": [
    {
      "_id": "<userId>",
      "path": "<userPath>",
      "updatedAt": "2022-07-20T09:59:40.854Z",
      "createdAt": "2022-07-20T09:59:40.684Z",
      "isDeleted": false,
      "displayName": "string",
      "userId": "string",
      "metadata": {},
      "roles": [],
      "permissions": [],
      "flagCount": 0,
      "hashFlag": null,
      "avatarFileId": null,
      "isGlobalBan": false
    }
  ],
  "files": []
}

Secure Mode

With secure mode enabled, it provides an additional layer of security because it requires server-level authentication.

If Secure mode is enabled, you will need the server key. Refer to our documentation on How to generate the server key from console.

1. Call /api/v3/authentication/token using the server key.

curl -X 'GET' \
  'https://api.<region>.amity.co/api/v3/authentication/token?userId=<userId>' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'x-server-key: <your-server-key>'

2. The server will return an authentication token in the Response body.

"<autenticationToken>"

3. Call /api/v3/session using the returned token.

curl -X 'POST' \
  'https://api.<region>.amity.co/api/v3/sessions' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'x-api-key: <your-api-key>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "userId": "<userId>",
  "deviceId": "string",
  "displayName": "string",
  "authToken": "<autenticationToken>"
}'

4. In the Responses section, you will find that the server will return an access token in the Response body.

{
  "accessToken": "<accessToken>",
  "refreshToken": "<refreshToken>",
  "users": [
    {
      "_id": "<userId>",
      "path": "<userPath>",
      "updatedAt": "2022-07-20T09:59:40.854Z",
      "createdAt": "2022-07-20T09:59:40.684Z",
      "isDeleted": false,
      "displayName": "string",
      "userId": "string",
      "metadata": {},
      "roles": [],
      "permissions": [],
      "flagCount": 0,
      "hashFlag": null,
      "avatarFileId": null,
      "isGlobalBan": false
    }
  ],
  "files": []
}

mTLS Certificate

Mutual Transport Layer Security or mTLS, is a two-way mutual authentication technique. It helps two parties to authenticate at both ends of a network if they have the correct private key. mTLS ensures that the people at both ends of a network connection are who they claim to be.

Authentication Token and Admin Token will be protected by mTLS and provide an extra layer of security.

How to Enable mTLS Certificate

• In the Console, go to Settings > Security tab

• Click +Create Certificate option to create the certificate

• Specify the Certificate Name and Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

• Activate the mTLS feature

Enabling the mTLS feature is optional.