Welcome to the authentication guide section of our API documentation. Here, you will find detailed information on how to authenticate users with our system.

Overview

Authentication is a crucial part of ensuring secure access to your application. It helps protect sensitive data and ensures that only authorized users can access certain resources.

Key Concepts

  • API Key: A unique identifier used to authenticate requests to the API.
  • OAuth 2.0: An authorization framework that enables applications to obtain limited access to user accounts on an HTTP service.

Getting Started

To begin using authentication, you will need to:

  1. Obtain an API key from your account dashboard.
  2. Implement the authentication flow in your application.

API Key

You can find your API key by logging into your account and navigating to the API settings page.

OAuth 2.0

For OAuth 2.0, you will need to follow these steps:

  1. Register your application with the OAuth provider.
  2. Obtain authorization from the user.
  3. Exchange the authorization code for an access token.

Implementation

Implementing authentication in your application involves several steps. Here's a high-level overview:

  1. Initialize the Authentication Module: Set up the authentication module in your application.
  2. Validate Requests: Check if the incoming request is authenticated.
  3. Handle Unauthorized Access: If the request is not authenticated, return an appropriate error response.

Example

Here's an example of how you might implement authentication in a Node.js application using the express framework:

const express = require('express');
const app = express();

app.get('/protected', authenticate, (req, res) => {
  res.send('Welcome to the protected area!');
});

function authenticate(req, res, next) {
  const apiKey = req.headers['x-api-key'];
  if (apiKey === process.env.API_KEY) {
    next();
  } else {
    res.status(401).send('Unauthorized');
  }
}

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Server is running on port 3000');
});

Resources

For more detailed information, please refer to the following resources:

Authentication Flow Diagram