jose VS OPAL

JWT - jose

For demo purpose, we'll use some popular libs e.g. jose.

This module provides a lot of useful functions and utilities, but we will focus only on a couple of them. You can read more about the module itself if you feel like it.

Honestly, not exactly sure what the correct order is. The standard for encrypted jwt is called JWE. Most programming languages will have some kind of library that will handle the small details like order of operations. Example: jose for js.

I used standard Web APIs such as fetch() and WebCrypto. The most common thing I had to do was JWT token generation/validation. I worked with the jose library (the only dependency in the project) because it is cross-platform and also works with the WebCrypto API.

Biggest sharp edge I've encountered is the very much WIP WebCrypto API support. In practical terms, this means things like signing/verifying JWTs is not very well supported: https://github.com/panva/jose/discussions/243

That said, the situation is improving rapidly, and I've been personally willing to bet that the support will be solid by the time I finish prototyping and need to start adding auth to my latest project.

Another tool that can help you deploy a Policy as Code-based solution in 2024 is OPAL, the Open Policy Administration Layer. OPAL is an open-source project that provides a comprehensive policy-based service for applications. With one click, you can deploy a full architecture of a Git-based centralized policy store with decentralized policy engines running as a sidecar with your applications. OPAL also provides a unified architecture to sync all the data you need with the policy engines.

Inspired by Braden’s post, this blog explores the journey of Reddit's team, focusing on their strategic decisions, the challenges they encountered, and the innovative solutions they crafted. Alongside Reddit's in-house efforts, we also examine OPAL, an open-source solution that aligns with the functionality of Reddit’s system, presenting an alternative approach for organizations seeking sophisticated authorization management solutions in the field of Ad Tech.

We reviewed how Netlfix used OPA with a a replication pattern; and decided to create a similar yet more extensible and event-driven solution - and so OPAL (Open Policy Administration Layer) was born - creating a scalable, zero-trust way to manage policy engines and their policy/data at scale.

If you find this post helpful,please give OPAL a star on GitHub! Your support helps us make access control easier and motivates us to write more articles like this one.

We are considering connecting this provider to our open-source tool OPAL. Are you using OPAL? Do you think such integration would be beneficial?

One example of such an administration tool is OPAL, an open policy administration layer that works with OPA. OPAL tracks changes in external services and propagates the data to the OPA PDPs so the authorization requests can handle existing data and return faster results.

Building permissions and authorization can be a complex endeavor, but adhering to the best practices outlined in this article can lead to more robust and maintainable applications. It's vital to avoid the mentioned anti-patterns, adopt a declarative approach, and ensure that your authorization system is agnostic, generic, decoupled, unified, and easily auditable. By centralizing your authorization policies and leveraging open-source tools or cloud services like OPAL and Permit.io, you can streamline the implementation and management of your authorization system.