Adapter-based authentication in native Windows 8 applications

Overview

This tutorial illustrates the native Windows 8 Universal client-side authentication components for adapter-based authentication.
Prerequisite: Make sure that you read Adapter-based authentication first.

Creating the client-side authentication components

Create a native Windows 8 Universal application and add the MobileFirst native APIs as explained in the documentation.

CustomAdapterChallengeHandler

Create a CustomAdapterChallengeHandler class as a subclass of ChallengeHandler.
Your CustomAdapterChallengeHandler class must implement the isCustomResponse and handleChallenge methods.

• The isCustomResponse method checks every custom response received from MobileFirst Server to verify whether this is the expected challenge.
  

  public override bool isCustomResponse(WLResponse response)
  {
      JObject responseJSON = response.getResponseJSON();
      if (response == null ||
          response.getResponseText() == null ||
          responseJSON["authStatus"] == null || String.Compare(responseJSON["authStatus"].ToString(), "complete", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) == 0)
      {
          return false;
      }
      else
      {
          return true;
      }
  }

• The handleChallenge method is called after the isCustomResponse method returns true.
  Use this method to present the login form. Different approaches are available.
  

  public override void handleChallenge(JObject response)
  {
    CoreApplication.MainView.CoreWindow.Dispatcher.RunAsync(CoreDispatcherPriority.Normal,
  async () =>
    {
       MainPage._this.LoginGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
    });
  }

From the login form, credentials are passed to the CustomAdapterChallengeHandler class. The submitAdapterAuthentication() method is used to send input data to the authenticator.

public void sendResponse(String username, String password)
{
   WLProcedureInvocationData invData = new WLProcedureInvocationData("NativeAdapterBasedAdapter", "submitAuthentication");
   invData.setParameters(new Object[] { username, password });
   submitAdapterAuthentication(invData, new WLRequestOptions());
}

MainPage

Within the MainPage class, connect to MobileFirst Server, register your challengeHandler class, and invoke the protected adapter procedure.
The procedure invocation triggers MobileFirst Server to send a challenge that will trigger our challengeHandler.

WLClient wlClient = WLClient.getInstance();
CustomAdapterChallengeHandler ch = new CustomAdapterChallengeHandler();
wlClient.registerChallengeHandler((BaseChallengeHandler<JObject>)ch);
MyResponseListener mylistener = new MyResponseListener(this);
wlClient.connect(mylistener);

Because the native API is not protected by a defined security test, no login form is presented during server connection.
Invoke the protected adapter procedure. The login form is presented by the challenge handler.

WLResourceRequest adapter = new WLResourceRequest("/adapters/AuthAdapter/getSecretData", "GET");
MyInvokeListener listener = new MyInvokeListener(this);
adapter.send(listener);

Sample application

Click to download the MobileFirst project.

Click to download the Native project.

• The AdapterBasedAuth project contains a MobileFirst native API that you can deploy to your MobileFirst server.
• The AdapterBasedAuthWin8 project contains a native Windows 8 Universal application that uses a MobileFirst native API library.
• Make sure to update the worklight.plist file in the native project with the relevant server settings.