Java console application letting users sign-in with username/password to call Microsoft Graph API

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About this sample

Overview

This sample demonstrates how to use Microsoft Authentication Library for Java to:

  • authenticate the user silently using username and password.
  • and call to a web API (in this case, the Microsoft Graph)

Topology

Scenario

The application obtains a token through username and password, and then calls the Microsoft Graph to get information about the signed-in user.

Note that Username/Password is needed in some cases (for instance devops scenarios) but it's not recommanded because:

  • This requires having credentials in the application, which does not happen with the other flows.
  • The credentials should only be used when there is a high degree of trust between the resource owner and the client and when other authorization grant types are not available (such as an authorization code).
  • Do note that this attempts to authenticate and obtain tokens for users using this flow will often fail with applications registered with Azure AD. Some of the situations and scenarios that will cause the failure are listed below
    • When the user needs to consent to permissions that this application is requesting.
    • When a conditional access policy enforcing multi-factor authentication is in force.
    • Azure AD Identity Protection can block authentication attempts if this user account is compromised.
    • The user's pasword is expired and requires a reset.

While this flow seems simpler than the others, applications using these flows often encounter more problems as compared to other flows.

The modern authentication protocols (SAML, WS-Fed, OAuth and OpenID), in principal, discourage apps from handling user credentials themselves. The aim is to decouple the authentication method from an app. Azure AD controls the login experience to avoid exposing secrets (like passwords) to a website or an app.

This enables IdPs like Azure AD to provide seamless single sign-on experiences, enable users to authenticate using factors other than passwords (phone, face, biometrics) and Azure AD can block or elevate authentication attempts if it discerns that the user’s account is compromised or the user is trying to access an app from an untrusted location and such.

How to run this sample

To run this sample, you'll need:

  • Working installation of Java and Maven
  • An Internet connection
  • An Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tenant. For more information on how to get an Azure AD tenant, see How to get an Azure AD tenant
  • A user account in your Azure AD tenant. This sample will not work with a Microsoft account (formerly Windows Live account). Therefore, if you signed in to the Azure portal with a Microsoft account and have never created a user account in your directory before, you need to do that now.

Quick Start

Getting started with the sample is easy. It is configured to run out of the box with minimal setup.

Step 1: Download Java (8 and above) for your platform

To successfully use this sample, you need a working installation of Java and Maven.

Step 2: Clone or download this repository

From your shell or command line:

git clone https://github.com/Azure-Samples/active-directory-java-native-headless-v2.git

Step 3: Register the sample with your Azure Active Directory tenant

To register the project, you can:

  • either follow the steps in the paragraphs below
  • or use PowerShell scripts that:
    • automatically create for you the Azure AD applications and related objects (passwords, permissions, dependencies)
    • modify the projects' configuration files.

If you want to use this automation, read the instructions in App Creation Scripts

First step: choose the Azure AD tenant where you want to create your applications

As a first step you'll need to:

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
  2. On the top bar, click on your account, and then on Switch Directory.
  3. Once the Directory + subscription pane opens, choose the Active Directory tenant where you wish to register your application, from the Favorites or All Directories list.
  4. Click on All services in the left-hand nav, and choose Azure Active Directory.

In the next steps, you might need the tenant name (or directory name) or the tenant ID (or directory ID). These are presented in the Properties of the Azure Active Directory window respectively as Name and Directory ID

Register the app app (Java-Console-Application)

  1. In App registrations page, select New registration.

  2. When the Register an application page appears, enter your application's registration information:

    • In the Name section, enter a meaningful application name that will be displayed to users of the app, for example Java-Console-Applicaton.
    • In the Supported account types section, select Accounts in any organizational directory.

  3. Select Register to create the application.

  4. On the app Overview page, find the Application (client) ID value and record it for later. You'll need it to configure the APP_ID value in PublicClient.Java later.

  5. In the list of pages for the app, select Manifest, and:

    • In the manifest editor, set the allowPublicClient property to true
    • Select Save in the bar above the manifest editor.

  6. In the list of pages for the app, select API permissions

    • Click the Add a permission button and then,
    • Ensure that the Microsoft APIs tab is selected
    • In the Commonly used Microsoft APIs section, click on Microsoft Graph
    • In the Delegated permissions section, ensure that the right permissions are checked: User.Read. Use the search box if necessary.
    • Select the Add permissions button

  7. At this stage permissions are assigned correctly but the client app does not allow interaction. Therefore no consent can be presented via a UI and accepted to use the service app. Click the Grant/revoke admin consent for {tenant} button, and then select Yes when you are asked if you want to grant consent for the requested permissions for all account in the tenant. You need to be an Azure AD tenant admin to do this.

Step 4: Configure the sample to use your Azure AD tenant

In the steps below, ClientID is the same as Application ID or AppId.

Configure the app project

  1. Open the src\main\java\PublicClient.java file
  2. Find the line private final static String APP_ID and replace the existing value with the application ID (clientId) of the Java-Console-Application application copied from the Azure portal.

Step 5: Run the sample

From your shell or command line:

  • $ mvn package

This will generate a public-client-msal4j-sample-jar-with-dependencies.jar file in your /targets directory. Run this using your Java executable like below:

  • $ java -jar public-client-msal4j-sample-jar-with-dependencies.jar

You're done!

Your command line interface should prompt you for the username and password and then access the Microsoft Graph API to retrieve your user information.

About the code

The code to acquire a token is located entirely in the src\main\java\PublicClient.Java file. The public client application is created using the builder patter, by passing the Application Id and the Authority(https://login.microsoftonline.com/organizations/).

            PublicClientApplication pca = PublicClientApplication.builder(
                    APP_ID).
                    authority(AUTHORITY).build();

A call to acquire the token is made using the public client application, by creating an UserNamePasswordParameters object. The builder takes in scope (in this case 'User.Read'), and the username and password of the user.


            String scopes = "User.Read";
            UserNamePasswordParameters parameters = UserNamePasswordParameters.builder(
                    Collections.singleton(scopes),
                    userName,
                    password.toCharArray()).build();

The result is passed back to the main() function, where then the access token is extracted and passed to the function making the call to Microsoft Graph me endpoint ("https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me")

The access token is then used as a bearer token to call the Microsoft Graph API (line 68)

conn.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Bearer " + accessToken);

Community Help and Support

Use Stack Overflow to get support from the community. Ask your questions on Stack Overflow first and browse existing issues to see if someone has asked your question before. Make sure that your questions or comments are tagged with [msal Java].

If you find a bug in the sample, please raise the issue on GitHub Issues.

To provide a recommendation, visit the following User Voice page.

Contributing

If you'd like to contribute to this sample, see CONTRIBUTING.md

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information, see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

More information

For more information, see MSAL4J conceptual documentation.

For more information about how OAuth 2.0 protocols work in this scenario and other scenarios, see Authentication Scenarios for Azure AD.