The Chromium team recommends application developers to switch from the U2F API to the WebAuthn API. This document describes how a Ruby application using the u2f gem by Castle can migrate existing credentials so that their users do not experience interruption or need to re-register their security keys.
Note that the migration is one-way: credentials registered using WebAuthn cannot be made compatible with the U2F API. It is recommended to successfully migrate authorization flows before migrating registration flows.
Assuming you have a registered credential per the u2f gem readme, base64 urlsafe encoded in a database:
# This domain will be used in all code examples. It's a single-facet app but a multi-facet AppID
# (e.g. https://example.com/app-id.json) will work as well.
domain = URI("https://login.example.com")
u2f_registration = U2F::U2F.new(domain.to_s).register!(u2f_challenge, u2f_register_response)
# => #<U2F::Registration:0x00007fd62f43d688
# @certificate=
# "MIIBCzCBsgIBATAKBggqhkjOPQQDAjASMRAwDgYDVQQDDAdVMkZUZXN0MB4XDTE5MDUzMDE3MjIwM1oXDTIwMDUyOTE3MjIwM1owEjEQMA4GA1UEAwwHVTJGVGVzdDBZMBMGByqGSM49AgEGCCqGSM49AwEHA0IABBMKpejumzlH6NxWIx2Ol+EManS9oX5nguG4RT43rZNkyn/zGjdJEhXksN5zT34rLZgFheBgkDGJCdtTPlhVK10wCgYIKoZIzj0EAwIDSAAwRQIhALYxFcROCeifWpv5+wNZIiaO/bGQg8rFBHCw3aHgehdZAiBJ3xFmQh7+Gjxt6CeAcY/k/VVAYu2vP4sUqXnCQFgJUA==",
# @key_handle="mbVMRTgzST5xLumckGztJ9VFW6veObfNIYWSn3sTqIY",
# @public_key="BOJQXlFg+ZfZKm48FNq2Ye5vSwOscE1i7YsGRSIjIe3GI0OXrSBDADDn0dQlz2iDzZ7LvCwiHz72U1qhVas3vus=">
The U2fMigrator
class quacks like WebAuthn::AuthenticatorAttestationResponse
and can be used similarly as documented
in the registration verification phase.
Of course a verify
instance method is not implemented, as there is no real interaction with an authenticator.
The migrator can be used to convert credentials in real time during authentication while keeping them stored in the U2F format, and in a backfill task to store credentials in the new format, depending on how you are approaching your migration.
require "webauthn/u2f_migrator"
migrated_credential = WebAuthn::U2fMigrator.new(
app_id: domain,
certificate: u2f_registration.certificate,
key_handle: u2f_registration.key_handle,
public_key: u2f_registration.public_key,
counter: u2f_registration.counter
)
migrated_credential.credential.id
# => "\x99\xB5LE83I>q.\xE9\x9C\x90l\xED'\xD5E[\xAB\xDE9\xB7\xCD!\x85\x92\x9F{\x13\xA8\x86"
migrated_credential.credential.public_key
# => "\xA5\x03& \x01!X \xE2P^Q`\xF9\x97\xD9*n<\x14\xDA\xB6a\xEEoK\x03\xACpMb\xED\x8B\x06E\"#!\xED\xC6\x01\x02\"X #C\x97\xAD C\x000\xE7\xD1\xD4%\xCFh\x83\xCD\x9E\xCB\xBC,\"\x1F>\xF6SZ\xA1U\xAB7\xBE\xEB"
migrated_credential.authenticator_data.sign_count
# => 41
Following the documentation on the authentication initiation, you need to specify the FIDO AppID extension for U2F migratedq credentials. The WebAuthn standard explains:
The FIDO APIs use an alternative identifier for Relying Parties called an AppID, and any credentials created using those APIs will be scoped to that identifier. Without this extension, they would need to be re-registered in order to be scoped to an RP ID.
For the earlier given example domain
this means:
- FIDO AppID:
https://login.example.com
- Valid RP IDs:
login.example.com
(default) andexample.com
You can request the use of the appid
extension by setting the AppID in the configuration, like this:
WebAuthn.configure do |config|
config.legacy_u2f_appid = "https://login.example.com"
end
By doing this, the appid
extension will be automatically requested when generating the options for get:
options = WebAuthn::Credential.options_for_get
On the frontend, in the resolved value from navigator.credentials.get({ "publicKey": credentialRequestOptions })
add
a call to getClientExtensionResults()
and send its result to your backend alongside the id
/rawId
and response
values. If the authenticator used the AppID
extension, the returned value will contain { "appid": true }
.
During authentication verification phase, if you followed the verification phase documentation and have set the AppID in the config, the method PublicKeyCredentialWithAssertion#verify
will be smart enough to determine if it should use the AppID or the RP ID to verify the WebAuthn credential, depending on the output of the appid
client extension:
If true, the AppID was used and thus, when verifying an assertion, the Relying Party MUST expect the
rpIdHash
to be the hash of the AppID, not the RP ID.