Use Netlify Identity as oAuth provider for logging to 3rd party sites

Support
1

We are struggling to figure out what needs to be done in order to allow our users to log in with their Netlify Identity to 3rd party sites (NOT with Netlify login but with Netlify Identity login). In particular we are interested in integrating with Circle.so.

Here is their help page on this issue: https://community.circle.so/c/circle-integrations/how-to-integrate-sso

We basically need to figure out how to give them Client ID , Secret Key , Authorization URL for Netlify Identity not Netlify itself.

2

Hi @maintopbiz,

Looks like you’re mixing 2 services, even though you think you’re not. Netlify Identity is not a OAuth provider, it’s an authentication system. Thus, there’s no Client ID, Secret Key, etc. for Identity. But there’s all that for Netlify OAuth which you say you don’t want. So, I’m not sure what you’re after.

3

The question is what we need to build in order to have oAuth service which authenticates users against Netlify identity.

4

As I said, Netlify Identity doesn’t provide any OAuth service. It provides authentication - users would have to sign up on your service. They can do this via Google/GitHub OAuth if that’s what you’re looking for?

5

I understand it doesn’t provide it right away. The question is what can we do to build oAuth on top of Netlify Identity ourselves?

6

Simply put, I don’t think you can. Netlify Identity was not meant to be used as a OAuth provider. So, we don’t have any Client ID, Auth URL, or other stuff that one might need for an OAuth app.

You can file it as a feature request, but we don’t know if/when it will be implemented.

7

Yes, but what can we do to build our own oAuth provider that verifies the user against Netlify Identity? Could something like signed redirects help with that? Rewrites and proxies | Netlify Docs

8

Signed proxy might help you verify that a request is coming from Netlify - not authenticate your users against Identity.

I’m confused as to why you want to do this using OAuth. It’s something more easily possible with a simply Netlify Identity Widget. If you want to build a custom login system, you could take a look at GitHub - netlify/gotrue-js: JavaScript client library for GoTrue, but that’s the longer route for doing the same thing that Netlify Identity Widget is doing.

If you can explain on the reason why you need to use OAuth, and what exactly your use case is, maybe we can suggest something accordingly.

9

We want to use our Netlify Identity as SSO for logging into other services.

Here is an example of what we need to achieve:

  1. Let’s say we have a website mywebsite.com that uses Netlify Identity for user login
  2. We want our users to login into Circle.so with their Netlify Identity Login = add Login with mywebsite.com button to our community at Circle.so.

Circle.so supports that as described in https://community.circle.so/c/circle-integrations/how-to-integrate-sso but they support only oAuth. We need to provide Client ID, Secret Key and other oAuth info which we obviously do not have for Netlify Identity which is JWT.

The question is what we need develop to do so?

10

The answer to that could be disappointing. Netlify Identity doesn’t have any features yet to make it as an OAuth app.

I don’t think there could be any way to do this with Netlify Identity.