README.md

Gryphon

An HTTP authentication scheme similar to Hawk, but with Ed25519 public-key signatures instead of shared secrets.

[Gryphons] are known for guarding treasure and priceless possessions.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Usage

Introduction

TODO

Usage

Key Generation

A client can generate a keypair to use, storing the private key and giving the public key to the target server. How this is done is out of scope of this library.

var gryphon = require('gryphon');
var keys = gryphon.keys(); // { pk: Buffer, sk: Buffer }

Request Signing

Before sending a request to the target server, an Authorization header should be generated using the private key:

var gryphon = require('gryphon');
var request = require('request');
var url = require('url');

var req = url.parse('https://example.domain/foo');
req.method = 'get';
req.headers.authorization = gryphon.header(req, secretKey);
request(req).pipe(process.stdout);

Request Authentication

A server consuming requests signed with Gryphon can authenticate if a request originated from the owner of the public key:

var gryphon = require('gryphon');

http.createServer(function(req, res) {
  var pk = gryphon.authenticate(req);
  if (pk) {
    var client = db.getByPk(pk);
    if (client) {
      return res.send('hello ' + client.name);
    }
  }
  res.send(401, "i don't know you");
}).listen(8080);

Testing

See testing guide