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I’m trying out the Authentication component in Firebase.

A) I have a situation where the web client javascript code firebase-app.js and firebase-auth.js 3.3.0...

firebase.auth().onAuthStateChanged and firebase.auth().currentUser

... return different expected logged in user values, than the jvm client [com.firebase/firebase-client-jvm "2.5.2"]. The JVM client returns null user data.

My JVM client code is taken from Firebase’s QuickStart Guide. In the JVM client, neither onAuthStateChanged handler is called, nor does firebaseObj.getAuth() return any data.

I’m wondering where the discrepancy is. The web client was initialized with “codepairio.firebaseapp.com”.

  var config = {  ...     authDomain: “<my-firebase-app>.firebaseapp.com"
  };
  firebase.initializeApp(config);

B) The java client was initialized with “https://.firebaseio.com”. I’m using this URL as it’s specified in the guide and mentioned here. Also, if you try to use “.firebaseapp.com”, you’ll get an error: “IllegalStateException For a custom firebase host you must first set your authentication server before using authentication features!”.

So with that out of the way, we have...

   new Firebase("https://<my-firebase-app>.firebaseio.com”);

Any ideas on how to get them to observe the same source of truth?

====> [EDIT]

Ok, I've gotten a bit further. It turns out that I was using an older firebase API (A) than the latest (B).

A) https://www.firebase.com/docs/android/guide/user-auth.html

B) https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/server/

So if we look at Firebase's documentation for how to handle user's, we see this:

A Firebase User object represents the account of a user who has signed up to an app in your Firebase project. Apps usually have many registered users, and every app in a Firebase project shares a user database.

A Firebase User instance is independent from a Firebase Auth instance. This means that you can have several references to different users within the same context and still call any of their methods.

But i) the notion of FirebaseAuth.getInstance().getCurrentUser() doesn't make sense if our app is dealing with multiple users. And further, the FirebaseAuth.getInstance().getCurrentUser() method doesn't even exist. The FirebaseAuth class file (in com.firebase/firebase-client-jvm "2.5.2"), doesn't reflect the documentation.

$ javap -classpath ~/.m2/repository/com/google/firebase/firebase-server-sdk/3.0.1/firebase-server-sdk-3.0.1.jar com.google.firebase.auth.FirebaseAuth
Compiled from "FirebaseAuth.java"
public class com.google.firebase.auth.FirebaseAuth {
  public static com.google.firebase.auth.FirebaseAuth getInstance();
  public static synchronized com.google.firebase.auth.FirebaseAuth getInstance(com.google.firebase.FirebaseApp);
  public java.lang.String createCustomToken(java.lang.String);
  public java.lang.String createCustomToken(java.lang.String, java.util.Map<java.lang.String, java.lang.Object>);
  public com.google.firebase.tasks.Task<com.google.firebase.auth.FirebaseToken> verifyIdToken(java.lang.String);
  static com.google.api.client.json.JsonFactory access$000();
  static com.google.firebase.auth.internal.FirebaseTokenVerifier access$100(com.google.firebase.auth.FirebaseAuth);
  static {};
}

C) So far, using Firebase's Authentication service, on the server is very opaque to me at the moment. Can someone clarify the semantics of handling multiple users, getting lists of logged in users, verifying users with request tokens, etc. Where's the working API for all this?

Nutritioustim
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1 Answers1

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I actually got an answer back, from Firebase Support, on this. Turns out that, based on the documentation, the capabilities available for the server side (nodejs and java) in terms of authentication are only i) creating custom tokens and ii) verifying ID tokens. As of now, handling users or getting the current user is not supported yet.

For the creation and verifying tokens in the server side, you can refer to this guide for more information. You can also check these posts for more information.

Hth

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Nutritioustim
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