WebAuthn and FIDO2 (YubiKey)

You can enable WebAuthn in the Ory Identities (Kratos) to allow users to perform 2FA with with physical devices such as USB keys or OS-level biometric authentication protocols, such as TouchID.

When users trigger the WebAuthn process, the web browser displays a prompt:

note

The look of the prompt depends on the web browser. The screenshot shows a Google Chrome prompt.

Limitations

• WebAuthn is a browser-only standard. It doesn't work with native mobile apps.
• WebAuthn is limited to one domain and does not work in a local environment when using CNAME / Ory Proxy. WebAuthN uses an https://origin URL as part of the client-server challenge/response mechanism. This mechanism allows a single URL as the origin. To learn more, read this WebAuthn discussion and on GitHub.
• Depending on the framework you use, implementing WebAuthn in your own UI can be challenging. Check out the reference implementations to see how you can approach implementation for different app types (web app, SPA).

Configuration

Follow these steps to enable WebAuthn as the second authentication factor:

Ory Console

1. Sign in to the Ory Console and go to Two-Factor Authentication.
2. In the WebAuthn section, use the switch to enable WebAuthn.
3. Define the hostname of your login page. You must set this to your top-level domain.
4. Define the origin of your login page. Set it to the exact URL of the page that prompts the user to use WebAuthn. The relevant items are:

• scheme (http/https)
• host (auth.example.com)
• port (4455)

note

If you are using the Ory Account Experience, leave these fields blank.

4. Click Save to finish.

Ory CLI

1. Get the Ory Identities configuration from your project and save it to a file:

   ## List all available projects
   ory list projects
   
   ## Get config
   ory get identity-config <project-id> --format yaml > identity-config.yaml

2. Find webauthn in selfservice/methods, set enabled to true, and define the id (hostname) and origin of the login page users interact with:

   identity-config.yaml

   webauthn:
       config:
         passwordless: false
         rp:
           display_name: MY_PROJECT_NAME
           id: loginpage.com
           # Set 'id' to the top-level domain.
           origin: https://loginpage.auth.com:4455
           # Set 'origin' to to the exact URL of the page that prompts user to use WebAuthn. You must include the scheme, host, and port.
       enabled: true
   info

   The display_name is always set to the name of your project.

3. Update the Ory Identities configuration using the file you worked with:

   ory update identity-config <project-id> --file identity-config.yaml

Self-hosted instances

When working with self-hosted instances of Ory Identities (Ory Kratos), add the webauthn method to selfservice/methods in the configuration file:

kratos.config.yml

selfservice:
  methods:
    webauthn:
      config:
        passwordless: false
        rp:
          display_name: SAMPLE_NAME
          # Set 'id' to the top-level domain.
          id: loginpage.com
          # Set 'origin' to the exact URL of the page that prompts the user to use WebAuthn. You must include the scheme, host, and port.
          origin: https://loginpage.auth.com:4455
      enabled: true

Distinguish identities requesting WebAuthn

To help users distinguish which identity requests for WebAuthn authentication, add a webauthn object to the trait which represents the WebAuthn account name.

In this example, the user's email address is the identifier:

note

This configuration is the default for The Ory Network.

sample identity schema

{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "traits": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "email": {
          "type": "string",
          "format": "email",
          "title": "Your E-Mail",
          "minLength": 3,
          "ory.sh/kratos": {
            "credentials": {
              // ...
              "webauthn": {
                "identifier": true
              }
            }
            // ...
          }
        }
        // ...
      }
      // ...
    }
  }
}

Writing E2E tests

When writing end-to-end (E2E) tests for WebAuthn implementation in your app, you can reference the Cypress tests used in Ory Identities (Kratos).

tip

To learn more about the approach used in Cypress, read this GitHub issue.

Identity credentials

When the user enables WebAuthn, Ory adds the following entries to the credentials object of the associated identity:

credentials:
  password:
    id: webauthn
    identifiers:
      - alice@example.org
    config:
      credentials:
        - display_name: my-key
          added_at: "2022-03-06T09:45:18Z"
          # If 'true', WebAuthn is used for paswordless flows.
          is_passwordless: false
          # WebAuth2-specific values.
          id: P/psShpG+SOCxBqslynuxMors6oexs7RS09bSA/F9EI=
          public_key: pQECAyYgASFYIJ0RRsaHJ2IQ6Eh11BPpHkdOl2DkICXg3rJVxSHQAsklIlgga0Tt2PqLlg/baAl20Y64JCllE71jDG+XzHfN6FT/S9I=
          attestation_type: none
          authenticator:
            aaguid: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==
            sign_count: 1
            clone_warning: false
      # The user handle will be used in the exchange with the FIDO2 device
      # to ensure that the user handle from the key and from Ory match.
      user_handle: NDVP4/1nTj2CTFaItp/zXg==