- Auth_manager.app On My Macbook
- Microsoft Auth App
- Auth_manager.app On My Mac Os
- Auth_manager.app On My Macbook Pro
If you need a replacement adapter to charge your Apple device, we recommend getting an Apple power adapter. Also non-genuine replacement displays may have compromised visual quality and may fail to work correctly. Apple-certified screen repairs are performed by trusted experts who use genuine Apple parts. Hi I have two apps, one is already gets published and another one is about to get published. How should i implement this with an existing app and with a new app. My requirement is that I want to login my user in either of the app, and once he is signed in one app i should get the auth token in second app. Any help will be appreciated.
Recently I had to implement an online sync facility for my habit tracker app. As it goes with every online service, you needed an account to take it’s advantage. Enter the Android Account Manager.
Now, if you are an advanced user of Android phones (and since you’re reading this, you most certainly are), you must have seen an “Accounts” section in phone Settings.
Upon clicking that, you’ll find your accounts related to apps on your phone.
I wanted to utilize this built-in
AccountManager
functionality to store and authenticate user’s credentials because it works like a charm with the built-in sync mechanism (using the SyncAdapter
).But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s start with the authentication system for server.
Authentication system
Our system authenticates users based on email and password combo. If the combo is correct, server returns an
auth_token
which are valid until the user logs out. This is your normal token based authentication where the token lives forever and has all the permissions as the user itself.Every device creates a new
auth_token
for itself because it makes it easy to log the device, limit the number of clients for an account.This was fairly easy to implement on the server side by adding fields for
auth_token
in Device
model. Simply create a new Device
whenever user logs in or registers, populating that auth_token
field to a random value.Creating account on the phone via the Android Account Manager
Till now, we had discussed the how to create account on server, and how it interacts with the client. Let’s move on to the meat of this post, creating account using
AccountManager
.Wait, what’s AccountManager? And why should we use it?
More specifically, why not store the credentials using
SharedPreference
and have full control without wasting time on this?The great thing with
AccountManager
is that it solves the corner cases, and little small details with ease, which you might forget to account for. It really shines well when you’re using OAuth2
and need to fetch a new token when the current one expires.There are many more benefits to using
AccountManager
but going through all of them is a little too much. I’ll add the links in comments if you ask for them. ?A more in-depth look at
AccountManager
can be found here.We’ll be using it to store the user credentials and
auth_token
.Things we need to support
- Users can add an account
- They can sync their data
- They can log out of their account
Pretty simple and straightforward.
Flow and important terms
Before we look at the code, let’s talk about the workflow.
When the app tries to access an account, and it’s
auth_token
, this is how it goes :-- The app asks the
AccountManager
for anauth_token
. - The
AccountManager
asks theAccountAuthenticator
whether it has a token - If it has none, it shows the user an
AccountsActivity
through which the user logs in - The user logs in after which the app obtains the
auth_token
from server - The
auth_token
is stored by theAccountManager
for any future use which it returns the next time app asks for it
The good thing about using
AccountManager
is that system will start the correct activities and handle most of the corner cases we as developers get lazy about.This assures us that we’ll have a valid
auth_token
while syncing, so we can avoid defensive programming.Building our Authenticator
![Auth_manager.app Auth_manager.app](/uploads/1/3/4/2/134206054/255859373.png)
Authenticator is the class which
AccountManager
uses to handle our account related tasks like storing the auth_token
or account password.The first thing you need to do is extend the
AbstractAccountAuthenticator
and implement its methods to create our Authenticator.You may decide to implement all the methods, or just leave out some by having them throw an
UnsupportedOperationException
. You will, however need to implement the addAccount
method to allow users to add an account in the system.Another method you should implement is
getAuthToken
. This method allows your SyncAdapter
, and really your whole app, to acquire the auth_token
for making network calls.This is how I’ve implemented it.
This kind of completes the Authenticator, at least for our purposes. You can have a look at the entire file by visiting this gist for Authenticator.java.
Building the Authentication Activity
Auth_manager.app On My Macbook
Now, you must have noticed that there is an
AccountsActivity
here. This is a special activity which is shown to the user whenever they have to login for Authenticator
to get token.Create the activity as you normally would, making network calls, validations and everything else normally. When you wish to add the credentials to Accounts, use a method like the one below.
This will create the account for you to use.
Building the Authentication Service
At this point, the Activity will be ready but we haven’t registered our
Authenticator
with the system.To do that, we’ll have to define an
AuthenticatorService
and register it in the Manifest file with special filter and meta-data.The service is pretty simple (link) and looks like:-
After making this we need to declare this service in Manifest with appropriate tags.
Microsoft Auth App
If you notice the
meta-data
tag there, you’ll find android:resource
‘s value something which hasn’t been defined before. This xml file is important because it lets the system know how to represent your app in the settings.Create a folder named
xml
in the res
folder. In that folder, make a new file named authenticator.xml
(name can be anything, as long as you specify it in the Manifest file). The contents of that file for my project looks like this:-Most of these values would have been already defined by you, except the
account_type
which needs to be the same as the one your provided earlier (we have used 'YOUR ACCOUNT TYPE'
as placeholder).And that’s it!
This will let you create a very basic version of app supporting the accounts in your system. Look how good our app’s name looks in Account’s screen ?
To access your user’s account, all you will need to do is
That wraps up our introduction to creating an account in system. If you want a detailed information about what other things are possible, check out udinic’s post which is an excellent but overwhelming resource.
I urge you to leave a comment here if you have any questions or tweet them to me, @shobhitic.
Next week, I’ll be creating a
SyncAdapter
which uses this Account for communication. If you’d like to hear about that, sign up for my email list.(The post is here – Android Sync Adapter)
Nothing is one hundred percent protected online. But this does not mean that you stop using the best invention of second half of 20th century – the Internet! What you can do is make your presence safer, secure, and extremely tough for the bad guys to breach it. This is where two-factor authentication apps come in the picture. They act as an extra wall of protection after you have filled in an account’s password. All the two-factor authentication apps that generate one-time codes, listed here, can function offline. Adding an account in these apps is simple and straightforward. So let us take a look at five best two-factor authentication apps for iPhone. You can not go wrong with either.
#1. Microsoft Authenticator
Authenticator app from Microsoft is easy to set up and use. It also has app password protection, which ensures that even if you hand someone your phone for a call or watching a video, they won’t be able to see the verification codes inside this app. Microsoft Authenticator also supports secure iCloud backup. This makes it super useful for instances when you erase your iPhone or switch to a new one and don’t have an encrypted backup.
This is my authenticator app of choice. Earlier I was using Google Authenticator (next on this list), but then I switched to Microsoft’s offering. The app lets you quickly sign in to your Microsoft account using just the username and then by approving the notification you receive in this app. Not only that, like all other apps on this list, you can use it for every websites and services that support two-factor authentication like Google, Facebook, Amazon, WordPress, Twitter, Dropbox, etc.
Price: Free
Download
Download
#2. Google Authenticator
A very simple two-factor Google authentication app that takes minimal amount to set up and use. After you set one of the accounts for 2FA inside this app, it will start showing security codes on the first screen. One tap on the code, and it is copied to your clipboard so that you can paste it easily. The codes also show the service they are for and the username or email.
To add a new service, you have to tap on the plus (+) icon and scan the barcode or manually enter the details. Scanning is easy and hardly takes five seconds. I was using this app, however some months back, I switched to Microsoft Authenticator because unlike Google Authenticator, that has password protection and backup. But, if you want to keep things simple and easy, this app is the way to go.
Price: Free
Download
Download
#3. TOTP Authenticator
The main highlight of TOTP authenticator for iPhone is its widget, using which you can quickly see 2FA codes without even opening the app. You can also set custom icons that can help you quickly identify your accounts. I would really love this feature in Microsoft Authenticator. Since I have over twenty different services added, the ability to set custom icons would be helpful.
Are you already impressed by this app? Hang on; there is more! You can quickly access the codes for most-used accounts by pinning the favorites to the top of the list. You can also arrange the order of various accounts. Multi-device support, backups, biometric security, multi-platform support might soon force me to use this for some of my accounts. TOTP Authenticator is an absolute allrounder.
Price: Free
Download
Download
#4. 2FAS Auth
Most likely this is the best looking authenticator app on this list because of its simplicity. The app supports pin and biometrics lock for added protection. To add an account for two-factor authentication, which generates time-based one-time passwords, you simply have to tap the red plus icon and scan the barcode. If you wish to go a different route, you may also enter the details manually.
In case the service you are using is integrated through 2FAS.com, then you may also use push authentication. If you are looking for a simple app like Google Authenticator but with an added app password, then 2FAS Auth is the one to install and use.
Price: Free
Download
Download
#5. LastPass Authenticator
LogMeIn (LastPass) is well known when it comes to password security. Their password manager app is used and loved by millions. The authenticator app lives up to that promise and does the job flawlessly. You can add all your Google, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and more 2FA keys here. The app also lets you backup this data to your LastPass account in case you need to switch phones or lose the current one.
One different approach that this app takes is, it allows you to choose between Face ID or PIN Code as app password. If you believe that you would like to set a different PIN to get inside this app and not use biometrics, then you can do that. Adding a new account is as easy as scanning a barcode using your camera. Whether you use LastPass password manager or not, this authenticator is a good choice.
Price: Free
Download
Download
Apart from the ones listed above, some other notable mentions are Adobe Authenticator, OneAuth from Zoho, Salesforce Authenticator, and MobilePASS+. If you use services from these companies (Adobe, Zoho, etc.), you may give their authenticator apps a look.
Auth_manager.app On My Mac Os
Very Important Note:
If you would like to remove two-factor authentication from any service like Twitter, Instagarm, or Facebook, DO NOT delete or remove that account from the 2FA app or uninstall it. You may be forever locked out!
To disable two-step verification, first go to security or privacy settings of that particular service and then disable it from there. Once you do that, you can remove that account from these 2FA apps or uninstall these two-factor authentication apps entirely.
Wrapping up…
Recently a tech YouTube channel was locked out as their password was compromised. They announced this on Twitter when they were looking for help from YouTube Support. When some users asked if they had two-step verification set up, they answered ‘No.’ Immediately people started pointing that despite being a tech content creator, why weren’t you using 2FA!
To keep your accounts, emails, photos, documents, and data safe, two-step verification is a must. Even if someone gets hold of or hacks your username/email and password, 2FA will make sure your account is not compromised as long as the hacker has no physical access to your phone. I use it on all my accounts. It hardly takes two minutes to set this up and adds security.
You may like to read these:
Which app have you decided to use? And what are your thoughts about online safety and password breaches? Share these in the comments below.
Suraj is a digital marketing expert on the iGB's team. He contributes to the social media section along with tips and tricks for iPhone, Apple Watch. Apart from blogging, he likes to work out as much as he can in his gym and love to listening to retro music.
Auth_manager.app On My Macbook Pro
- https://www.igeeksblog.com/author/padmasuraj/How to Save Your Kids from their Digital Exposure ?
- https://www.igeeksblog.com/author/padmasuraj/How to Add Filter to Video on iPhone and iPad in iOS 13
- https://www.igeeksblog.com/author/padmasuraj/How to Manage Downloads in Safari on iPhone and iPad in iOS 13
- https://www.igeeksblog.com/author/padmasuraj/How to Use External Hard Drives with iPad and iPhone in iOS 13