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API Bearer Auth

Access and refresh tokens based authentication plugin for the REST API.

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Current directory snapshot

Tested up to WordPress 6.9
Current version20200916
WordPress coverageTested up to WordPress 6.9
Minimum stackWP 4.6 · PHP 5.4.0
Directory statusactive
Last directory update8 Dec 202510mo ago
Active installations300Adoption metric — not a quality score
WordPress.org rating5.0 / 5 from 6 ratings
Official packageDirect from WordPress.org

Repository metrics are context, not quality scores. Active installations measure adoption and can strongly reflect a plugin’s age and historical popularity. Ratings, recent updates and “Tested up to” metadata also do not guarantee modern code, error-free operation, security, feature completeness or suitability for a particular site. Why active installs don’t tell the whole story →

WP PlugIndex currently records API Bearer Auth version 20200916 as active, updated 10mo ago and tested up to WordPress 6.9.

Overview

About this plugin

The API Bearer Auth plugin enables authentication for the REST API by using JWT access an refresh tokens. After the user logs in, the access and refresh tokens are returned and can be used for the next requests. Issued tokens can be revoked from within the users admin screen.

See below for the endpoints.

Note that after activating this plugin, all REST API endpoints will need to be authenticated, unless the endpoint is whitelisted in the api_bearer_auth_unauthenticated_urls filter (see FAQ for how to use this filter).

JWT

Access tokens can be formatted as JWT tokens. php file. If you don’t do this, access tokens will work also, but are just random strings.

To create a random secret key, you can do for example:

base64_encode(openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(64));

And then add the result to wp-config:

define('API_BEARER_JWT_SECRET', 'mysecretkey');

io/

Revoke tokens

This plugin adds a column to the users table in de admin where you can see when a token expires. You can also revoke tokens by selection the “Revoke API tokens” from the bulk actions select box.

API endpoints

Note that all endpoints expect JSON in the POST body.

Login

Endpoint:

POST /api-bearer-auth/v1/login

Request body:

Note: client_name is optional. But if you use it, make sure to use it as well for the refresh call!

{"username": "my_username", "password": "my_password", "client_name": "my_app"}

Response:

{ "wp_user": { "data": { "ID": 1, "user_login": "your_user_login", // other default WordPress user fields } }, "access_token": "your_access_token", "expires_in": 86400, // number of seconds "refresh_token": "your_refresh_token" }

Make sure to save the access and refresh token!

Refresh access token

Endpoint:

POST /api-bearer-auth/v1/tokens/refresh

Request body:

Note: client_name is optional. But if you did use it for the login call, make sure to use it here as well!

{"token": "your_refresh_token", "client_name": "my_app"}

Response success:

{ "access_token": "your_new_access_token", "expires_in": 86400 }

Response when sending a wrong refresh token is a 401:

", "data": { "status": 401 } }

Do a request

After you have the access token, you can make requests to authenticated endpoints with an Authorization header like this:

Authorization: Bearer <your_access_token>

Note that Apache sometimes strips out the Authorization header. htaccess file:

*) - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%1]

If you are not logged in or you send an invalid access token, you get a 401 response:

", "data": { "status": 401 } }

Important update

Update immediately if you’re using a version below 20200807. Before this version all access tokens were updated when calling the refresh callback.

If you are affected by this the fastest solution is to execute this query:

update wp_user_tokens set access_token_valid = NOW();

This will invalidate all access tokens. This means that all users need to refresh their access token and will get a new access token and a unique one this time.

A big thank to @harchvertelol for reporting this and suggesting the fix as well!

WordPress.org metadata

Plugin tags

Topics listed for this plugin in the WordPress.org directory.

  • jwt tokens
  • rest api
  • authentication
Compatibility & maintenance

Compatibility & maintenance

Tested up to WordPress 6.9

Not yet marked as tested with WordPress 7.1. WordPress.org currently lists Tested up to 6.9.

Current WordPress releaseWordPress 7.1
WordPress.org Tested up to6.9
Minimum requirementsWordPress 4.6 · PHP 5.4.0
Update activity8 Dec 202510mo ago

“Tested up to” is directory metadata supplied by the plugin author. WP PlugIndex does not turn an older declaration into a claim that the plugin is incompatible.

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