Automatically log in to webex web through cookies or api

[Ksler]

HI Guys,

i have a question about the webex web app / desktop app.

Pre Info:
I want to build an app with webview2 where you log in to the webex website onetime, it should save the cookies to instantly log you in the next time you start a meeting (which is obtained from the api).

So to the Question:
Does anyone know if it is possible to stay signed in through cookies?
Are there some special cookies on which you have to listen to get logged in without typing in your password?
For me it only works as long as my browser stays open. After closing it i have to login again.

Although when i save my cookie and inject them everytime before i try to start a meeting it works for about a day.
After that day i have to login and obtain new cookies again.

An other option would be the Api, is there a possibility to somehow add any token or some headers to the URL to automatically log in to the website?
I mean in the webex desktop app i stay logged in and it looks like a webview aswell so they should use cookies or some other type of authentication aswell, or not?

I already hit the cisco support which couldn't help me and sent me to this site

Thanks in advance!
Jonas

[Lajos Demeter]

Hi Jonas,

• If you have "Classic" site you can go our way: Currently we are using the "GetloginTicket" XML API with username-password in the auth header (returning a "ticket") and the "AT=LI&TK={ticket}" URL API to programmatically log in the users. This method works fine.
• If you have a Control Hub integrated site, then you can still use the "GetloginTicket" XML API with the webExAccessToken element in the auth header, which accepts the OAUth access token.

The problem in both cases: XML API is going to be deprecated in a year, and the replacing REST API does not contain a fully equivalent function. Please check my earlier tries HERE and HERE. You may want to vote for my related Feature Requests HERE and HERE 

[Ksler]

Hey Lajos,

Thanks for the answer, but as you said the XML API is going to be deprecated and i have to come up with a long lasting solution.
I've already voted for youre feature requests, although i think these are not coming as soon as we hope. 

Do you have any solutions for login in a user through other ways than the XML Api, like Cookies or through the Rest Api with the access token.

Many thanks, Jonas

[Lajos Demeter]

Hi Jonas,
No, I have no solution for the post-XML API times. This is also my problem. Thanks for having voted for my FRs. This is what we can do  now, and let's hope...

Regards,

     Lajos

[Raffaele Lagana]

Hello, I noticed that this is the same query as what we were discussing on the #webex4devs space, to which I had originally replied:

"Not sure what you're using but with our Browser/JS SDK you can have code logic that joins the user directly into the meeting. With the login session side of things, the SDK uses the OAuth tokens that David mentioned above, so could you essentially automate the refresh for the access token to get a new one, so that users would never need to login other than the first time."

I see you had a follow up query to that, is there also a way with the Rest API cause i can't use the SDK in my application?

I'll reply to that here so that we keep the conversation on one platform.

The only option right now with our REST APIs, is to use the https://developer.webex.com/docs/api/v1/meetings/get-a-meeting API. Once you have authenticated the integration to create an OAuth Access Token (with the right scopes assigned), you can then use this API as it will return a webLink to the meeting. This link is not specific to one particular invitee, it is usable by anyone who has the link, but they would need to login or join through a guest password (also returned by the above API).

No other options right now with the REST APIs.

[Ksler]

Okey, my problem is i send the meeting join link to another device, there i want the user to be signed in automatically.
Well now i know that there is no option with the rest API.
Although i might have another solution with cookies but when i inject the login cookies from a user in another browser on another system they only work for a day after that i have to refresh the cookies.
I noticed almost the same behavior when loggin in to my own webex account on my pc. I always have to login again after closing my browser.
Now my Question is:
Is there a way to make the webex cookies longer lasting no matter which device they get used on?

[Raffaele Lagana]

Although it is a very clever way to try to get around this gap, it is not something we've ever really tried (at least not within our API Dev Support team environment) so I can't really answer this query. I'd say there is a way to do it, given that our native apps do extend cookie sessions automatically. However, it's not functionality that's released publicly (at least not at the moment) so we wouldn't really have much knowledge on this and to be honest, I don't believe engineering would release this information as they would likely not recommend this approach.

But on a different note, I think there are workings ongoing to try close out some gaps that we have between the REST and XML APIs. This scenario would be fairly easily managed through the GetjoinurlMeeting XML API, as it allows to create a tailored joinURL for every user, and can even automatically sign them in straight into the meeting. But we don't really have a rest API that does the same right now, hopefully that gap will be closed in future, before the XML APIs deprecation next April.

[Ksler]

Is there a way your developers could let me know how to extend the cookie session and which cookies are really important for the sign in. This would be insanely helpful for my application. 

If not could you tell when the feature will come to the rest API? Or if it will even come before the XML API is going to be deprecated.
I hope you understand that i don't want to implement a solution which i have to change in not even a year

Regards, Jonas

[Raffaele Lagana]

As mentioned, there is no timeline yet on providing this feature through REST APIs. Right now it would be best to create a feature request for this here: https://ciscocollabcustomer.ideas.aha.io/ .

As for getting development to provide functionality on how cookies are managed in the client apps, we're not the right team for this as we only work with API/SDK related queries. My suggestion would be to add that query on the webex meetings and App community, here: https://community.cisco.com/t5/webex-meetings-and-webex-app/bd-p/disc-webex . I'm not sure whether they can even provide this information, but you can ask there.