Im playing around and creating a custom access token system using JWT. I have already created a system for signing and validating JWT access tokens.
However, I find it hard to obtain information about what claims a refresh token should consist of.
Should i create refresh tokens identical to the access token - with a longer expiratiom time so that the same function that validates access tokens can be used to validate the refresh token?
A refresh token is typically an opaque value that is only used by clients to refresh access tokens. The flow works like this:
Web or mobile client implements OpenID Connect to authenticate users and get tokens - prompting the user to consent in some cases
An Authorization Server (AS) issues the tokens and stores details of this 'delegation' in a database - tokens are a pointer to this state
Client sends access tokens to APIs until a 401 expired response is received
Client then tries to refresh the access token by sending the refresh token to the Authorixation Server, which then looks up claim details from the stored state
I would make sure you get these responsibilities right - in particular avoid building your own AS and use a free one provided by experts, such as Curity Community Edition. Many security solutions will then be easier to develop.
