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Feature Request: Cloud Function should support user.sendEmailVerification() like client sdk

Open inlined opened this issue 8 years ago • 68 comments

[Refiling for user @sun3 from https://github.com/firebase/functions-samples/issues/181]

Feature Request:

The user.sendEmailVerification() needs to be supported by Firebase Cloud Functions. This is available in client side but not server side. When using Cloud Functions to create new users we also need to automatically send Email Verification before new user can use our apps. This is currently as stopping block for our apps.

At this point the user.sendEmailVerification() gives error that function is not found.

    admin.auth().createUser({
        email: emailAddress,
        emailVerified: false,
        password: password,
        displayName: '', //name,
        disabled: false
    })
        .then(function (user) {
            // A error representation of the newly created user is returned
            console.log("Created Firebase User successfully with id: ", user.uid);
            console.log("user.emailVerified:", user.emailVerified);

            // Send Email Verification
            user.sendEmailVerification()
                .then(function (emailSent) {
                    console.log('emailSent ', emailSent);
                })
                .catch(function (error) {
                    console.log('emailSent error ', error);
                });

    // ... Additional code below

Thank you and I am open to any suggestions.

inlined avatar Jun 22 '17 22:06 inlined

Hey there! I couldn't figure out what this issue is about, so I've labeled it for a human to triage. Hang tight.

google-oss-bot avatar Jun 22 '17 22:06 google-oss-bot

Hmmm this issue does not seem to follow the issue template. Make sure you provide all the required information.

google-oss-bot avatar Jun 22 '17 22:06 google-oss-bot

The issue/new feature request is that the user.sendEmailVerification() function is not available on the firebase admin (firebase cloud functions), but it is available in the client sdk like the one used in angular 4.

From the Documentation when you create a New user. I added the sendEmailVerification() which this function is not available. But it's a must to allow at this time for the new user to verify their email before we allow access to our apps.

admin.auth().createUser({
  email: "[email protected]",
  emailVerified: false,
  password: "secretPassword",
  displayName: "John Doe",
  photoURL: "http://www.example.com/12345678/photo.png",
  disabled: false
})
  .then(function(userRecord) {
    // See the UserRecord reference doc for the contents of userRecord.
    console.log("Successfully created new user:", userRecord.uid);
    
    // ****************************************************************
    // Cannot request/call the sendEmailVerification() function, not available
    // Send Email Verification
            user.sendEmailVerification()
                .then(function (emailSent) {
                    console.log('emailSent ', emailSent);
                })
                .catch(function (error) {
                    console.log('emailSent error ', error);
                });
    // End send email verification not available
    // ****************************************************************


  })
  .catch(function(error) {
    console.log("Error creating new user:", error);
  });

Please let me know if this explains the issue. Thanks.

Sun3 avatar Jun 22 '17 22:06 Sun3

Yes, would like this feature in cloud functions. user.sendEmailVerification()

rkpradeep20 avatar Jul 16 '17 08:07 rkpradeep20

The docs make it seem like its possible to verify a new user's email address with the firebase email validation using a cloud function. Lack of this feature forces developers to use an external service (which requires an upgraded paid plan). Requiring a third party dependency for something Firebase already does well is clunky for developers and confusing.

coreybutler avatar Oct 09 '17 01:10 coreybutler

Hey @coreybutler, the email verification Firebase Auth sends is not a welcome nor a goodbye email (the link you pointed it out). Nor should it be used for that.

You also have the option to send an email verification client side for free. So if you want to send an email verification, you can always do it for free.

Let's keep these issues separate (sending email verifications, vs sending other personalized emails for non-auth specific reasons). We acknowledge the value of sending an email verification, server side via the admin SDK, and we are looking into it.

bojeil-google avatar Oct 09 '17 03:10 bojeil-google

@bojeil-google - thanks.

Purely for context, my "app" doesn't have a front end. In my case, I'm using a cloud function to serve as a Docker Authentication Proxy... 100% server-side. Users are added directly through the Firebase console.

If this is a separate issue (which is fine), the docs should clarify. Perhaps indicate what limitations exist. A document titled "Extend Firebase Authentication with Cloud Functions" and a subtitle of "Trigger a function on user creation" seems like it would encompass email verification.

coreybutler avatar Oct 09 '17 16:10 coreybutler

Hey @coreybutler, to help unblock you, you can always use the client SDK to send the email verification from a Firebase Function. You'd need to require firebase module. On user creation, you do the following:

  1. get the uid of the user created from the onCreate trigger.
  2. Using admin SDK, mint custom token via createCustomToken for that user.
  3. Using client SDK, signInWithCustomToken using that custom token.
  4. Send email verification via currentUser.sendEmailVerification.

bojeil-google avatar Oct 10 '17 09:10 bojeil-google

+1, for now, I'm sending verification email by hitting the restful api. What a mess..

PoiScript avatar Oct 10 '17 15:10 PoiScript

BTW, I'm trying to catch examples of sub-optimal Promise usage in the wild and wanted to point out the one in this thread, CC @Sun3 Promise code should almost never repeatedly nest. These aren't callbacks anymore:

    admin.auth().createUser({
        email: emailAddress,
        emailVerified: false,
        password: password,
        displayName: '', //name,
        disabled: false
    }).then(function (user) {
        // A error representation of the newly created user is returned
        console.log("Created Firebase User successfully with id: ", user.uid);
        console.log("user.emailVerified:", user.emailVerified);

        // Send Email Verification
       return user.sendEmailVerification();
    }).then(function (emailSent) {
       console.log('emailSent ', emailSent);

    }).catch(function (error) {
       console.log('emailSent error ', error);
    });
    // ... Additional code below

This code should hopefully be more readable. It also fixes two bugs:

  1. user.sendEmailVerificaiton wasn't being returned, so the outer promise was resolving early to undefined
  2. Because the catch block was on the outer promise, there was no handler for a failure to create the new user (may have been intentional from the error message, but you should always handle rejection.

inlined avatar Oct 13 '17 00:10 inlined

@bojeil-google While that would work to unblock developers who need this urgently, its an incredibly elaborate workaround once you figure in the need for service account certs for minting custom tokens... in my case where i have multiple environments where i would need to manage certs based on environment, its just a ton of mental overhead. It would be nice if cloud functions didn't need service account certs anyway.

Any word if this feature is being worked on?

sweetcoco avatar Oct 14 '17 17:10 sweetcoco

The feature is on our list and we acknowledge its importance. We just have a lot of feature requests and many are currently critical to developers and not possible client side or admin side. I would prioritize those higher.

If you are having a hard time minting custom tokens, you can just send the ID token to an HTTP endpoint you host in Firebase Functions and use the REST API to send the email verifications: https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/rest/auth/#section-send-email-verification

bojeil-google avatar Oct 16 '17 05:10 bojeil-google

@bojeil-google Thanks a ton!

sweetcoco avatar Oct 16 '17 15:10 sweetcoco

@bojeil-google - sorry for the delayed response. Are you suggesting the firebase client SDK can be used from Node (i.e. within the function)? Just to reiterate, I have no front end and no browser, so all logic must be encapsulated within the Firebase function (which is what I was trying to do). Step 3 is what I'm questioning the viability of. I thought the client SDK relied on browser-specific capabilities, such as XHR, which would make this impossible. I'd love to be wrong about that ;-)

The goal of my project is for users to login to Docker via a terminal/shell, using Firebase auth. The Docker agent handles all of the handshaking, but uses HTTP requests to authenticate users. Basically, Docker attempts to login via basic auth first, so my function extracts the credentials and matches them up with a Firebase user. That was pretty simple.

I wanted my code to assure the user had a verified email address. We know and trust users, but we don't always trust someone to type in the right email... typos are rampant. So, the goal was to setup a function that would send the verification email whenever a new user was created, regardless of how they're created (which is exclusively through the web console at the moment).

I know this isn't a traditional use of Firebase, and our goal is to eventually have a more traditional UI/self-registration portal, which would make all of this moot. However; we don't have enough time for a project of that scale right now. Personally, I'd be even happier if there were an option in the Firebase console to automatically send new users a verification email so we don't have to write this functionality ourselves... but I'm also perfectly content doing it myself if it's possible.

coreybutler avatar Oct 16 '17 21:10 coreybutler

Yes, the client SDK works in Node. We actually use the Client SDK in Node as part of firebase-tools, so this is pretty unlikely to change any time soon.

inlined avatar Oct 23 '17 04:10 inlined

I have the latest version of the admin sdk but I don't see this feature implemented. Do we still have to login as the user in order to send the verification? If so, I couldn't find a solution or reason for this issue to be closed. Thanks a lot.

rwmb avatar Apr 03 '18 19:04 rwmb

This issue is not closed.

hiranya911 avatar Apr 03 '18 19:04 hiranya911

Oh ok, my bad. I saw the reference and mistaken it for an action in this issue. Thank you @hiranya911 So +1 for this feature 👍

rwmb avatar Apr 03 '18 19:04 rwmb

Any updates on this issue? It seems like a pretty crucial feature...

lingxiao avatar May 29 '18 19:05 lingxiao

I'm still waiting it this feature to be available soon

cdiaz avatar Jun 17 '18 05:06 cdiaz

Agree this will be a great feature to add to the Admin SDK.

I understand an ID token would really not be required to perform these type of operation from the server side and assume the plan is to just use service account credentials, just like with other sever side/admin APIs.

That said, with the current situation, I gave it a shot with a combination of sign up + send email verification REST APIs:

https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/rest/auth/#section-create-email-password (returns an ID token if successful)

https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/rest/auth/#section-send-email-verification

And that worked well. Not an ideal flow, and possibly simpler to just use a 3rd party transactional/cloud email provider - but looks promising as an interim solution/workaround.

Did not check options available to customize the email using this approach (if related at all), neither any possible throttling issues involved, given this will be always triggered from the same (server) IP address, though....(not sure if the same rules than using the client SDK would apply for example)

In addition, the ID token will really be discarded in this case, since it's solely used for the purpose of getting the email sent. Expecting to be able to get a new one from the client, once the email is verified.

fcarreno avatar Jul 29 '18 18:07 fcarreno

Is this feature already available ? ; this is really needed.

Rekodr avatar Aug 01 '18 01:08 Rekodr

Formally seconding (thirding? fourthing?) this feature. Also, a bit more clarity in the docs that you cannot issue a verification email from Cloud Functions would be helpful.

Currently the Auth API for the client and Cloud Functions appear very similar (e.g. firebase.auth().currentUser... vs functions.auth.user()...) and it took a lot of digging and testing to figure out that I could call sendEmailVerification() from the former but not the latter. The flow has the appearance of convenience but it really felt like a head-fake when I learned that sending an email verification in a logical create-user flow (i.e. within the onCreate callback) could not actually be handled nearly as simply as the client-side feature seemed to imply.

j-low avatar Aug 19 '18 19:08 j-low

Fifthing (?) this as well. Would love to have this ability be a single call vs. needing to leverage the REST API.

kkukshtel avatar Aug 20 '18 19:08 kkukshtel

Okay got this working and wanted to post here so others have a reference implementation but also to really show the need for having this wrapped up in a simple function. A crazy thing I realized too was the difference between Auth customTokens and IdTokens, and that the Admin Auth SDK is only able to generate the former. This means you not only need to use the REST SDK to send an email, but also need to add in an additional call to exchange your customToken for an idToken. The Admin Auth SDK also has no method for verifying a customToken to generate an idToken (which is what it looks like the REST SDK does).

This uses the Admin SDK + REST SDK (and the request.js npm module) to send a verification email from the server when a new user signs up and all you have at that point is their UID:

auth.createCustomToken(userRecord.uid).then(function(customToken) {
    var idTokenRequestOps = 
    {
        url:'https://www.googleapis.com/identitytoolkit/v3/relyingparty/verifyCustomToken?key=[APIKEY]',
        json: true,
        body: { "token" : customToken, "returnSecureToken" : true}
    };
    request.post(idTokenRequestOps, function optionalCallback(err, httpResponse, body) {
        if (err) {
            return console.error('unable to post request to send swap custom token for id token', err);
        }
        else {
            if(body.error) {
                console.log("unable to swap custom token for idtoken with error", body.error);
            }
            else {
                var emailVerificationOps = 
                {
                    url:'https://www.googleapis.com/identitytoolkit/v3/relyingparty/getOobConfirmationCode?key=[APIKEY]',
                    json: true,
                    body: { "requestType" : "VERIFY_EMAIL", "idToken" : body.idToken}
                };
                request.post(emailVerificationOps, function optionalCallback(err, httpResponse, body) {
                    if (err) {
                        return console.error('unable to post request to send verification email', err);
                    }
                    else {
                        if(body.error) {
                            console.log("unable to send email verification with error",body.error);
                        }
                        else {
                            console.log("sent verification email! server responded with",body);
                        }
                    }
                });
            }
        }
    });
});

kkukshtel avatar Aug 21 '18 15:08 kkukshtel

So I'm going to ask. Has this gotten any better. Just a simple create a user and send the email verification link.

justdan0227 avatar Sep 24 '18 22:09 justdan0227

Thank you @kkukshtel Its works like a charm! But in order to work with createCustomToken() function we have to nitialize the admin with a service account like follow. Refer: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42717540/firebase-cloud-functions-createcustomtoken

var serviceAccount = require('./serviceAccountKey.json');
admin.initializeApp({
  credential: admin.credential.cert(serviceAccount),
  databaseURL: "https://< Project ID>.firebaseio.com"
});```

Here is my complete code:

```const cloudStorageConfig = require('./cloud-storage-config.json');
const admin = require('firebase-admin');
var serviceAccount = require('./serviceAccountKey.json');
admin.initializeApp({
  credential: admin.credential.cert(serviceAccount),
  databaseURL: "https://catalog-e8e80.firebaseio.com"
});
const request = require('request');

exports.customerSignUp = functions.https.onRequest((req, res) => {
  cors(req, res, () => { });
admin.auth().createUser({
      email: req.body.email,
      password: req.body.password
    }).then(function (userRecord) {
      sendVerificationEmail(userRecord).then(()=>{
res.status(200).send({ "success": true, uid: userRecord.uid });      
).catch((error)=>{
res.status(200).send({ "success": false, error: error });
})
    })
});

function sendVerificationEmail(userRecord) {
  return admin.auth().createCustomToken(userRecord.uid).then(function (customToken) {
    var header = {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json'
    }
    return request({
      url: "https://www.googleapis.com/identitytoolkit/v3/relyingparty/verifyCustomToken?key=" + cloudStorageConfig.apiKey,
      method: 'POST',
      json: { "token": customToken, "returnSecureToken": true },
      headers: header
    },
      function (error, response, body) {
        if (error) {
          console.log('unable to post request to send swap custom token for id token', error);
          return;
        }
        if (body.error) {
          console.log('unable to swap custom token for idtoken with error', body.error);
          return;
        } else {
          return request({
            url: "https://www.googleapis.com/identitytoolkit/v3/relyingparty/getOobConfirmationCode?key=" + cloudStorageConfig.apiKey,
            method: 'POST',
            json: { "requestType": "VERIFY_EMAIL", "idToken": body.idToken },
            headers: header
          },
            function (err, response, body) {
              if (err) {
                console.error('unable to post request to send verification email', err);
              } else {
                if (body.error) {
                  console.log("unable to send email verification with error", body.error);
                } else {
                  console.log("sent verification email! server responded with", body);
                }
              }
              return;
            }
          );
        }
      }
    );
  });
}```

ananthu-confianz avatar Sep 27 '18 12:09 ananthu-confianz

Hi everyone!

How long this feature will be available?

Appreciate the attention.

wesleyfuchter avatar Oct 03 '18 17:10 wesleyfuchter

Hey, any update on this?

yuliankarapetkov avatar Nov 06 '18 08:11 yuliankarapetkov

I'm having to call a nodejs module with a rest api in order to do it unless this has been now included

justdan0227 avatar Nov 06 '18 14:11 justdan0227