Request OS Authentication

[Richienb]

Ask the user to authenticate with their credentials to verify a sensitive operation. An example of this is the show password button in Chrome password manager.

Here's an API example:

const osAuth = require("os-auth");

(async () => {
	const authed = await osAuth()

	if (authed) console.log("User authenticated! Process with the data-sensitive operation.")
	else console.log("User not authenticated.")
})()

[ScottFreeCode]

The API will probably be more complex than this, since the OS authentication isn't just supposed to check your password and tell an app yes or no so it can decide to do stuff it could, in principle, do anyway (which wouldn't protect much). In the Chrome example, the OS actually encrypts data so even a hacked or buggy version of Chrome couldn't get it, nor could someone who reads Chrome's source to find out where the data is stored; Chrome is asking the OS to actually get that data, and the OS encrypts it for secure storage. Something similar goes for sudo or the ubiquitous Windows admin privileges prompt: the OS itself won't let certain actions be performed unless the user is sufficiently authorized and (re-)authenticates.

That said, I would love to have more cross-platform standard ways to handle either elevated actions or secure data.

[yumitsu]

@Richienb Look at jorangreef/sudo-prompt.

[ssight]

@Richienb What about something like this?

[Richienb]

@ssight That would be good except it needs to support MacOS.

[ssight]

@Richienb I finally got MacOS to work. It should work on all three major platforms now.