How do I get a refresh token in Laravel Passport?

Question

I'm using Laravel 6.7 and attempting to use Passport for user authentication.

I'm able to create an access token for the user when they register. Here is the code:

$user = User::create($input);
$user->createToken('auth-token');

This access token has an expiration of 15 minutes as I defined in my AuthServiceProvider.php file boot() function like so:

Passport::personalAccessTokensExpireIn(Carbon::now()->addMinutes(15));

I want to refresh it using a refresh token but can't seem to understand how.

I've looked everywhere (including the Laravel website) and they're all telling me to do this:

$http = new GuzzleHttp\Client;

$response = $http->post('http://your-app.com/oauth/token', [
    'form_params' => [
        'grant_type' => 'refresh_token',
        'refresh_token' => 'the-refresh-token',
        'client_id' => 'client-id',
        'client_secret' => 'client-secret',
        'scope' => '',
    ],
]);

Without any clear explanation as to what the values 'the-refresh-token', 'client-id' and 'client-secret' are meant to be.

One answer on stack overflow said the following:

you must send old refresh-token ('refresh_token' => 'the-refresh-token') and this code produces a new token and refresh-refresh.

But I don't have a refresh token, I'm trying to create one. Do I just create a random string?

Using Password Grant Tokens

From: Laravel Docs: Password Grant Tokens

The OAuth2 password grant allows your other first-party clients, such as a mobile application, to obtain an access token using an e-mail address / username and password.

First you need to generate a Password Grant Client by:

php artisan passport:client --password

This will give you a client_id and a client_secret

So next you can implement your login in your Mobile app as follow:

POST
http://your-app.com/oauth/token

Body:
{
  'grant_type' => 'password',
  'client_id' => 'client-id',
  'client_secret' => 'client-secret',
  'username' => '[email protected]',
  'password' => 'my-password',
  'scope' => '',
}

With the result of:

{
  "token_type": "Bearer",
  "expires_in": 300,
  "access_token": "eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImp0aSI6IjAyMGM1YTQ2MzM5ZTAxNjBjODViOWUyMGE0YTAxYzhmOWYzOTZkYjlhMmM1OWZiNjk0NDVjZTZlYTIyMmUyZmEyNDZmYzQ0MTc4M2NjNjIyIn0.eyJhdWQiOiI1MSIsImp0aSI6IjAyMGM1YTQ2MzM5ZTAxNjBjODViOWUyMGE0YTAxYzhmOWYzOTZkYjlhMmM1OWZiNjk0NDVjZTZlYTIyMmUyZmEyNDZmYzQ0MTc4M2NjNjIyIiwiaWF0IjoxNTczMjIxMTk0LCJuYmYiOjE1NzMyMjExOTQsImV4cCI6MTU3MzIyMTQ5NCwic3ViIjoiNWZhNzNkNjAtYzliNC0xMWU5LThiMDEtNjFmNDI4YjYyNTdiIiwic2NvcGVzIjpbXX0.EmmKwdr_tLUmN08MxnleCqIU0zDk8-pyecOaz-tQ2OBZa-UBsFe2SoaD0jqq_0t1BZHBiayO5qHFY6M459mXTPRNJM8Bx7MC1X_4GPHrozKMuymZ3Ham3J00UtsGHcF2gG39YcUnmhbDhiFefO8VGU-2e_2q2qWAFvO_lUB4CrcrVQ3o8-4o3mwXpmWbcoDbqiQwga_0-SMo8gYIFlh4OaO0Z_bCWsJaspUdRra672BV49une5uPlANLIinCthFHgcT_9t48z_wOzEHbVhuogMr5ObkJAy0rXTQLyvprale5EaNTPR0s9Fp1wvMtd08m7Pbdz2XLCShuIrE7cY8U8NZydxvX3aFqUOcqkmlvEGRkr3B6utjNQW19I7bKw9aIBBczoCCBmIqkqBuQFQziV3dQ7qQYJyKqr0n_mSyVzCllJ4nhWcV4hwny2KVQoszxjVMoVEzWEXsJSmxfWE4NHMYb0wmid6K_COCGzHRhfqtg_llySP_w2N0us2Ri92LyVovIJI0w2_ze0MBmyvS37OYIOLV3bCZcsVhnf9QCxAE6NAXXwgzYEj7Y0Q-7GkbOCDWrVghih3-engZj36dTBo_i4YJc5iygRlzLCW8AFtZig6mW6Veb9ITsSu_yTefCbZVPG4G0MjBhk03kSnLJGeyWeEAIBapdeEI7Vf8VsXo",
  "refresh_token": "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"
}

If you want to refresh an expired token you will do a request to /oauth/token with the POST method

And with the body:

{
  'grant_type' => 'refresh_token',
  'refresh_token' => 'the-refresh-token',
  'client_id' => 'client-id',
  'client_secret' => 'client-secret',
  'scope' => '',
} 

Put the previous refresh_token, client_id, client_secret and you will get another response containing other tokens

Comments

[Zalo]

User must be logged for refreshing its expired token? Is that posible?

[loic.lopez]

@Zalo Hi, in order to have a 'refresh_token' you must do a request to: "your-app.com/oauth/token" which is a log method that return an "access_token" and a "refresh_token" so you can assume after "/oauth/token" request, the user is logged

[VijayRana]

@loic.lopez Do you know how to retrieve access token, and refresh token after the initial creation. I have already created those but I need them in controller. Also, how to log out the user with that access token?

[loic.lopez]

@VijayRana Hi, what is the initial creation? for logout you can take a look at: stackoverflow.com/questions/43318310/…