Social Authentication

Sign-in with social provides such as Apple, Facebook, Twitter and Google.

React Native Firebase provides support for integrating with different social platforms. The authentication with these different platforms is left to the developer to implement due to the various implementations and flows possible using their OAuth APIs.

Social providers

Apple

Starting April 2020, all existing applications using external 3rd party login services (such as Facebook, Twitter, Google etc) must ensure that Apple Sign-In is also provided. To learn more about these new guidelines, view the Apple announcement. Apple Sign-In is not required for Android devices.

To integrate Apple Sign-In on your iOS applications, you need to install a 3rd party library to authenticate with Apple. Once authentication is successful, a Firebase credential can be used to sign the user into Firebase with their Apple account.

To get started, you must first install the react-native-apple-authentication library. There are a number of prerequisites to using the library, including setting up your Apple Developer account to enable Apple Sign-In.

Ensure the "Apple" sign-in provider is enabled on the Firebase Console.

Once setup, we can trigger an initial request to allow the user to sign in with their Apple account, using a pre-rendered button the react-native-apple-authentication library provides:

import React from 'react';
import { AppleButton } from '@invertase/react-native-apple-authentication';

function AppleSignIn() {
  return (
    <AppleButton
      buttonStyle={AppleButton.Style.WHITE}
      buttonType={AppleButton.Type.SIGN_IN}
      style={{
        width: 160,
        height: 45,
      }}
      onPress={() => onAppleButtonPress().then(() => console.log('Apple sign-in complete!'))}
    />
  );
}

When the user presses the pre-rendered button, we can trigger the initial sign-in request using the performRequest method, passing in the scope required for our application:

import auth from '@react-native-firebase/auth';
import { appleAuth } from '@invertase/react-native-apple-authentication';

async function onAppleButtonPress() {
  // Start the sign-in request
  const appleAuthRequestResponse = await appleAuth.performRequest({
    requestedOperation: appleAuth.Operation.LOGIN,
    // As per the FAQ of react-native-apple-authentication, the name should come first in the following array.
    // See: https://github.com/invertase/react-native-apple-authentication#faqs
    requestedScopes: [appleAuth.Scope.FULL_NAME, appleAuth.Scope.EMAIL],
  });

  // Ensure Apple returned a user identityToken
  if (!appleAuthRequestResponse.identityToken) {
    throw new Error('Apple Sign-In failed - no identify token returned');
  }

  // Create a Firebase credential from the response
  const { identityToken, nonce } = appleAuthRequestResponse;
  const appleCredential = auth.AppleAuthProvider.credential(identityToken, nonce);

  // Sign the user in with the credential
  return auth().signInWithCredential(appleCredential);
}

Upon successful sign-in, any onAuthStateChanged listeners will trigger with the new authentication state of the user.

Apple also requires that the app revoke the Sign in with Apple token when the user chooses to delete their account. This can be accomplished with the revokeToken API.

import auth from '@react-native-firebase/auth';
import { appleAuth } from '@invertase/react-native-apple-authentication';

async function revokeSignInWithAppleToken() {
  // Get an authorizationCode from Apple
  const { authorizationCode } = await appleAuth.performRequest({
    requestedOperation: appleAuth.Operation.REFRESH,
  });

  // Ensure Apple returned an authorizationCode
  if (!authorizationCode) {
    throw new Error('Apple Revocation failed - no authorizationCode returned');
  }

  // Revoke the token
  return auth().revokeToken(authorizationCode);
}

Facebook

There is a community-supported React Native library which wraps around the native Facebook SDKs to enable Facebook sign-in.

Before getting started, ensure you have installed the library, configured your Android & iOS applications and setup your Facebook Developer Account to enable Facebook Login.

Ensure the "Facebook" sign-in provider is enabled on the Firebase Console.

Once setup, we can trigger the login flow with Facebook by calling the logInWithPermissions method on the LoginManager class:

import React from 'react';
import { Button } from 'react-native';

function FacebookSignIn() {
  return (
    <Button
      title="Facebook Sign-In"
      onPress={() => onFacebookButtonPress().then(() => console.log('Signed in with Facebook!'))}
    />
  );
}

The onFacebookButtonPress can then be implemented as follows:

import auth from '@react-native-firebase/auth';
import { LoginManager, AccessToken } from 'react-native-fbsdk-next';

async function onFacebookButtonPress() {
  // Attempt login with permissions
  const result = await LoginManager.logInWithPermissions(['public_profile', 'email']);

  if (result.isCancelled) {
    throw 'User cancelled the login process';
  }

  // Once signed in, get the users AccessToken
  const data = await AccessToken.getCurrentAccessToken();

  if (!data) {
    throw 'Something went wrong obtaining access token';
  }

  // Create a Firebase credential with the AccessToken
  const facebookCredential = auth.FacebookAuthProvider.credential(data.accessToken);

  // Sign-in the user with the credential
  return auth().signInWithCredential(facebookCredential);
}

Facebook Limited Login (iOS only)

To use Facebook Limited Login instead of "classic" Facebook Login, the onFacebookButtonPress can then be implemented as follows:

import auth from '@react-native-firebase/auth';
import { LoginManager, AuthenticationToken } from 'react-native-fbsdk-next';
import { sha256 } from 'react-native-sha256';

async function onFacebookButtonPress() {
  // Create a nonce and the corresponding
  // sha256 hash of the nonce
  const nonce = '123456';
  const nonceSha256 = await sha256(nonce);
  // Attempt login with permissions and limited login
  const result = await LoginManager.logInWithPermissions(
    ['public_profile', 'email'],
    'limited',
    nonceSha256,
  );

  if (result.isCancelled) {
    throw 'User cancelled the login process';
  }

  // Once signed in, get the users AuthenticationToken
  const data = await AuthenticationToken.getAuthenticationTokenIOS();

  if (!data) {
    throw 'Something went wrong obtaining authentication token';
  }

  // Create a Firebase credential with the AuthenticationToken
  // and the nonce (Firebase will validates the hash against the nonce)
  const facebookCredential = auth.FacebookAuthProvider.credential(data.authenticationToken, nonce);

  // Sign-in the user with the credential
  return auth().signInWithCredential(facebookCredential);
}

Upon successful sign-in, any onAuthStateChanged listeners will trigger with the new authentication state of the user.

Twitter

Using the external @react-native-twitter-signin/twitter-signin library, we can sign-in the user with Twitter and generate a credential which can be used to sign-in with Firebase.

To get started, install the library and ensure you have completed setup, following the required prerequisites list.

Ensure the "Twitter" sign-in provider is enabled on the Firebase Console.

Before triggering a sign-in request, you must initialize the Twitter SDK using your accounts consumer key & secret:

import { NativeModules } from 'react-native';
const { RNTwitterSignIn } = NativeModules;

RNTwitterSignIn.init('TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY', 'TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET').then(() =>
  console.log('Twitter SDK initialized'),
);

Once initialized, setup your application to trigger a sign-in request with Twitter using the login method.

import React from 'react';
import { Button } from 'react-native';

function TwitterSignIn() {
  return (
    <Button
      title="Twitter Sign-In"
      onPress={() => onTwitterButtonPress().then(() => console.log('Signed in with Twitter!'))}
    />
  );
}

The onTwitterButtonPress can then be implemented as follows:

import auth from '@react-native-firebase/auth';
import { NativeModules } from 'react-native';
const { RNTwitterSignIn } = NativeModules;

async function onTwitterButtonPress() {
  // Perform the login request
  const { authToken, authTokenSecret } = await RNTwitterSignIn.logIn();

  // Create a Twitter credential with the tokens
  const twitterCredential = auth.TwitterAuthProvider.credential(authToken, authTokenSecret);

  // Sign-in the user with the credential
  return auth().signInWithCredential(twitterCredential);
}

Upon successful sign-in, any onAuthStateChanged listeners will trigger with the new authentication state of the user.

Google

The google-signin library provides a wrapper around the official Google login library, allowing you to create a credential and sign-in to Firebase.

Most configuration is already setup when using Google Sign-In with Firebase, however you need to ensure your machines SHA1 key has been configured for use with Android. You can see how to generate the key on the Getting Started documentation.

Ensure the "Google" sign-in provider is enabled on the Firebase Console.

Follow these instructions to install and setup google-signin

Before triggering a sign-in request, you must initialize the Google SDK using your any required scopes and the webClientId, which can be found in the android/app/google-services.json file as the client/oauth_client/client_id property (the id ends with .apps.googleusercontent.com). Make sure to pick the client_id with client_type: 3

import { GoogleSignin } from '@react-native-google-signin/google-signin';

GoogleSignin.configure({
  webClientId: '',
});

Once initialized, setup your application to trigger a sign-in request with Google using the signIn method.

import React from 'react';
import { Button } from 'react-native';

function GoogleSignIn() {
  return (
    <Button
      title="Google Sign-In"
      onPress={() => onGoogleButtonPress().then(() => console.log('Signed in with Google!'))}
    />
  );
}

The onGoogleButtonPress can then be implemented as follows:

import auth from '@react-native-firebase/auth';
import { GoogleSignin } from '@react-native-google-signin/google-signin';

async function onGoogleButtonPress() {
  // Check if your device supports Google Play
  await GoogleSignin.hasPlayServices({ showPlayServicesUpdateDialog: true });
  // Get the users ID token
  const { idToken } = await GoogleSignin.signIn();

  // Create a Google credential with the token
  const googleCredential = auth.GoogleAuthProvider.credential(idToken);

  // Sign-in the user with the credential
  return auth().signInWithCredential(googleCredential);
}

Upon successful sign-in, any onAuthStateChanged listeners will trigger with the new authentication state of the user.

If you are testing this feature on an android emulator ensure that the emulate is either the Google APIs or Google Play flavor.

Linking a Social Account with the Firebase Account

If you want to provide users with an additional login method, you can link their social media account (or an email & password) with their Firebase account, which was created using any of the valid methods that @react-native-firebase/auth supports. The code is very similar to the login code (above.) You need to replace auth().signInWithCredential() in the scripts above with auth().currentUser.linkWithCredential(). An example of linking a Google account with a Firebase account follows.

import auth from '@react-native-firebase/auth';
import { GoogleSignin } from '@react-native-google-signin/google-signin';

async function onGoogleLinkButtonPress() {
  // Check if your device supports Google Play
  await GoogleSignin.hasPlayServices({ showPlayServicesUpdateDialog: true });
  // Get the user ID token
  const { idToken } = await GoogleSignin.signIn();

  // Create a Google credential with the token
  const googleCredential = auth.GoogleAuthProvider.credential(idToken);

  // Link the user with the credential
  const firebaseUserCredential = await auth().currentUser.linkWithCredential(googleCredential);
  // You can store in your app that the account was linked.
  return;
}