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Integrate authentication into Flutter Web

This guide shows how to create a simple Flutter application and secure it with authentication powered by Ory. You can use this guide with both The Ory Network and self-hosted Ory software.

This guide is perfect for you if:

  1. You have Flutter installed.
  2. You want to build an app using Flutter.
  3. You want to give access to your application to signed-in users only.

Before you start, watch this video to see the user flow you're going to implement:

info

You can find the code of the sample application here.

Create Flutter Web app​

Run this command to create a basic Flutter application:

flutter create myapp
cd myapp

Add dio and flutter dotenv to your pubspec.yaml file.

We use dio for HTTP request and flutter dotenv for environment variable management.

name: flutter_web_redirect
description: A Flutter Web App integrated with Ory.

publish_to: "none"

version: 1.0.0+1

environment:
  sdk: ">=2.15.1 <3.0.0"
dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter
  cupertino_icons: ^1.0.2
  dio: ^4.0.4
  flutter_dotenv: ^5.0.2
  pretty_json: 2.0.0

dev_dependencies:
  flutter_test:
    sdk: flutter
  flutter_lints: ^1.0.0

flutter:
  uses-material-design: true
  # Load our env file from the root directory
  assets:
    - env

Install Ory CLI​

Follow this guide to install the Ory CLI on your machine.

Why do I Need the Ory CLI?​

Ory CLI provides a convenient way to configure and manage projects. Additionally, the CLI contains Ory Proxy - a reverse proxy that rewrites cookies to match the domain your application is currently on.

Ory Proxy is a reverse proxy deployed in front of your application. The Proxy mirrors Ory endpoints on the same domain as the application you're running and rewrites cookies to match the domain your application is currently on.

As a result, the origin of the cookies is set correctly to the domain you run the app on instead of 

<your-project-slug>.projects.oryapis.com

This behavior is necessary to avoid issues with the browser CORS policy.

By using the Proxy, you can easily connect the application you're developing locally to The Ory Network and consume the APIs without the hassle of additional configuration and without the need to self-host any of the Ory Components.

Ory Proxy mirrors Ory's APIs

tip

To learn more about the Ory Proxy, read the dedicated section of the Ory CLI documentation.

Create the authentication service​

Next, create an Authentication service in the lib/services directory. This service will be used to query the Ory APIs for session information.

touch lib/services/auth.dart
// Copyright © 2022 Ory Corp
// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

import 'dart:convert';

import 'package:dio/dio.dart';

class AuthService {
  final Dio _dio;
  Map<String, dynamic> _identity = {};

  AuthService(this._dio);

  Future<bool> isAuthenticated() async {
    return _dio.get('/sessions/whoami').then((value) {
      if (value.statusCode == 200) {
        _identity = value.data;
        return true;
      }
      return false;
    });
  }

  get identity => _identity;
}

Add environment variables​

Create a .env file in the root of the project to hold the ORY_BASE_URL variable. The value of the variable is the Ory proxy URL, for example http://localhost:3005/.ory.

touch .env
ORY_BASE_URL=http://localhost:3005

Update lib/main.dart​

Finally, update the lib/main.dart file to check for a session cookie on the initial load of the application. If the cookie is found, the user can access the application. If the cookie isn't found, the user is redirected to the login page.

// Copyright © 2022 Ory Corp
// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

import 'dart:html';
import 'package:dio/adapter_browser.dart';
import 'package:dio/browser_imp.dart';
import 'package:dio/dio.dart';
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:flutter_dotenv/flutter_dotenv.dart';
import 'package:flutter_web_redirect/services/auth.dart';
import 'package:pretty_json/pretty_json.dart';

Future main() async {
  // load the env file
  await dotenv.load(fileName: "env");

  final baseUrl = dotenv.get("ORY_BASE_URL").toString();

  // create the dio client for http requests
  final options = BaseOptions(
    baseUrl: baseUrl,
    connectTimeout: 10000,
    receiveTimeout: 5000,
    headers: {
      "Accept": "application/json",
    },
    validateStatus: (status) {
      // here we prevent the request from throwing an error when the status code is less than 500 (internal server error)
      return status! < 500;
    },
  );
  final dio = DioForBrowser(options);
  final adapter = BrowserHttpClientAdapter();
  // enable cookies support
  // we need this so we can send HTTP requests to the server with the cookies stored in the browser
  adapter.withCredentials = true;
  dio.httpClientAdapter = adapter;

  final auth = AuthService(dio);

  if (!(await auth.isAuthenticated())) {
    _launchURL(baseUrl);
    return;
  }

  runApp(MyApp(dio, auth));
}

void _launchURL(String url) async {
  window.open(url+'/self-service/login/browser', '_self');
}

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  final Dio dio;
  final AuthService auth;

  MyApp(this.dio, this.auth);

  // This widget is the root of your application.
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      title: 'Flutter Demo',
      theme: ThemeData(
        primarySwatch: Colors.blue,
      ),
      home: MyHomePage(title: 'Ory ❤ Flutter Web', auth: auth),
    );
  }
}

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {
  MyHomePage({Key? key, required this.title, required this.auth}) : super(key: key);

  // This widget is the home page of your application. It is stateful, meaning
  // that it has a State object (defined below) that contains fields that affect
  // how it looks.

  // This class is the configuration for the state. It holds the values (in this
  // case the title) provided by the parent (in this case the App widget) and
  // used by the build method of the State. Fields in a Widget subclass are
  // always marked "final".

  final String title;

  final AuthService auth;

  @override
  State<MyHomePage> createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}

class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    // The Flutter framework has been optimized to make rerunning build methods
    // fast, so that you can just rebuild anything that needs updating rather
    // than having to individually change instances of widgets.
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        // Here we take the value from the MyHomePage object that was created by
        // the App.build method, and use it to set our appbar title.
        title: Text(widget.title),
      ),
      body: Center(
        // Center is a layout widget. It takes a single child and positions it
        // in the middle of the parent.
        child: Column(
          // Column is also a layout widget. It takes a list of children and
          // arranges them vertically. By default, it sizes itself to fit its
          // children horizontally, and tries to be as tall as its parent.
          //
          // Invoke "debug painting" (press "p" in the console, choose the
          // "Toggle Debug Paint" action from the Flutter Inspector in Android
          // Studio, or the "Toggle Debug Paint" command in Visual Studio Code)
          // to see the wireframe for each widget.
          //
          // Column has various properties to control how it sizes itself and
          // how it positions its children. Here we use mainAxisAlignment to
          // center the children vertically; the main axis here is the vertical
          // axis because Columns are vertical (the cross axis would be
          // horizontal).
          mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
          children: <Widget>[
            Text('Session Information:${prettyJson(widget.auth.identity)}'),
          ],
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

Test you application​

Run the following steps to get your application running:

  1. Start your flutter web server
flutter run -d web-server --web-port 4005
  1. Export the SDK configuration URL for the desired Ory project. You can use the provided playground project for testing, or export the SDK URL of your own project.
info

To get your project's SDK URL, sign in at console.ory.sh, select Connect from the left navigation panel, and copy the URL from the SDK Configuration section.

# This is a public Ory Network Project.
# Don’t submit any personally identifiable information in requests made with this project.
# Sign up to Ory Network at
#
#   https://console.ory.sh/registration
#
# and create a free Ory Network Project to see your own configuration embedded in code samples.
export ORY_SDK_URL=https://{your-project-slug-here}.projects.oryapis.com
  1. Run the Ory proxy to mirror the Ory API endpoints on your application's domain (localhost):
ory proxy --port 3005 http://localhost:4005
  1. Open http://localhost:3005 to access the application. As the initial call is made by an unauthenticated user, the session check doesn't detect a valid session and redirects to the login page of the defined Ory project.

    From there, you can create a new account or sign in using an existing identity. When you sign in, the session becomes valid and the application shows the Home page with the session data.

Go to production​

Going to production with your app is possible in many ways. Whether you deploy it on Kubernetes, AWS, a VM, or a RaspberryPi is up to you. To get your app working with Ory, your app and Ory must be available under the same common domain (e.g. https://ory.example.com and https://www.example.com).

The easiest way to connect Ory to your domain is to connect Ory to a subdomain of yours. You can do this easily by adding a Custom Domain to your project.

With the custom domain set up, you do not need the Ory Proxy anymore and will use the configured custom domain in your SDK calls:

Release build​

With the flutter cli we can build a release version of our App by running the command below:

flutter build web

We then need an HTTP server to serve the files, we will use dhttpd.

dhttpd --host localhost --port 4005 --path build/web
tip

Follow this link to learn more about Flutter Web applications in production.