Nevis Mobile Authentication Client SDK for React Native

The Nevis Mobile Authentication Client SDK for React Native is a plugin which is part of the Nevis Mobile Authentication solution which enables secure, seamless and passwordless authentication by letting users verify their account using their mobile device.

This React Native plugin enables applications to leverage FIDO UAF 1.1 authentication capabilities as implemented in the Nevis Identity Suite, Authentication Cloud or Identity Cloud backend. The SDK can be embedded in React Native applications to provide an implementation of mobile authentication scenarios such as registration, web- and out-of-app authentication, in-app authentication, transaction confirmation and deregistration.

For more details please consult our Documentation Portal.

Getting Started

Requirements

Your development setup has to meet the following prerequisites:

• iOS 12.4 or later
• Xcode 14.x, including Swift 5.7
• Android 6 or later, with API level 23
• Android 10 or later, with API level 29, for the biometric authenticator to work
• Android 11 or later, with API level 30, for the device passcode authenticator to work
• Gradle 7.4 or later
• Android Gradle Plugin com.android.tools.build:gradle 7.4.2 or later
• Kotlin Gradle Plugin org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-gradle-plugin 1.8.21 or later
• React Native 0.72.13

Installation

To add Nevis Mobile Authentication Client SDK to your React Native application read the installation instructions below. Below are the required instructions for Nevis Mobile Authentication SDK to work correctly.

React Native Application dependencies

Add the nevis-mobile-authentication-sdk-react package to your React Native application.

yarn add @nevis-security/[email protected]

Gradle Configuration

Add the following to your android/gradle.properties file:

android.useAndroidX=true
android.enableJetifier=true
android.enableDexingArtifactTransform=false

Repository Configuration

The Nevis Mobile Authentication Client SDK for Android is published as a GitHub package. You have to specify the repository in your android/build.gradle file:

allprojects {
    repositories {
        google()
        mavenCentral()
        maven {
            url "https://maven.pkg.github.com/nevissecurity/nevis-mobile-authentication-sdk-android-package"
            credentials {
                username = < GITHUB_USERNAME >
                password = < GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN >
            }
        }
    }
}

Warning Accessing GitHub packages requires you to have a GitHub account. You must provide a Personal Access Token, as described here.

Dependency Configuration

Declare the Nevis Mobile Authentication Client SDK as a dependency in your android/app/build.gradle file:

dependencies {
    //noinspection GradleDynamicVersion
    debugImplementation 'ch.nevis:nevis-mobile-authentication-sdk-android-debug:3.8.+'
}

Warning The package repository only exposes the debug flavor. To use the release flavor contact us on [email protected].

Dependency Configuration

To integrate Nevis Mobile Authentication Client SDK into your React Native application using CocoaPods, specify it in your Podfile:

pod 'NevisMobileAuthentication', :configurations => ['Release']
pod 'NevisMobileAuthentication-Debug', :configurations => ['Debug']

Bitcode Support

As the native iOS SDK does not provide Bitcode support, the following post install step needs to be added to the Podfile:

post_install do |installer|
  installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
    target.build_configurations.each do |config|
      config.build_settings['ENABLE_BITCODE'] = 'NO' # NMA SDK does not support Bitcode
    end
  end
end

Enable FaceID for iOS

Modify your applications Info.plist file to add a description for the NSFaceIDUsageDescription key in order to use the FaceID authenticator. Ideally, this value should be localised.

<key>NSFaceIDUsageDescription</key>
<string>Enabling Face ID allows you to use the Face Recognition authenticator.</string>

Known Limitations

No Object destructuring support

Object destructuring is currently not supported by the Nevis Mobile Authentication Client SDK for React Native.

The current implementation relies heavily on using this inside functions defined in the API classes.

As consequence, if object destructuring is used to extract a function from any of the API classes, upon the execution of that destructured function, the this context will be different. This results in the Nevis Mobile Authentication Client SDK for React Native showing unexpected behaviour like errors at runtime.

How to circumvent this limitation

You can deal with this for example by invoking method calls the "old-fashioned way".

For example:

Instead of

const { cancelAuthentication } = await handler.listenForOsCredentials();

use

const authenticationListenHandler = await handler.listenForOsCredentials();
...
await authenticationListenHandler.cancelAuthentication();

License

Nevis Mobile Authentication Client SDK for React Native is released under a commercial license. See LICENSE for details.

© 2023 made with ❤ by Nevis