signed_request

A simple 25-line gem for signing/verifying an HTTP request that has gone over the wire.

The sender and receiver must share the same secret key between them.

This gem should be used in conjunction with SSL certificates to defend against replay attacks.

Any key can be used to sign the request -- choosing a secure key is the choice of the user of this library.

Signing a request

require 'signed_request'

def send_over_the_wire
key = 'mykey'  # insecure, use something else :)
params = { 'param1' => 'foo',
           'param2' => 'bar' }
signature = SignedRequest.sign(params, key)

params['signature'] = signature

# post it to the receiver.
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new('/secret/url')
req.form_data = params
http = Net::HTTP.new('mydomain.com', 443)
http.use_ssl = true
response = http.start do |session|
  session.request(req)
end

# do something w/ response
end

Verifying a signed request

require 'signed_request'

class SecretController < ApplicationController
def verify_request
  key = 'mykey'
  
  if SignedRequest.verified(params, key)
    # we are good
  else
    abort "get the hell out of here!"
  end
end
end

signed_request

Signing a request

Verifying a signed request

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