Migrating other application logic

Deploying a new authentication service is not always limited to just changing login and signup logic. If your backend logs auth-related events or has a pre-existing RBAC implementation, you may need to refactor this logic to point to Stytch’s APIs.

There are two ways to migrate over SSO connections from your existing auth system to Stytch:

This option is only available for SAML IdPs that are currently configured with redirect URLs to your domain.

You will need to create a SAML SSO connection in Stytch for each existing SSO connection you plan to migrate - use the alternative_audience_uri parameter to pass Stytch the existing Audience. You can then forward requests from the URLs you already have set up to the relevant Stytch Connection ACS URL we provide:

Below is an example of how you can set up a simple redirect service to redirect requests from the originally configured redirect URL to Stytch, thus preserving your customers' IdP setups while migrating the SAML response processing to Stytch:

const getStytchConnectionId = async (oldIdentifier) => {
// Function to get Stytch connection_id by old identifier from your database, where you'd keep a mapping
};

app.get('/old-sso/:identifier', async (req, res) => {
  const { identifier } = req.params;

  try {
    const connectionId = await getStytchConnectionId(identifier);

    // Redirect to Stytch's SSO callback URL with the connection_id
    const stytchCallbackUrl = `https://api.stytch.com/v1/b2b/sso/callback/${connectionId}`;
    
    //This can be a 307 or a 303 redirect
    return res.redirect(307, stytchCallbackUrl);
  } catch (error) {
    return res.status(500).send('Internal server error');
  }
});

For this option, you will need to change the SSO settings in your customer's IDPs to point to Stytch's ACS URLs directly. Follow these SSO guides for more information on how to set up SSO.

If your legacy auth provider requires you to set up log streams or webhooks for event visibility, here are a few examples of how to move that logic to Stytch.

With Stytch, there are multiple ways to gain access to authentication-related logs.

You can enroll in webhooks through the Stytch Dashboard by specifying URL(s) at which you wish to receive the webhook POST requests and the type of events you wish to receive.

Check out our webhooks guide to learn how to keep your internal database records in sync with any changes that occur in Stytch's B2B SaaS API.

// Example organization create via dashboard (dashboard.organization.create)
{
    "project_id": "project-live-123-...",
    "event_id": "event-live-123-...",
    "action": "CREATE",
    "object_type": "organization",
    "source": "DASHBOARD",
    "id": "organization-live-123-...",
    "timestamp": "2024-03-07T18:49:32.760777783Z",
    "organization": { ... }
}

// Example update member event via SCIM (scim.member.update)
{
    "project_id": "project-live-123-...",
    "event_id": "event-live-456-...",
    "action": "UPDATE",
    "object_type": "member",
    "source": "SCIM",
    "id": "member-live-123-...",
    "timestamp": "2024-03-07T18:49:32.760777783Z",
    "member": { ... }
}

// Example delete SAML connection event via JS SDK or API (direct.saml_connection.delete)
{
    "project_id": "project-live-123-...",
    "event_id": "event-live-789-...",
    "action": "DELETE",
    "object_type": "saml_connection",
    "source": "DIRECT",
    "timestamp": "2024-03-07T18:49:32.760777783Z",
    "id": "saml-connection-live-123-..."
}

Frontend SDK example, using Email Magic Links with JavaScript:

const onSubmit: FormEventHandler = async (e) => {
    if (isValidEmail(email)) {
      const resp = await stytchB2BClient.magicLinks.email.send({
          email_address: 'sandbox@stytch.com',
          organization_id: 'organization-test-07971b06-ac8b-4cdb-9c15-63b17e653931',
      });
    };

      // Send the response of the call to your logging tool
      // This includes the user info and response code

      if (resp.status === 200) {
        Bugsnag.notify(resp);
        setEMLSent(STATUS.SENT);
      } else {
        Bugsnag.notify(e);
        setEMLSent(STATUS.ERROR);
      }
  };

Backend SDK/API example, using Python:

@app.route("/login_user", methods=["POST"])
  def login_user() -> str:
      resp = stytch_b2b_client.magic_links.email.send(
          email=request.form["email"],
          login_magic_link_url=MAGIC_LINK_URL,
          signup_magic_link_url=MAGIC_LINK_URL,
          organization_id=org_id
      )
      # Send the response of the call to your logging tool
      # This includes the user info and response code

      if resp.status_code == 200:
        bugsnag.notify(resp)
      
      if resp.status_code != 200:
          bugsnag.notify(resp)
          print(resp)
          return "something went wrong sending magic link"

      return render_template("emailSent.html")

Our Dashboard has Event Logs that aggregates and displays logs that are queryable for you to debug your authentication flows.

If your application has an authorization system that resembles role-based access control (RBAC), you can transfer roles and permissions over to Stytch's RBAC framework.

Refer to our RBAC guides for more information and instructions on how to create roles, resources, and permissions, and how to programmatically assign roles to Members.

If you run any automated or pre-production testing that includes authentication, here are a few best practices to move that to Stytch:

• If you have multiple pre-production environments that need their own user bases, you should create multiple Stytch projects and have each set of test keys map to each environment.

• We recommend creating test users and organizations that can be used for any authentication testing and QA flows.

Our trusted_metadata supports nested JSON and can be used to migrate and store any additional user data.

We recommend keeping this data limited to information that is required in the context of authentication; for example, internal identifiers, profile information, and other claims.

Keeping identifiers consistent: If you have analytics or other internal processes that key off of your internal user ID reference, and would like these IDs to stay consistent, we recommend adding your internal user ID as trusted_metadata. Your backend should then default to reading ID from this value, but fall back to the Stytch member_id if it does not exist. Stytch does not currently support seeding user GUIDs.

Stytch manages the email and phone verification status of users. When a Member is created in Stytch, the value of email_address_verified will be false until the user completes their first login that verifies ownership of that account (e.g., an Email Magic Link or OAuth login). The value of mfa_phone_number_verified will be false until the member completes a successful SMS authenticate flow.

The one exception is our Passwords Migrate endpoint, which will mark the Member's email as verified.

See our Docs for password strength configuration here.

The default password strength policy is zxcvbn, but Stytch offers configuration of this policy via the Dashboard.

For those migrating users with passwords, our recommendations are to:

1. Turn off breach and strength checks on authentication, so that migrated users aren’t subject to any changes in password strength requirements unless they ever voluntarily reset their password. This can be done in the Stytch Dashboard.
2. You may configure your strength requirements to match your current requirements, but we advise all customers to adopt our strongest policy, zxcvbn, in order to improve your security posture. You may have this new policy only apply to new users and existing users who are resetting their password via step 1.