Callback API (WebHooks)

External systems that integrate with the PowerAuth Cloud components can obtain status about registration and operation change by polling the appropriate API resources. However, this may either put unnecessary performance burden on our systems when the polling is too frequent, or provide sub-optimal user experience when the polling is occasional.

To provide an instant notification about changes in our systems, PowerAuth Cloud can notify your systems via a callback (sometimes called “webhooks”) whenever registration or operation changes.

Callback Authentication

Callbacks support two authentication methods:

• HTTP Basic Authentication - Authentication using username and password.
• Certificate Authentication (mTLS) - Authentication using a client certificate with a custom keystore and truststore (i.e., JKS).

Callback Types

There are two callback types:

• Operation Callbacks - Called whenever operation status changes.
• Registration Callbacks - Called whenever registration status changes.

The callback type is distinguished by the type discriminator value in the root of the JSON payload, which is either set to the OPERATION value (for operation callbacks) or ACTIVATION value (for registration callbacks).

Operation Callbacks

{
  "type": "OPERATION",
  "operationId": "$OPERATION_ID",
  "userId": "$USER_ID",
  "applications": "[$APPLICATION_ID1, ... , $APPLICATION_ID1]",
  "operationType": "$OPERATION_TYPE",
  "parameters": {
    "key1": "$VAL1",
    "key2": "$VAL2"
  },
  "additionalData": {
    "activationId": "$ACTIVATION_ID",
    "ipAddress": "172.168.240.48",
    "userAgent": "PowerAuthNetworking/1.3.0 (en; wifi) com.wultra.app.MobileToken/2.0.0 (Apple; iOS/17.3.1; iphone16,1)",
    "device": {
      "networkVersion": "1.3.0",
      "language": "en",
      "connection": "wifi",
      "product": "com.wultra.app.MobileToken",
      "version": "2.0.0",
      "platform": "Apple",
      "os": "iOS",
      "osVersion": "17.3.1",
      "model": "iphone16,1"
    }
  },
  "activationFlag": "MTOKEN",
  "status": "$STATUS",
  "data": "$OPERATION_DATA",
  "failureCount": 0,
  "maxFailureCount": 5,
  "signatureType": "$SIGNATURE_TYPE",
  "externalId": "$EXTERNAL_ID",
  "timestampCreated": "$TIMESTAMP_CREATED",
  "timestampExpires": "$TIMESTAMP_EXPIRES",
  "timestampFinalized": "$TIMESTAMP_FINALIZED"
}

Registration Callbacks

{
  "type": "ACTIVATION",
  "activationId": "$ACTIVATION_ID",
  "userId": "$USER_ID",
  "activationName": "$ACTIVATION_NAME",
  "deviceInfo": "$DEVICE_INFO",
  "platform": "$PLATFORM",
  "protocol": "$PROTOCOL",
  "activationFlags": [
    "$ACTIVATION_FLAGS"
  ],  
  "activationStatus": "$ACTIVATION_STATUS",
  "blockedReason": "$BLOCKED_REASON",
  "applicationId": "$APPLICATION_ID"
}

Callbacks Configuration

Since 1.7.0 the callbacks can be configured via Admin API. The callback using mTLS authentication can be currently configured only in a database.

Database callbacks configuration is stored in table pa_application_callback. Example of operation callback with multiple attributes and enabled basic HTTP authorization.

INSERT INTO pa_application_callback (id, 
    application_id, 
    name, 
    type, 
    authentication, 
    callback_url,
    attributes)
VALUES (uuid_generate_v4(), 
    1, 
    'operation-callback', 
    'OPERATION_STATUS_CHANGE', 
    '{
      "certificate" : null,
      "httpBasic" : {
        "enabled": true,
        "username": "basic_http_username",
        "password": "basic_http_password"
      }
    }',
    'http://localhost:8080/your_app/operation/status/update', 
    '[ "userId", "applications", "operationType", 
    "parameters", "additionalData", "activationFlag", "status", 
    "data", "failureCount", "maxFailureCount", "signatureType", 
    "externalId", "timestampCreated", "timestampExpires", "timestampFinalized"]');