Connecting to Box

Use the OAuth authentication standard to connect to Box. You can authenticate with a user account or with a service account. A service account is required to grant organization-wide access scopes to the connector. The connector facilitates these authentication flows as described below.

User Accounts (OAuth)

AuthScheme must be set to OAuth in all user account flows.

Desktop Applications

CData provides an embedded OAuth application that simplifies OAuth desktop Authentication. Alternatively, you can create a custom OAuth application. See Create a Custom OAuth App for information about creating custom applications and reasons for doing so.

Get and Refresh the OAuth Access Token

After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId (custom applications only): Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your app.
• OAuthClientSecret (custom applications only): Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your app.
• CallbackURL (custom application only): Set this to the redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: http://localhost:33333

When you connect, the connector opens Box's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. The connector then completes the OAuth process:

1. The connector obtains an access token from Box and uses it to request data.
2. The OAuth values are saved in the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation, to be persisted across connections.

The connector refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.

Authenticate with a Service Account

Set the AuthScheme to OAuthJWT to authenticate with this method.

Service accounts have silent authentication, without user authentication in the browser. You can also use a service account to delegate enterprise-wide access scopes to the connector.

You need to create an OAuth application in this flow. See Create a Custom OAuth App to create and authorize an app. You can then connect to Box data that the service account has permission to access.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• InitiateOAuth: Set to GETANDREFRESH.
• OAuthClientId: Set to the Client Id in your app settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set to the Client Secret in your app settings.
• OAuthJWTCertType: Set to "PEMKEY_FILE".
• OAuthJWTCert: Set to the path to the .pem file you generated.
• OAuthJWTCertPassword: Set to the password of the .pem file.
• OAuthJWTCertSubject: Set to "*" to pick the first certificate in the certificate store.
• OAuthJWTSubjectType: Set to "enterprise" or "user" depending on the Application Access Value you selected in your app settings. The default value of this connection property is "enterprise".
• OAuthJWTSubject: Set to your enterprise Id if your subject type is set to "enterprise" or your app user Id if your subject type is set to "user".
• OAuthJWTPublicKeyId: Set to the Id of your public key in your app settings.

When you connect the connector completes the OAuth flow for a service account.

1. Creates and signs the JWT with the claim set required by the connector.
2. Exchanges the JWT for the access token.
3. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.
4. Submits the JWT for a new access token when the token expires.