how do i use JWT auth with `optional=true` ? in m...

# ktor

[Nikky]

how do i use JWT auth with optional=true ? in my code when the token verification fails it always responds with 401, even when set up like so

authenticate("auth-jwt", optional = true) {

any tricks that i can do to evad whats in JWTUtils.kt#verifyAndValidate at lines 96-99 ?

from how i read the documentation a failed auth should lead to a principal being null.. but in this case it never hits my code and always just jumps to the challenge...

PS: diging into the code.. seems like AuthenticationFailedCause.InvalidCredentials is still responded with a 401
and token verification failure, eg. expired token or signing key differs or such.. will trigger that
i'd prefer to treat it as if it was a AuthenticationFailedCause.NoCredentials

for now i copied the JWTAuthenticationProvider and all the internal classes it uses.. just to change one line...

[Aleksei Tirman [JB]]

The KDoc for the optional parameter says:

optional when set, if no authentication is provided by the client, a call continues but with a null [Principal].

So if an authentication is provided by the client then it will verify a token.
Am I right that you want to receive a null principal when authentication fails or when no authentication is provided by a client?

[Nikky]

another way i found that works too
in authHeader block i manually extract blob out of the header and run verifier on it.. if it throws exception i return null
acts the same as if nothing was passed in..