Concepts

Terminology & Concepts

Domain

A domain is the unit that contains user logins, OAuth clients, and other data pertaining to a single customer deployment. For example, demo.authproject.com is a domain, as it has its own user store, settings, applications, and clients.

Subdomain

A subdomain is a DNS entry that sits below another address. For example, demo.authproject.com is a subdomain of authproject.com. Read more about subdomains.

OAuth

OAuth is the underlying technology used to authenticate users to services through Authproject. It is a robust industry standard, utilized by nearly all major websites, and is well understood to be secure and reliable. Auth0 has an excellent explanation of what OAuth is and how it works.

Identity Provider (IdP)

An Identity Provider is the service that holds user identities - that means emails, passwords, and other user details. In this case, Authproject is the identity provider (or, more specifically, the authentication domain you have created in Authproject is the identity provider).

Service Provider

Service Providers are services that communicate with an Identity Provider to authenticate a user. They perform some desirable service for the user, and are generally applications the user may use on a day-to-day basis when interacting with you.

OAuth Client

An OAuth client is a server that users can sign in to with your authentication domain. They are given a client ID and client secret, and provide a redirect URI for once authentication has occurred.