MSC4190: Device management for application services (#4190)

Co-authored-by: Tulir Asokan <[email protected]>

Author: sandhose

proposals/4190-as-device-management.md

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+# MSC4190: Device management for application services
+
+[MSC4326] gives appservices the ability to masquerade devices using the
+`device_id` query parameter on C-S API requests, which eliminates the need to
+maintain individual access tokens for each application service user.
+
+However, application services don't have an endpoint to create devices for their
+users, which means that, in practice, encrypted application services still use
+`/login` with the `m.login.application_service` login type to create devices for
+their users.
+
+Consequently, such application services leave many unused but active access
+tokens for those users.
+
+Furthermore, the `/login` endpoint is no longer available for application services
+to use on servers that have switched to OAuth2 ([MSC3861]).
+
+This MSC proposes a dedicated API endpoint for application services to create
+and delete devices for users, addressing the existing gap to enable encrypted
+application services without `/login`.
+
+## Proposal
+
+This MSC proposes to extend existing endpoints to allow application services to
+create and delete devices for their users without relying on the `/login` and
+`/logout` mechanisms.
+
+As all changes here only apply to application services, guest access is not
+relevant.
+
+### [**`PUT /_matrix/client/v3/devices/{deviceId}`**](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.16/client-server-api/#put_matrixclientv3devicesdeviceid)
+
+This endpoint is updated to allow the creation of a new device for a user, if
+the device ID does not exist. This behavior is only available to application
+services.
+
+This endpoint will use the 201 status code to indicate that a new device was
+created, in addition to the existing 200 status code for existing devices.
+
+The endpoint is rate limited. Servers may want to use login rate limits for
+device creation, although in most cases application services will disable all
+rate limits anyway.
+
+### [**`DELETE /_matrix/client/v3/devices/{deviceId}`**](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.16/client-server-api/#delete_matrixclientv3devicesdeviceid)
+
+This endpoint no longer requires User-Interactive Authentication for application services.
+
+### [**`POST /_matrix/client/v3/delete_devices`**](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.16/client-server-api/#post_matrixclientv3delete_devices)
+
+This endpoint no longer requires User-Interactive Authentication for application services.
+
+### [**`POST /_matrix/client/v3/keys/device_signing/upload`**](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.16/client-server-api/#post_matrixclientv3keysdevice_signingupload)
+
+This endpoint no longer requires User-Interactive Authentication for application services,
+even if cross-signing keys already exist.
+
+This is not technically a part of device management, but appservices will need
+to be able to verify themselves including generating cross-signing keys for
+[MSC4153] and replacing cross-signing keys is necessary in some cases (e.g. if
+the appservice recovery key is misplaced).
+
+[MSC4153]: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/4153
+
+### [**`POST /_matrix/client/v3/login`**](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.16/client-server-api/#post_matrixclientv3login)
+
+Logins with the [`m.login.application_service` type] will return HTTP 400 with a
+new `M_APPSERVICE_LOGIN_UNSUPPORTED` error code if the homeserver has switched
+to OAuth2.
+
+[`m.login.application_service` type]: https://spec.matrix.org/v1.16/client-server-api/#appservice-login
+
+### [**`POST /_matrix/client/v3/register`**](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.16/client-server-api/#post_matrixclientv3register)
+
+Currently, the default behavior for `/register` is to create a new device and
+access token (i.e. login) in addition to creating the user. Similar to `/login`,
+creating an access token is no longer possible on servers that have switched to
+OAuth2. However, creating users via the endpoint is still required, so unlike
+`/login`, `/register` will not be removed entirely.
+
+Therefore, application services on homeservers that have switched to OAuth2
+MUST call the endpoint with `"inhibit_login": true`. Calls without the parameter,
+or with a different value than `true`, will return HTTP 400 with the
+`M_APPSERVICE_LOGIN_UNSUPPORTED` error code.
+
+## Potential issues
+
+The change to `/v3/register` is technically backwards-incompatible, but it will
+break when switching to next-gen auth in any case, so a new endpoint version
+would not be useful.
+
+The endpoint could just stop returning access tokens to avoid breaking existing
+appservices that don't read that field, but an explicit error was chosen to
+avoid silent breakage of appservices that do depend on the field.
+
+The breaking changes to `/login` and `/register` only apply to homeservers which
+have switched to OAuth2. Homeservers MAY have implementation-specific methods of
+opting into the breaking changes before switching to OAuth2 entirely to test
+compatibility.
+
+## Security considerations
+
+This MSC lets application services delete devices and replace cross-signing keys
+without the usual re-authentication requirement. It is considered an acceptable
+risk, as application services have to be registered by the server admin.
+
+## Alternatives
+
+A new set of endpoints dedicated to application services could be added to the
+specification, like `GET|PUT|DELETE /_matrix/client/v3/appservices/{appId}/devices/{deviceId}`.
+
+This would have the advantage of not changing the behavior of existing endpoints.
+
+## Dependencies
+
+In order to use the devices created using this MSC, appservices need to be able
+to use device IDs as a part of identity assertion, as defined by [MSC4326].
+
+## Unstable prefix
+
+`IO.ELEMENT.MSC4190.M_APPSERVICE_LOGIN_UNSUPPORTED` should be used as the
+error code instead of `M_APPSERVICE_LOGIN_UNSUPPORTED`.
+
+[MSC4326]: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/4326
+[MSC3861]: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3861