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Forum Discussion
Redirect URI with variable loopback port
Is there any way to register an OAuth2 redirect URI that will support using an unreserved (random) port over loopback/localhost? For desktop applications that might not be installed system-wide (e.g...
I'm afraid I don't have a great solution for you, as OAuth 2 redirect URIs for the Dropbox API are required to be pre-registered exactly. I'll be sure to pass this along as feedback though.
One thing you may be able to do instead is to use one static redirect URI but encode the necessary information in the 'state' parameter, and decode it as necessary after the redirect back to your app, to handle it as necessary:
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#authorizationAlternatively, you could forgo using a redirect URI entirely. With the "code" flow, you can omit redirect_uri and have the user copy and paste the code manually. (Or, for the "token" flow, you can use https://www.dropbox.com/1/oauth2/display_token as the redirect URI and have the user copy and paste the access token.)
Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffI'm afraid I don't have a great solution for you, as OAuth 2 redirect URIs for the Dropbox API are required to be pre-registered exactly. I'll be sure to pass this along as feedback though.
One thing you may be able to do instead is to use one static redirect URI but encode the necessary information in the 'state' parameter, and decode it as necessary after the redirect back to your app, to handle it as necessary:
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#authorization
Alternatively, you could forgo using a redirect URI entirely. With the "code" flow, you can omit redirect_uri and have the user copy and paste the code manually. (Or, for the "token" flow, you can use https://www.dropbox.com/1/oauth2/display_token as the redirect URI and have the user copy and paste the access token.)
Thanks Greg. I considered using a static redirect URI like you suggested, but that would require redirecting to our own website before redirecting to localhost for the real processing. Since we're a desktop app, I'd rather we not be involved, especially since corporate firewalls might be set up to allow access to Dropbox but not our own site.
I've gone with the code flow for now and it's working, but I do hope the localhost URI matching is made more flexible in the future.
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