Push Sender node

The Push Sender node sends push notification messages to a device for multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Availability

Product	Available?
PingOne Advanced Identity Cloud	Yes
PingAM (self-managed)	Yes
Ping Identity Platform (self-managed)	Yes

Product

Available?

PingOne Advanced Identity Cloud

Yes

PingAM (self-managed)

Yes

Ping Identity Platform (self-managed)

Yes

Authenticators

The push-related nodes integrate with the ForgeRock Authenticator app for Android and iOS.

Third-party authenticator apps aren’t compatible with the push notification functionality.

Inputs

This node requires the realm and username properties in the incoming node state.

Implement a Username Collector node (standalone AM) or Platform Username node (Advanced Identity Cloud and Ping Identity Platform deployments) earlier in the journey.
This node can read the device location from the incoming node state if it exists.

The device location only exists when a Device Profile Collector node is implemented earlier in the journey with the Collect Device Location option selected.

Dependencies

You must configure the Push Notification service for the realm to use this node. Optionally, also configure the ForgeRock Authenticator (Push) service.

Find more information in the corresponding documentation for:

Find information on provisioning the credentials used by the service in How To Configure Service Credentials (Push Auth, Docker) in Backstage.

Configuration

Property Usage

Message Timeout

The number of milliseconds that the push notification message remains valid. The Push Result Verifier node rejects responses to push messages that have timed out.

Default: 120000

User Message

(Optional) Add a custom, localized message to send to the user. You can use the following variables in the Value field:

{{user}}: This variable is replaced with the username value obtained from the shared state, for example, bjensen.
{{issuer}}: This variable is replaced with the issuer value read from the device profile metadata, which is stored in the pushDeviceProfiles attribute by default.

Add instructions

Click .
In the Key field, enter the locale. For example, en-gb.⁽¹⁾
In the Value field, enter the message.
Click Done.
Repeat to add more messages and save your changes when you’re done.

Leave blank to use the default message.⁽²⁾

Default: Login attempt from {{user}} at {{issuer}}

Remove 'skip' option

Select this option to make push authentication mandatory. The Skipped outcome is not available when this option is selected.

When disabled, the user can skip push authentication if required.

Share Context Info

Select this option to include context data such as remoteIp, userAgent, and location in the notification payload.

Context data example:

{
  "location": {
    "latitude": 51.454514,
    "longitude": -2.587910
  },
  "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/137.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
  "remoteIp": "9.9.9.9"
}

The ForgeRock Authenticator app displays this additional information to the user to help them verify that the request is genuine and initiated by them. For example:

To include the location attribute, the journey must include a Device Profile Collector node with the Collect Device Location option selected.

Custom Payload Attributes

(Optional) Enter the names of the shared state objects to include in the message payload sent to the client. Enter each name separately and press Enter to add it. The size of the payload mustn’t exceed 3 Kb.

Push Type

Select the type of push authentication the user must perform on their device to continue the journey.

Possible values are:

Tap to Accept (default)

The user must tap Accept on their device to verify the request, or tap Reject.

Tap to Accept request

Research shows that users might accept a push authentication without checking it’s legitimate. To reduce the chances of a user accepting a malicious push authentication attempt, consider using Display Challenge Code or Use Biometrics to Accept instead.

Display Challenge Code

The user must select one of three numbers displayed on their device. The number they select must match the code displayed in the browser to verify the request.

Display Challenge Code request

Use Biometrics to Accept

The user must tap Accept on their device and then authenticate using biometrics to verify the request.

Use Biometrics to Accept request

Capture failure

Select this option to store the failure reason in the PushAuthFailureReason shared state attribute when the node fails to send the push notification. The Failure outcome is only available when this option is selected.

⁽¹⁾ Specify a locale that Java supports, such as en-gb. Otherwise, the node throws a configuration exception with an Invalid locale provided message.

⁽²⁾ PingAM only: Learn more about customizing and translating default messages in Internationalize nodes.

Outputs

The node adds a unique ID to identify the push notification request to the pushMessageId shared state attribute.
If the outcome is Not Registered, this node sets "mfaMethod": "push" in the shared state.
If the node fails to send the push notification and Capture failure is enabled, the node adds the failure reason to a property named PushAuthFailureReason in the shared state. Other nodes can read this property later in the journey, if required.

Possible failure reasons are:
- MISSING_USERNAME
- SENDER_ALREADY_USED
- CTS_ERROR
- TRANSMISSION_FAILURE

Outcomes

Sent: The push notification was sent successfully to the device.
Not Registered: The user doesn’t have a registered device.
Skipped: The user chooses to skip push authentication.
Failure: An error occurred during node execution.

Errors

The node can log the following errors:

Failed to fetch identity

The node can’t identify the user from the shared state.
Payload data exceed maximum accepted size

The size of the message payload exceeds 3 Kb. Review any custom attributes you’ve included.

Examples

The following example shows one possible implementation of multi-factor push authentication, which uses this node:

Node connections

List of node connections
Source node	Outcome path	Target node
Page Node containing nodes to collect credentials. For standalone AM deployments, implement a Username Collector node and a Password Collector node. For Advanced Identity Cloud and Ping Identity Platform deployments, implement a Platform Username node and a Platform Password node.	→	Data Store Decision
Data Store Decision	True	Device Profile Collector
Data Store Decision	False	Failure
Device Profile Collector	→	Push Sender
Push Sender	Sent	Push Wait
	Not Registered	MFA Registration Options
	Skipped	Success
Push Wait	Done	Push Result Verifier
Push Wait	Exit	Recovery Code Collector Decision
Push Result Verifier	Success	Success
	Failure	Failure
	Expired	Push Sender
	Waiting	Push Wait
MFA Registration Options	Register	Push Registration
	Get App	Get Authenticator App
	Skip	Success
	Opt-out	Opt-out Multi-Factor Authentication
Recovery Code Collector Decision	True	Success
Recovery Code Collector Decision	False	Retry Limit Decision
Push Registration	Success	Recovery Code Display Node
	Failure	Failure
	Time Out	MFA Registration Options
Get Authenticator App	→	MFA Registration Options
Opt-out Multi-Factor Authentication	→	Success
Retry Limit Decision	Retry	Recovery Code Collector Decision
Retry Limit Decision	Reject	Failure
Recovery Code Display Node	→	Push Sender

After verifying the user’s credentials, evaluation continues to the Device Profile Collector node to collect the device’s location and then proceeds to the Push Sender node.

If the user has a registered device:

The Push Sender node sends a push notification to their registered device.
The Push Wait node pauses authentication for five seconds. During this time, the user can respond to the push notification on their device using the ForgeRock Authenticator app.

If the user exits the Push Wait node, they’re directed to the Recovery Code Collector Decision node, where they can enter a recovery code to authenticate.

Configure the Exit Message property in the Push Wait node with a message, such as Lost phone? Use a recovery code for situations like this.

A Retry Limit Decision node allows three attempts to enter a recovery code before failing the authentication.
The Push Result Verifier node verifies the user’s response:
- If the user responds positively, they’re authenticated successfully and logged in.
- If the user responds negatively, authentication fails.
- If the push notification expires, the Push Sender node sends a new push notification.
  
  Use a Retry Limit Decision node to constrain the number of times a new code is sent.
- If the user hasn’t yet responded, the flow loops back a step and the Push Wait node pauses authentication for another 5 seconds.

If the user doesn’t have a registered device:

The MFA Registration Options node presents the user with the following options:

Register Device

The flow continues to the Push Registration node, which displays a QR code for the user to scan with their authenticator app.

Get the App

Displayed only if the node is configured to display Get Authenticator App. The flow continues to the Get Authenticator App node, which displays links to download the authenticator app.

Skip this step

Displayed only if the node is configured to allow users to skip registration. In this example, skipping is linked to the Success outcome. However, you could provide an alternative authentication flow using an Inner Tree Evaluator node for example.

Opt-out

Displayed only if the node is configured to allow users to skip registration. Evaluation continues to the Opt-out Multi-Factor Authentication node, which updates the user’s profile to skip MFA with push in the future. In this example, after updating the profile, the flow continues to the Success outcome.
The user registers the device with the Push Registration node.

After registration, the Recovery Code Display node displays the recovery codes to the user and the flow returns to the Push Sender node to continue push authentication.

To manage push devices, the user must log in using either the device or a recovery code.

Find more information in the MFA documentation for: