OAuth 2.0 is an authentication protocol that is commonly used by REST services and websites to authorize access to their data. While OAuth 2.0 offers a number of benefits, including the ability to limit the scope of access privileges and support for multiple points of authentication, its primary advantage is that it allows for access delegation without the issuance of passwords. Instead, the protocol relies on the distribution of temporary access tokens to verify that an application is authorized to access data stored on the site.
Although access tokens ultimately grant access privileges to endpoints that use OAuth 2.0 authentication, there are multiple authentication flows that you can use to obtain them. These authentication flows, or grant types, differ based on environment and security needs of the site. Because of this, each grant type requires a different set of credentials and authentication locations to successfully authenticate. The following sections describe some common grant types and their required properties. Note that your authentication flow may differ from the types listed here. If you are unsure of your requirements, contact your system administrator.
