JWT (JSON Web Token) in PHP without using 3rd-party library. How to sign?

Question

There are a few libraries for implementing JSON Web Tokens (JWT) in PHP, such as php-jwt. I am writing my own, very small and simple class but cannot figure out why my signature fails validation here even though I've tried to stick to the standard. I've been trying for hours and I'm stuck. Please help!

My code is simple

//build the headers
$headers = ['alg'=>'HS256','typ'=>'JWT'];
$headers_encoded = base64url_encode(json_encode($headers));

//build the payload
$payload = ['sub'=>'1234567890','name'=>'John Doe', 'admin'=>true];
$payload_encoded = base64url_encode(json_encode($payload));

//build the signature
$key = 'secret';
$signature = hash_hmac('SHA256',"$headers_encoded.$payload_encoded",$key);

//build and return the token
$token = "$headers_encoded.$payload_encoded.$signature";
echo $token;

The base64url_encode function:

function base64url_encode($data) {
    return rtrim(strtr(base64_encode($data), '+/', '-_'), '=');
}

My headers and payload perfectly match the validation site's default JWT, but my signature doesn't match so my token is flagged as invalid. This standard seems really straightforward so what's wrong with my signature?

Answer 1

I solved it! I did not realize that the signature itself needs to be base64 encoded. In addition, I needed to set the last optional parameter of the hash_hmac function to $raw_output=true (see the docs. In short I needed to change my code from the original:

//build the signature
$key = 'secret';
$signature = hash_hmac('sha256',"$headers_encoded.$payload_encoded",$key);

//build and return the token
$token = "$headers_encoded.$payload_encoded.$signature";

To the corrected:

//build the signature
$key = 'secret';
$signature = hash_hmac('sha256',"$headers_encoded.$payload_encoded",$key,true);
$signature_encoded = base64url_encode($signature);

//build and return the token
$token = "$headers_encoded.$payload_encoded.$signature_encoded";
echo $token;