laravel/passport v8.5.0

Laravel Passport is a popular package for Laravel (found at https://github.com/laravel/passport.git) that provides support for creating an OAuth2 server. OAuth2, standing for Open Authorization version 2, is an industry-standard protocol that allows for the authorization of a third-party application to provide a service on behalf of a user. In short, Laravel Passport makes handling API authentication in your Laravel applications simple and straightforward, promoting efficient and enjoyable development.

Using Laravel Passport involves adding the package to your Laravel project and configuring it for use.

Firstly, you need to include Laravel Passport through composer:

composer require laravel/passport

After successfully pulling in the package, migrate your database:

php artisan migrate

Next, you'll want to include Passport's service provider in your app/Providers/AuthServiceProvider.php file's boot method:

public function boot()
{
    $this->registerPolicies();

    Passport::routes();
}

Once you've registered the routes, you should run passport:install command:

php artisan passport:install

This will generate encryption keys required for generating secure access tokens. In addition, this command will create “personal access” and “password grant” clients which will be used for generating JWT tokens.

After this setup, you will be able to use OAuth2 authentication to protect endpoints in your Laravel application.

For more comprehensive instructions and usage details, the official Laravel Passport documentation can be viewed at the Laravel website. The direct link to the Laravel Passport documentation is: https://laravel.com/docs/passport. The documentation provides a complete guide to getting started and effectively using the Laravel Passport package, including a deep dive into more advanced topics such as issuing tokens, revoking tokens, and configuring middleware.