Skip to main content

Security & Token Model

Understanding Fishjam's security architecture and token system

Fishjam uses a token-based security model to ensure secure access control while keeping the developer experience simple.

Security Architecture Overview​

Fishjam's security is built on a two-tier token system:

  1. Management Tokens: For backend-to-Fishjam server communication
  2. Peer Tokens: For client-to-Fishjam server communication

This separation ensures that sensitive operations remain on your backend while allowing clients secure, limited access to media streaming.

Management Tokens​

Purpose​

Management tokens provide your backend server with administrative access to Fishjam resources. They allow creating, managing, and deleting rooms and peers.

Characteristics​

  • Long-lived: Management tokens remain valid until manually regenerated
  • High privilege: Management tokens allow performing administrative operations and should only be used in backend applications.
  • Backend-only: Management tokens should never be sent to client applications.
  • Environment-specific: There are different tokens for sandbox and production.

What Management Tokens Can Do​

Management tokens give permission to:

Peer Tokens​

Purpose​

Peer tokens provide client applications with limited, time-bound access to join a specific room as a specific peer.

Characteristics​

  • Short-lived: Peer tokens expire 24h after creation.
  • Scope-limited: Peer tokens give access to one specific room as one specific peer only.
  • Client-safe: Peer tokens are safe to send to frontend applications.

What Peer Tokens Can Do​

Peer tokens give permission to:

  • Connect to the specific room they were issued for
  • Participate in room activities (audio/video/screen sharing)
  • Access peer metadata and room state

What Peer Tokens Cannot Do​

  • Create or delete rooms
  • Access multiple rooms
  • Add or remove peers

Generation Process​

// Backend generates peer token (using management token)
const { peer, peerToken } = await fishjamClient.createPeer(roomId, {
  metadata: { name: "John Doe", userId: "user-123" },
});

// Backend sends peer token to client
res.json({
  peerToken, // Client uses this to connect
  fishjamUrl, // Fishjam server URL
  roomId, // Room information
});

Client Usage​

// Client uses peer token to connect (safe to use in frontend)
await joinRoom({
  url: fishjamUrl,
  peerToken: peerToken, // This is safe in client code
});

Next Steps​

To implement secure authentication:

To understand the broader architecture:

To learn about Room Manager's security limitations: