CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javajavascriptrecaptcha
curious1
curious1

Reputation: 14717

Google reCAPTCHA: How to get user response and validate in the server side?

I am doing a Java (JSP + Servlet) web application (I understand that this question is technology-independent). I hope to use the latest Google reCAPTCHA service.

I am playing with a Google reCAPTCHA example found here:

https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/display#config

<html>
  <head>
    <title>reCAPTCHA demo: Simple page</title>
     <script src="https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api.js" async defer></script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <form action="?" method="POST">
      <div class="g-recaptcha" data-sitekey="my_site_key"></div>
      <br/>
      <input type="submit" value="Submit">
    </form>
  </body>
</html>

I am able to see the displayed recaptcha image as follows:

enter image description here

When I check "I'm not a robot", I get the following:

enter image description here

As you can see, there is a Verify button and based on my tests, user response is sent to Google for verification.

How can I get the user response so that I can verify user response in my own backend code (as suggested by Google at https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/verify).

g-recaptcha-response POST parameter when the user submits the form on your site

On the server side, I can, by clicking on the "Submit" button, get user input from parameter "g-recaptcha-response" only when a user is verified successfully with Google first. Otherwise, "g-recaptcha-response" is blank on the server side. This means that I can do server-side verification only after the client-side's verification success. If so, what is the point of doing another verification on the server-side, which is the option provided by Google reCAPTHA?

Do I miss anything?

Upvotes: 47

Views: 223081

Answers (4)

TheRueger
TheRueger

Reputation: 2578

The cool thing about the new Google Recaptcha is that the validation is now completely encapsulated in the widget. That means, that the widget will take care of asking questions, validating responses all the way till it determines that a user is actually a human, only then you get a g-recaptcha-response value.

But that does not keep your site safe from HTTP client request forgery.

Anyone with HTTP POST knowledge could put random data inside of the g-recaptcha-response form field, and fool your site to make it think that this field was provided by the google widget. So you have to validate this token.

In human speech, it would be like,

  • Your Server: Hey Google, there's a dude that tells me that he's not a robot. He says that you already verified that he's a human, and he told me to give you this token as proof of that.
  • Google: Hmm... let me check this token... yes I remember this dude I gave him this token... yeah he's made of flesh and bone let him through.
  • Your Server: Hey Google, there's another dude that tells me that he's a human. He also gave me a token.
  • Google: Hmm... it's the same token you gave me last time... I'm pretty sure this guy is trying to fool you. Tell him to get off your site.

Validating the response is really easy. Just make a GET request to

https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/siteverify?secret=your_secret&response=response_string&remoteip=user_ip_address

And replace the response_string with the value that you earlier got by the g-recaptcha-response field.

You will get a JSON Response with a success field.

More information here: https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/verify

Edit: It's actually a POST, as per documentation here.

Upvotes: 126

Sandeep Sherpur
Sandeep Sherpur

Reputation: 2802

Here is complete demo code to understand client side and server side process. you can copy paste it and just replace google site key and google secret key.

<?php 
if(!empty($_REQUEST))
{
      //  echo '<pre>'; print_r($_REQUEST); die('END');
        $post = [
            'secret' => 'Your Secret key',
            'response' => $_REQUEST['g-recaptcha-response'],
        ];
        $ch = curl_init();

        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,"https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/siteverify");
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($post));
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

        $server_output = curl_exec($ch);

        curl_close ($ch);
        echo '<pre>'; print_r($server_output); die('ss');
}
?>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>reCAPTCHA demo: Explicit render for multiple widgets</title>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      var site_key = 'Your Site key';
      var verifyCallback = function(response) {
        alert(response);
      };
      var widgetId1;
      var widgetId2;
      var onloadCallback = function() {
        // Renders the HTML element with id 'example1' as a reCAPTCHA widget.
        // The id of the reCAPTCHA widget is assigned to 'widgetId1'.
        widgetId1 = grecaptcha.render('example1', {
          'sitekey' : site_key,
          'theme' : 'light'
        });
        widgetId2 = grecaptcha.render(document.getElementById('example2'), {
          'sitekey' : site_key
        });
        grecaptcha.render('example3', {
          'sitekey' : site_key,
          'callback' : verifyCallback,
          'theme' : 'dark'
        });
      };
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <!-- The g-recaptcha-response string displays in an alert message upon submit. -->
    <form action="javascript:alert(grecaptcha.getResponse(widgetId1));">
      <div id="example1"></div>
      <br>
      <input type="submit" value="getResponse">
    </form>
    <br>
    <!-- Resets reCAPTCHA widgetId2 upon submit. -->
    <form action="javascript:grecaptcha.reset(widgetId2);">
      <div id="example2"></div>
      <br>
      <input type="submit" value="reset">
    </form>
    <br>
    <!-- POSTs back to the page's URL upon submit with a g-recaptcha-response POST parameter. -->
    <form action="?" method="POST">
      <div id="example3"></div>
      <br>
      <input type="submit" value="Submit">
    </form>
    <script src="https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api.js?onload=onloadCallback&render=explicit"
        async defer>
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Upvotes: 4

Pravin Sharma
Pravin Sharma

Reputation: 1156

Hi curious you can validate your google recaptcha at client side also 100% work for me to verify your google recaptcha just see below code
This code at the html body:

 <div class="g-recaptcha" id="rcaptcha" style="margin-left: 90px;" data-sitekey="my_key"></div>
 <span id="captcha" style="margin-left:100px;color:red" />

This code put at head section on call get_action(this) method form button:

function get_action(form) {

var v = grecaptcha.getResponse();
if(v.length == 0)
{
    document.getElementById('captcha').innerHTML="You can't leave Captcha Code empty";
    return false;
}
 if(v.length != 0)
 {
    document.getElementById('captcha').innerHTML="Captcha completed";
    return true; 
 }
}

Upvotes: 3

Rob Kraft
Rob Kraft

Reputation: 226

A method I use in my login servlet to verify reCaptcha responses. Uses classes from the java.json package. Returns the API response in a JsonObject.

Check the success field for true or false

private JsonObject validateCaptcha(String secret, String response, String remoteip)
{
    JsonObject jsonObject = null;
    URLConnection connection = null;
    InputStream is = null;
    String charset = java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets.UTF_8.name();

    String url = "https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/siteverify";
    try {            
        String query = String.format("secret=%s&response=%s&remoteip=%s", 
        URLEncoder.encode(secret, charset), 
        URLEncoder.encode(response, charset),
        URLEncoder.encode(remoteip, charset));

        connection = new URL(url + "?" + query).openConnection();
        is = connection.getInputStream();
        JsonReader rdr = Json.createReader(is);
        jsonObject = rdr.readObject();

    } catch (IOException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(Login.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
    }
    finally {
        if (is != null) {
            try {
                is.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
            }

        }
    }
    return jsonObject;
}

Upvotes: 13

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