Configure OAuth Authentication

To retrieve information from Stack Exchange you must use OAuth authentication.

To configure OAuth authentication

  1. Go to https://stackapps.com/apps/oauth/register.
  2. Create a new app registration.

    • Give the app a name and description, and provide a website URL.
    • Set the OAuth domain to "localhost".

    Stack Exchange will provide a client ID, client secret, and key.

    You can now run the OAuth configuration tool that is provided with the connector.

To run the OAuth configuration tool

  1. Open the folder where you installed the connector.
  2. Open the OAuth tool configuration file, oauth_tool.cfg, in a text editor.
  3. In the [Default] section, set any SSL or proxy settings that are required to access the repository:

    SSLMethod The version of SSL/TLS to use.
    ProxyHost The host name or IP address of the proxy server to use.
    ProxyPort The port of the proxy server to use.

    For example:

    SSLMethod=NEGOTIATE
    ProxyHost=10.0.0.1
    ProxyPort=8080
  4. In the [OAuthTool] section, set the following parameters:

    AppKey The client ID that you obtained by creating the OAuth application.
    AppSecret The client secret that you obtained by creating the OAuth application.
    CustomValue0 The key from your Stack Exchange app.
  5. Open a command-line window and run the following command:

    oauth_tool.exe oauth_tool.cfg OAuthTool

    The OAuth configuration tool creates the files oauth.cfg and oauth2_sites.bin. When you configure the connector, import the parameters from oauth.cfg into your task configuration. For more information about configuring a fetch task, see Retrieve Information from Stack Exchange.