[Bug] MSAL.PY's error has no indicator for `InteractionRequired`

[jiasli]

Describe the bug Azure CLI relies on AADSTS50076 to detect MFA error (https://github.com/Azure/azure-cli/pull/12516):

https://github.com/Azure/azure-cli/blob/fb6630fd3081483195b00a740e9e645b0a18e2d3/src/azure-cli-core/azure/cli/core/_profile.py#L765

                if 'AADSTS50076' in msg:
                    # The tenant requires MFA and can't be accessed with home tenant's refresh token
                    mfa_tenants.append(t)

and let the user know interaction is required:

https://github.com/Azure/azure-cli/blob/fb6630fd3081483195b00a740e9e645b0a18e2d3/src/azure-cli-core/azure/cli/core/_profile.py#L797-L802

        # Show warning for MFA tenants
        if mfa_tenants:
            logger.warning("The following tenants require Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). "
                           "Use 'az login --tenant TENANT_ID' to explicitly login to a tenant.")
            for t in mfa_tenants:
                logger.warning("%s", t.tenant_id_name)

Today I was told by MSAL team that clients shouldn't parse error_description. However, MSAL.PY has no clear indicator that interaction is required, with or without WAM:

With WAM:

{
    "error": "broker_error",
    "error_description": "SubError: basic_action V2Error: invalid_grant AADSTS50076: Due to a configuration change made by your administrator, or because you moved to a new location, you must use multi-factor authentication to access 'xxx'. Trace ID: xxx Correlation ID: xxx Timestamp: 2024-05-15 01:13:49Z. Status: Response_Status.Status_InteractionRequired, Error code: 3399614476, Tag: 557973645",
    "msal_telemetry": "..."
}

Without WAM:

{
    "error": "invalid_grant",
    "error_description": "AADSTS50076: Due to a configuration change made by your administrator, or because you moved to a new location, you must use multi-factor authentication to access 'xxx'. Trace ID: xxx Correlation ID: xxx Timestamp: 2024-05-15 01:16:43Z",
    "error_codes": [
        50076
    ],
    "timestamp": "2024-05-15 01:16:43Z",
    "trace_id": "xxx",
    "correlation_id": "xxx",
    "error_uri": "https://login.microsoftonline.com/error?code=50076",
    "suberror": "basic_action",
    "classification": "basic_action"
}

This makes Azure CLI have no way of knowing whether the error can be recovered by performing interactive authentication.

The MSAL example unconditionally launches acquire_token_interactive if acquire_token_silent fails to get an access token:

https://github.com/AzureAD/microsoft-authentication-library-for-python/blob/2d03ad97c5ef865b8d9d1a79b61fb08d6fbdea29/sample/interactive_sample.py#L63-L66

To Reproduce az login with an account that requires MFA for non-home tenants.

Expected behavior MSAL.PY's error should have an indicator for InteractionRequired.

What you see instead MSAL.PY's error has no indicator for InteractionRequired.

The MSAL Python version you are using 1.28.0

Additional context Add any other context about the problem here.

[rayluo]

Today I was told by MSAL team that clients shouldn't parse error_description.

Well, error_description contains a human-readable, format-less string, so, it is true that it is not meant to be consumed programmatically based on an assumption of its format. Detecting an error code is understandable and somewhat OK; a better approach may be consuming the error_codes. Just be aware that the error_codes is not in OAuth2 specs so it may be absent when operating with non-AAD authorities.

However, MSAL.PY has no clear indicator that interaction is required, with or without WAM:

There was a discussion on how to reclassify many errors from AAD. Would need to catch up with that to know its latest decision.

Meanwhile, that Azure CLI adjustment today is also reasonable. Also, keep in mind that an InteractionRequired indicator alone would not give you the error code. We will investigate whether error codes can also be surfaced from the broker code path.