Does it make sense to implement OAuth for a 2 party system?

Question

I'm under the impression that OAuth is for authentication between three parties. Does it make sense to implement OAuth in a context where there is just a client and server.

We have a server, and a client (HTML/javascript). Currently we authenticate via the normal "post credentials to server, get a cookie, use cookie to authenticate all subsequent requests" method. Will implementing OAuth be a benefit in this situation?

Answer 1

I suspect you don't need OAuth.

OAuth is able to "hide" a password from a server. In simple terms, OAuth swaps the users password for a "Token". There are 2 "servers". The 1st server swaps the password for the token, the 2nd server never knows the password. The 2nd server always connects to the 1st server using the "Token".

So if you want people to be able to login to your system using a facebook password, then you would use OAuth and your server would never know the users facebook password, just the token.

OAuth is used by two servers, and a possible client(user), but the client is optional.