I have MVC front end application using WebApi 2 application for authentication and authorization. I am using JWT tokens for the same. So far I have been able to successfully authenticate and receive back a token… I can further access the restricted resource ([Authorize] attribute) by adding an Authorization token to the header using POSTMAN tool.
Authorization: “Bearer <jwt.token.string>”
Issue is, I am not able to intercept the call in MVC pipeline to add the token to the httpHeader. It always routes me back to the login page. Not the case when I use the POSTMAN tool. I have unsuccessfully tried injecting the token at following points:
Extending Authorize attribute with custom implementation
Adding a custom ActionFilterAttribute
Adding custom DelegatingHandler
Owin pipeline using StageMarker (PipelineStageAuthenticate) in Startup.cs
In all above cases I am hitting the event because I can debug. I have strong suspicion that I am hitting the authorization point before I set my header but I can’t figure out sequence of flow to properly intercept the HttpContext object and inject the Authorization header.
After successful authentication, add
var ctx = Request.GetOwinContext();
var authenticateResult = await ctx.Authentication.AuthenticateAsync(DefaultAuthenticationTypes.ExternalBearer);
ctx.Authentication.SignOut(DefaultAuthenticationTypes.ExternalBearer);
var applicationCookieIdentity = new ClaimsIdentity(authenticateResult.Identity.Claims, DefaultAuthenticationTypes.ApplicationCookie);
ctx.Authentication.SignIn(applicationCookieIdentity);
This will create a signed cookie and your Authorize attribute will automatically read the cookie. All your requests will become authorized subsequently.
Related
I have a Web Api and Mvc 5 on same project.
That Web Api is protected with bearer token (but I commented the SuppressDefaultHostAuthentication line, so I can access the api from browser when I am authenticated with cookie mvc)
Now I´m trying to access the api from a mvc controller without sending the token, is that possible with SuppressDefaultHostAuthentication off?
Tried that without success (401 error):
HttpClientHandler handler = new HttpClientHandler()
{
PreAuthenticate = true,
UseDefaultCredentials = true
};
using (var client = new HttpClient(handler))
{
client.BaseAddress = new Uri("http://localhost:11374/");
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));
var response = client.GetAsync("api/MyApi").Result;
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{ }
}
If its not possible, how is the best way to handle that problem?
WebApi adheres to REST, which among other things, dictates that requests are stateless. That means with WebApi, or any REST-compatible API, there's no concept of anything such as cookies, sessions, etc. Each request to the API must contain all information needed to service the request. Therefore, if you have an endpoint that requires authentication, you must authenticate the request to access it. Period. If you're doing auth via bearer tokens, then you must pass the bearer token.
Since the WebAPI and the MVC app are in the same project you don't need to go through HTTP and make a request in order to access a method of each one - they're neighbors :)
You can treat the WebAPI as an ordinary class and instantiate it in the MVC controller. Afterwards you call the methods on the instance as you do with any other object in your application.
However it isn't possible to avoid tokens and/or other security mechanisms the WebAPI is designed with IF you leverage a request through HTTP to access it.
I am using WIF 4.5 to authenticate my user and need to use the Security Token from the WIF 4.5 authentication to call a REST API.
Here is the code I am using to get the IMS Security Token for the currently logged in user.
BootstrapContext bootstrapContext = ClaimsPrincipal.Current.Identities.First().BootstrapContext as BootstrapContext;
var myToken = bootstrapContext.SecurityToken;
So, far, so good. The token exists and has the Id, ValidFrom, and ValidTo values. The Security Keys count is zero, but I am not sure if that is relevant.
Now, I need to know how to use this token to then call the REST API.
It seems like I am supposed to use the JWT Handler for this:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vbertocci/2012/11/20/introducing-the-developer-preview-of-the-json-web-token-handler-for-the-microsoft-net-framework-4-5/
But, I am having problems getting this to work. The code on the linked to page above actually does not compile as is. Some of the properties have been changed/renamed.
I've been trying to follow examples of how to configure Web Api to use bearer tokens with Asp.Net Identity 2.0, and I've run into a hiccup. Following this tutorial http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/security/individual-accounts-in-web-api it states that i should be able to post to http://{servername}/Token to get a bearer token. when i do this, i get an exception for Castle Windsor when it tries to resolve Token as a controller.
What i'm trying to accomplish overall is to sign in using using the canned Account controller and then retrieve a token. I am trying to use both cookies and bearer tokens.
is this the right approach to use the default account controller to authenticate?
if this is not the correct approach, should i follow the tutorial more closely and have the user sign-in against an api controller?
what do i need to do for my IoC configuration to make sure my end points resolve?
Authorization in WebApi should be handled in a MessageHandler, not at controller level.
You should create a MessageHandler responsable to verify an OAuth Berarer Token: that message handler may(should) resolved by your IoC and than configurated in the WebApi pipeline.
public static void RegisterGlobalHandlers(HttpConfiguration config, IWindsorContainer container)
{
var authorizationMessageHandler = container.Resolve<AuthorizationMessageHandler>();
config.MessageHandlers.Add(authorizationMessageHandler);
}
DotNetOpenOAuth is a great place to start: have a look to the mvc5 sample/message handler implementation.
I have a Mvc 5 client that have a Ownin cookie authentication.
I also have a Web Api that is protected with Owin Bearer token (I used the VS2013 Web Api template, that create the Token endpoint)
Ok, now my Mvc 5 client need to use my WebApi.
I created a method to get the bearer token:
internal async Task<string> GetBearerToken(string siteUrl, string Username, string Password)
{
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
client.BaseAddress = new Uri(siteUrl);
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
HttpContent requestContent = new StringContent("grant_type=password&username=" + Username + "&password=" + Password, Encoding.UTF8, "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
HttpResponseMessage responseMessage = await client.PostAsync("Token", requestContent);
if (responseMessage.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
TokenResponseModel response = await responseMessage.Content.ReadAsAsync<TokenResponseModel>();
return response.AccessToken;
}
return "";
}
And in my Mvc action I called that:
public async Task<ActionResult> Index()
{
var token = await GetBearerToken("http://localhost:6144/", "teste", "123456");
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Authorization", "Bearer "+ token);
var response = await client.GetAsync("http://localhost:6144/api/values");
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
var data = response.Content.ReadAsAsync<IEnumerable<string>>();
return Json(data.Result, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}
}
}
That all works fine... But I need to use the Web Api in all my actions...
So how can I keep that token (despite getting a new token every request) and how verify if it expired ... Is it possible to keep that together with authentication cookie someway?
Any best pratices to deal with that scenario?
Thanks
If I get it right your MVC 5 client app is accessing a WebAPI of a different app.
The MVC 5 Client uses a cookie to authenticate the user. To access the WebAPI you get a Bearer tokeen from the /Token endpoint and send it in the Authorization header.
You do not call the WebAPI from your client side Javascript code, you just call it from within MVC Actions running on the server of the MVC5 application.
Getting a new Token before each service call sounds wrong. This would mean 2 roundtrips each time. This can't be performant.
If I got that right, you could:
Store the token in the Session object. For as long as your user of the MVC App is authenticated and his session is alive you would then always have the same Token.
If its expired you would get a 401 unauthorized access back from the WebAPI.
To keep your MVC Action Unit Testable you could wrap the session access into a Service that you inject into the Action (Dependency Injection).
you could store the Token in a cookie similar to the Authentication cookie already existing. This way you would not need a Session on the server side. Here again I would wrap the access to get the Token from the Cookie in a service that all your actions use.
I would use the Session storage. Simple. Straight forward.
But maybe I am missing something
Hope this helps you.
Feedback appreciated :-)
Bearer token is not a good way to authorize your web application. If you store services' token in cookie it will be available to the application's clients, so service layer will be vulnerable to application's clients. The only solution seems to be keep token in a session but you will lose stateless nature of your application.
Here is describied what/how bearer token should be used: "A bearer token is just a big, random string that a client must present on every API call. Bearer tokens are simple because there's no special signature or validation code required on either end. The client is responsible for storing the token in a safe place and sending it with every request. The server is responsible for looking up the token in a database and making sure it's a valid one -- that's it.".
Here is good example of using bearer token in single page application where client directly talks to the service.
Anyway I would suggest you to use HMAC authentication, BCrypt or ClientCertificates. Even amazon uses it for authenticating REST requests.
If you want to manage the tokens across all of your actions, you should change the code to use a custom authorization filter. That filter can be added to all Web API requests, all actions for a controller, or an individual action. To do that, derive from the AuthorizeAttribute and issue the GetBearerToken call from the filter. Stick the token into the HTTP context for usage during request processing. Instead of directly calling creating HttpClient instances, you could use a factory to generate them and add the appropriate tokens for authentication.
As for determining if the tokens are expired, you could add an additional filter that checks for specific errors coming back or alternative issue a check in the authorization filter. I don't know all of your requirements so it's difficult to determine the appropriate solution there.
(This question can be seen as follow ups to these two StackOverflow posts about OpenAuth with DotNetOpenAuth in a ServiceStack scenario: first and second)
From what I understand, ServiceStack uses an IAuthSession to know which user is authenticated, but this seems to rely on the HTTP session cookie. With OAuth request, no such cookie exist.
Question: I want my ServiceStack requests to be considered authenticated if 1) a the browser cookie is present or 2) if the OAuth Authentication Header Bearer is present. How should I do this?
I tried the following to set the thread's authentication, but it relies on ASP.NET's HttpContext.Current.User.
I'd also like it to work on both IIS hosted and Self-Hosted scenarios...
var analyzer = new StandardAccessTokenAnalyzer((RSACryptoServiceProvider)signCert.PublicKey.Key, (RSACryptoServiceProvider)encryptCert.PrivateKey);
var resourceServer = new ResourceServer(analyzer);
var requestWrapper = new HttpRequestWrapper((HttpRequest)request.OriginalRequest);
var principal = resourceServer.GetPrincipal(requestWrapper, requiredScopes);
HttpContext.Current.User = principal;
Any help is appreciated.