How to design and develop common asp.net identity for both asp.net mvc and asp.net web.api - asp.net-mvc

We are going to start a new solution for both "desktop/mobile responsive web site" and "mobile app". Both projects (web site and mobile app) need to access same business/data layer.
The tier structure for web site is going to be something like the following:
Browser -> ASP.NET MVC Web Site -> Business Layer -> Data Layer -> Database
The tier structure for mobile app is going to be as follows:
Smart Device -> ASP.NET Web Api Service layer -> Business Layer -> Data Layer -> Database
We don't want web site to consume web api.
We also don't need to integrate with any social identity in our scenario. I heard that ASP.NET MVC discourages token approach for security (authentication and authorization) and encourages the cookie approach. However, consuming Web Api will be lot easier, if we employe token approach and cookies are obviously discouraged in REST services.
While we are fine to start with new ASP.NET Identity system, we are not quite sure on how to deal with both scenarios without rewriting and supporting code for both scenarios.
Based on the above grounds, how can we design a common security pattern which works for both of our scenarios i.e., ASP.NET MVC Web site and ASP.NET Web API.

If you self-host using OWIN, you can look at creating an OWIN middleware. If you web-host using IIS, you can create an Http module to authenticate and establish the identity by handling authenticate event. Http module can be written in such a way to look for a token and if not present, fall back to cookie. By cookie approach with MVC, I believe you mean Forms Authentication. With that, FormsAuthenticationModule comes into play. So, your module just need to be aware of this and play along nicely. Ultimately, identity is established on Http context and you can use Authorize attribute in both MVC and API controllers. Here is an example of how to create an Http module for authentication. Basic authentication is implemented here but you can modify it for tokens.

Related

How to use Asp.net MVC Core with Asp.net Identity Core and WebAPi Core?

I am going to create an web app using Dot Net Core. In future, i will also create mobile application for the same application. Now, i am in thinking the architecture of the project. I want to use WEB API core using Asp.net Identity Core. Also, i will consume WEB API in MVC Core application. But the question i have in mind that how i can handle ASP.net identity with MVC and WEB API? Do i need to include in MVC as well or only in WEB API?
I tried to think hard but still confuse. Need suggestions.
You can use token based authentication .
In a resource owner flow scenario , your client app( mvc application/native application) will consume your web api by providing user's credential , web api will validate the credential(using ASP.NET Core Identity) in database , If the username and password are correct then a JWT authentication token and the user details are returned. Your client app could validate the token and sign in user :
ASP.NET Core 2.2 - JWT Authentication Tutorial with Example API
Tutorial built with
Token Authentication in ASP.NET Core 2.0 - A Complete Guide
In addition, IdentityServer4 is a good choice when you want to roll your own full-fledged OpenID Connect authorization server that can handle complex use cases like federation and single sign-on.
So your question is maybe a bit open-ended for Stackoverflow and you don't really show what you have tried so far.
I will try to answer though. First you just need to start out with a template for your project. Start an MVC project in which you can easily have API endpoints as well. I would suggest splitting those in two projects for clarity - but if it is just a small personal project then you probably are fine having them in the same project. Microsoft have a pretty good resource on MVC:
Microsoft MVC walkthrough
For the Identity part. You would need some kind of authority for it to work. I suggest you take a look at IdentityServer4. Which offers an excellent walk-through of how to set it up and how to integrate it with Asp.NET Core Identity:
IdentityServer4

Windows authentication in MVC app calling WebAPI

We're building a Windows-authenticated ASP.NET MVC app. This will then call into an ASP.NET WebAPI layer sat on a different server.
We don't have Kerberos enabled so assume authentication with this will be via some form of Basic auth. We're also looking to use ASP.NET Membership/Identity for role management. All communication with the Membership database will be via the WebAPI.
Can anyone give guidance on how best to handle issuing authentication tokens for communication between the MVC and WebAPI apps, and how Authorize attributes may be used across both layers?
I've blogged detailed series of posts about Token based authentication in Web API using ASP.NET Identity, it should answer part of your questions, check it here

MVC/SPA Authentication Scenarios for Azure AD

These are Application Types and Scenarios that Azure AD supports:
Web Browser to Web Application
Native Application to Web API
Web Application to Web API
Daemon or Server Application to Web API
I have two questions:
I would like to understand where my scenario below fits.
I think I need to use JWT tokens and it seems that Native Application to Web API is the closest,
but I still need Asp.Net MVC application to deliver Client side Angular MVC resources (html templates, controllers and Rest services)
Which Azure Active Directory Code Samples are the closest to my scenario below:
I would like to create a multi-tenant Angularjs (delivered using Asp.Net MVC 5) and Rest Web API 2 secured with Azure AD. I would like to have tenants choose their domain names like firstTenant.com,
smt.firstTenant.com or to have subdomains like firstTenant.MySaaS.com, secondTenant.MySaaS.com
or MySaaS.com/firstTenant, MySaaS.com/secondTenant or similar domain naming scheme.
I would use some kind of IoC container to add customization to my SaaS application or similar to deliver specific functionality to each tenant (GUI and business logic and DB).
I would use and Asp.Net MVC application that will custom tailor SPA resources (html templates, .js controllers, .js services, .css, images etc) to each tenant and use some partitioning techniquest to retrieve tenant and user specific content from DB called from Rest API controllers.
Thanks,
Rad
I am also facing the same 'i dont know' issue :)
But far as i have researched the authorization flow from SPA aplication to the web api.
You still need webserver(mvc) project that will privide redirecting to the Identity provider (azure AD) login page and on the IP callback you will need to inject baerer token to Angular auth service that will send token to the api or deal with the refresh token.
So for me I think that, Web Application to Web API, is the right direction programming.
pls comment if i'm wrong
Currently i'm investigating link
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazure/MyCompany-demo-applications-eedab900
update 2:
http://www.cloudidentity.com/blog/2014/04/22/AUTHENTICATION-PROTOCOLS-WEB-UX-AND-WEB-API/
Maybe it will be helpful to us.

Authentication-Authorization issue when dealing with WebAPI

I'm re-developing an app as a web app (the "previous" iteration was in VB6) to run on azure. One requirement is that we only use facebook/google authentication (OAuth 2.0). Another business requirement lead me to break my project into the following schema:
1 Project for the WebAPI 2.0
1 Project for Controllers
1 for Data Access (typical layer pattern)
N Projects for MVC 5 front-end
The idea is that the MVC projects will only consume the WebAPI via javascript/json! The N MVC projects will contain just the GET implementation for the pages. No models or others actions (post for example). In other words the MVC projects are completally disconnectd from the other projects and should have no intelligence what-so-ever!
This is the selected way because of (bitchy clients and) limited time constraints.
Anyway, as you can notice the "core" (WebAPI + controllers + DA) is shared. The core is in fact a multi-tenant service. (but remember the disconnected facet!)
My problem here is: How do I handle Authorization? What/how should treat the passing of the claims between the MVC projects and the WebAPI? Im lost here. After some thought, I came to the conclusion that I need to make the WebAPI project act as a proxy here, something like:
Random users lands on www.myClientWebsite.com/Register
Chooses a login provider
The MVC project redirects the user signaling facebook to return to www.myWebAPI.com/Register
I intercept the claim and redirect the user to the original www.myClientWebsite.com/LoginComplete or something...
Am I getting it wrong?
You have to use OAuth 2 for authentication and authorization purpose in this scenario. Yes, you should be making the authentication at the MVC level and then use tokens to keep the security intact for rest calls.
Here your MVC application should get a Bearer token from the identity provider like google and then hide it some where on the form. Then for every jquery request you make to web api, you have to send this bearer token in the request.
[Update]
This is considered kind of hack and I do not encourage it. And this works only if both the systems are in same domain.
[\Update]
If both MVC and Web API are on different domains, then you can think of using Azure ACS Service Identity to build the trust between domains. Then pass the bearer token of User claims in the payload of the request.
[Update]
This is much more better way to handle this but must be accompanied with proper token revocation and https security.
[\Update]

Silverlight 4 - MVC 2 ASP.NET Membership integration "single sign on"

Scenario:
I have an ASP.NET MVC 2 site using ASP.NET Forms Authentication.
The site includes a Silverlight 4 application that needs to securely call internal web services.
The web services also need to be publically exposed for third party authenticated access.
Challenges:
Securely accessing webservices from Silverlight using the current users identity without requiring the user to re-login in in the Silverlight application.
Providing a secure way for third party applications to access the same webservices the same users credentials, ideally with out using ASP.NET Forms Authentication.
Additional details and limitations:
This application is hosted in Azure.
We would rather NOT use RIA Services if at all possible.
Solutions Under Consideration:
I think that if the webservices are part of the same MVC site that hosts the Silverlight application then forms authentication should probably "just work" from Silverlight based on the users forms auth cookies. But this seems to rule out the possibility of hosting the webservices seperately (which is desirable in our scenario).
For third-party access to the web services I'm guessing that seperate endpoints with a different authenication solution is probably the right answer, but I would rather only support one version of the services if possible...
Questions:
Can anybody point me towards any sample applications that implements something like this?
How would you recommend implementing this solution?
You can extend WCF to use Membership as authencation store and reuse the FormsAuth Cookie (send by the MVC site) to the browser by the Silverlight app.
I would recommend using an STS with Windows Identity Foundation so you can have your app use claims identity and then change authentication outside the app. For third party you can use Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS). We are updating our guidance on this and you can look at the new code to show you how to do this at our codeplex site. The original book is available at Amazon. I would focus on the updated guide because it has ACS has websites and an active client talking to WCF. The client is WPF but it would similar for Silverlight.

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