im looking for good ideas/resources/implementations for the following scenario
A MVC website at http://mywebsite.com
A Webapi REST service at http://myapi.com
IMPORTANT -- Please notice the separate domains/Applications..
A user logs in at the website and data is fetched from the API via JSONP/CORS
Obviously i dont want the user to authenticate on the webapi using basic authentication. But the API is also exposed to Android/IOS apps, so i need the basic auth
I've thought about returning a token from the MVC site and then writing a DelegatingHandler at the webapi site to authenticate using that token, but i would like some inputs, or perhaps even better solutions
I made a pretty diagram just for the occation:
Although JSONP works also consider using CORS some examples of WebApi implementation here.
Consider following a standard (at least a draft) for your token rather than creating your own. Json Web Token (JWT) seem to be a good approach the specification here includes the format and determines the encryption or signing approach. There are libraries to support this kind of token such as the Thinkteckture Identity Model this article covers some of the usage of that library and the JWT. Google have a good dev guide here.
Disclaimer, only consider the above having read about some of the OAuth and JWT standardization criticisms.
If you did use a HTTP header, I am not sure you need a custom header (#Vipul) the "Authorization :" header is there for this kind of information.
If you are using a custom token, ensure it has an expiration date, consider using a nonce if you want to protect against replay attacks and sign or encrypt using a well known algorithm.
Agree with you that delegating handler is a good place to put token validation. An ActionFilter is called much later than necessary in the stack and the middle ground would be to implement System.Web.Http.AuthorizeAttribute.
token solution sounds good.
Get the authentication token from MVC application, you can send that token with each API request in some custom header. Create an ActionFilterAttribute and in OnActionExecuting you can verify the token and act accordingly.
Related
After hours reading about JWT I am more confused than before starting. Why are jwt being so used if they are not secure within a stateless application? I understand that if a hacker stoles the JWT from a valid user, then that's it, game over.
I am currently starting building an e-commerce with reactjs , and I am struggling with many things. What I want to achieve is two have multiple apis (asp.net web api projects) working (ProductsApi,PaymentsApi, etc..), kind of a reduced version of microservices (without struggling with the communication, api gateway and others things from the beginning ). So, in order to accomplish this I need that a user after putting its username and password, be authorized to use the correct apis. So far I am able to generate jwt that can be validated by all the api projects (https://bitoftech.net/2014/09/24/decouple-owin-authorization-server-resource-server-oauth-2-0-web-api/). So, what I understand is that I have two options:
Stateless application: Get the jwt from the authentication server and save on localstorage, so it can be used when accessing the apis. (insecure as hell)
Reactjs inside a Asp.net MVC(Server side rendering): Use cookies (httpcookieonly) to access the apis.
The way I see it, the best approach is #2, so I was planning to still use the jwt thing, BUT adding a claim to it with the sessionid generated by asp.net MVC. Would that make the jwt "secure"? Can it still be stolen and used from another person?
I know I am talking about many things at the same time. It's just I am so confused right now, and I dont find any good post on internet that can suit my needs.
I have been asked to implement integration with a SAML 2.0 IdP for user Authentication purposes. I have never worked with any federated authorization processes so this is all new to me so please forgive if I am asking a stupid question but here it goes.
For My needs all I want is to send a SAMLP Authentication request. If I get a response that says the user is valid I will give them access to my system which will have a user id that matches what is returned. From that point on all authorization is to be performed by my system and I do not need to send a token with each request to the SAML IdP. After they log in I am done with the IdP.
Many of the questions and examples I see on here and other sites include adding extensive libraries to my project. When I look at them and the documentation around them they all seem to want to either perform the authentication with every request through an IIS Module or through integration with the MVC routing mechanism.
So now to my question. Can't I just create the XML myself and stick it on the the querystring as the SAMLRequest value? Then parse the response XML that comes back for the values I need? If this is a valid way of doing it does anyone have some example code that does this?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
The flow that you describe is how things are normally done: One SAML2 request to the Idp to authenticate the user, and then setting a session cookie for all subsequent requests.
Don't create this yourself unless you want to investigate substantial time to understand SAML2 and XML signature validation rules. They are complex and most custom implementations get it wrong, resulting in compromised security.
My own library, Kentor.AuthServices works the way you want. Even though it comes either as an httpmodule, an mvc controller or an owin middleware, it only interfers with the first requests that make up the actual sign in. All subsequent requests are just passed through and the session cookie mechanism handles the session authentication.
I'd like to create an application using Angular2 as frontend and the new ASPNET 5 WebApi as backend, but when it comes to authentication/authorisation I feel I'm totally missing the point despite all the reading...
Ideally I'd like to authenticate users using an identity provider such as Google or Facebook using Hello.js, I don't really want to have any sort of local registration for users. And then I'd also like to use an ASPNET 5 WebApi backend to access my database.
This article describes exactly what I want, but not with an ASPNET 5 WebApi backend: https://ole.michelsen.dk/blog/social-signin-spa-jwt-server.html
I'm not sure I understand the process right:
After receiving an access token from the identity provider, the SPA should send/forward it to the backend for verification. The WebApi backend should validate it against the provider (at least the first time), and create its own token (JWT) to be sent to the SPA. The SPA simply stores it (local store or session store) and the result is that the user is logged into my application.
Is this correct? Is what I want to achieve possible?
I've looked into other options such as OpenIddict, IdentityServer3/4 but as I understand it, I'd be creating my own identity provider using those, and it's not really what I need. Am I misunderstanding?
Thanks.
As far as i understand, you want:
Authentication with google(you don’t want to use google access token for using google resources)
Authorization with jwt token for web api backend.
So, you need Identity Server3/4, OpenIddict or writing own implementation for creating jwt token. There is similar question with good answers(especially #Tseng’s answer).
For managing jwt token in client side(angular2), see below links:
https://auth0.com/blog/2015/11/10/introducing-angular2-jwt-a-library-for-angular2-authentication/
https://damienbod.com/2016/03/02/angular2-openid-connect-implicit-flow-with-identityserver4/
There is an easy answer here. Use https://auth0.com/ It's free on a small scale and all the details are handled for you. Good samples and good open source participant. No affiliation, just a fan.
I looked everywhere for an answer about securing my webApi but always i'm pointed to OAuth or openID, but i don't want the user to login or authenticate. This is my problem:
I have a webapi which is called via Javascript to get the data in Json. This data is used in the Html of that page. (deployed on Azure)
Now i don't want someone else to get that data via Javascript or with a simple GET request. Only my html page is allowed to do so.
I'm looking for something to secure my Webapi to be only consumed by the applications i want. If i look to the OAuth and Azure stuff, people always have to login, but i want this page to be public, but only the webapi needs to be secure.
I can't check on IP, because the call is done at client side in the browser.
It is not possible to authenticate and thus secure the API to be used by a specific client (run entirely in the browser - like SPAs) app. You cannot protect the data the app sends to the API. (see for more details Protecting REST API behind SPA against data thiefs)
You could build some modules server side and then use some token based server to server communication if you do not want to introduce users and end user authentication.
Of course it is also a question of how you interpret security.
If it is just that you do not want other web apps to use the data -
CORS policies will do the job. It is unlikely that there will be more
than some isolated cases of users using a browser other than the
popular once which respect CORS.
If it is you do not want data to be mass downloaded you could
implement some client filtering based on IP. This could even be done
on the networking layer so the API do not need to be modified in any
way.
As a suggestion, you can have it secured making sure the request has some headers defined by you. For example, you can set an Authorization header with a token that only you know. You can for example, create a token based on a key that you and the webapi share, encrypt it with the time you are calling the api. The web api receives the request and:
1 - Check if the request has the token it requires;
2 - if it does, it creates a token the same way your page did;
3 - matches its token with the requests token;
If you are calling the webapi via javascript, the method may be exposed. However, it's one idea
Take a look to CORS (Cross Origin Resource Sharing), it may be your solution.
In synthesis you can allow requests to the Api only from some specific websites. Most, nearly all browsers, support it.
This is how you enable and configure it in Web Api 2.
I need to implement authentication for some web services that we will be hosting. I want to use open standards, so I am interested in OAuth.
I will be using WebAPI for these services.
So here's where I'm running into trouble: Most (or maybe all) of the Api Key/OAuth scenerios that I have read involve (at some point or another) a user sitting in front of a screen.
I need to put together an API that a business partner will be calling. The calls will come from an automated process -- nowhere in the chain will there be a person who can be redirected to a web site with logon credentials.
However, I don't want just anyone coming around and calling my services.
So, I read about OAuth, and how it uses a shared secret to sign each request, and I think that's what I'm after. (I would either set up a session key, or could consider making one of the parameters a "ticks" value, and only accept requests within a short timeframe, etc)
I was kind of hoping that I could use DotNetOpenAuth to accomplish this (or something like it), but every example I come across begins with "the user gets redirected to a login page). I only need "2 leg" authentication.
Is there an example of using DotNetOpenAuth to do this?
Is there a better way to go?
If you are looking at OAuth 2 then the flow you are describing is the Client Credentials Grant
This kind of "two legged" / "service account" type flow is one that doesn't have a web page based flow.
DotNetOpenAuth supports the Client Credentials Grant. You can see an example of it in action here; however, be aware even though the author states it is the "Resource Owner Password Credentials" grant it is actually the Client Credentials Grant.
The blog post above was a little out of step with the latest DotNetOpenAuth code base but these are quickly identified and altered.
I believe that as it stands the DotNetOpenAuth only supports issuing a Bearer token using Http Basic authentication. There are other more exotic extensions OAuth 2 with a similar flow e.g. the JSON Web Token (JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants (but as stated this is not yet part of DotNetOpenAuth).