I have a few websites which allow both anonymous and window auth users at the same time. Basically if you hit the site with IE or Webkit based browsers on a windows system, the server instantly recognizes your active directory user and group.
In the past I've provided a link to a windows auth only page which allows the current user to login, or bounce back to where they started.
I find the management of this kind of frustrating as I need to make certain that IIS has the correct security settings for that single page after every deployment.
Is there a better way for me to allow a user to elevate from anon to authenticated?
There is no other way to do that elevation automatically. The server can't know that the current user is a Windows user and elevate them, or automatically redirect them to the Windows auth only page. On the other hand, if every user will get through the Windows auth only page, all of them which are not inside the domain will see the challenge/response dialog box (user + password).
As for the management part of making sure that this special page has the correct security settings, you can (and should) automate the check somehow. For example, by querying the IIS metabase for that setting when the application starts (in Global.asax) and if the setting is not there, log it as an email message or so.
Personally I prefer a different attitude - a special "integration/deployment" page which contains a series of tests against my application so I can make sure everything's set up correctly on the server, i.e. NTFS write permissions to certain folders, availability of the SMTP server set in web.config to send emails through, etc.
Note: You're using Windows authentication along with anonymous access. Just keep in mind that if you consider implementing Forms Authentication in the future, a misarchitecture (I don't know if by design or due to a flaw) of IIS 7 does not allow you to set the app to be Forms Authentication and set one specific page to be Windows Authentication. The override just doesn't work and it's very frustrating.
Good luck!
OK, I figured out a fairly nice way to do this...however it's not as elegant as I had hoped since it doesn't work across applications.
Basically, if you create a single page within your Anon + Integrated Auth IIS6 website or virtual directory, let's call it auth.aspx, then you can use this page to prompt authentication.
Go into IIS settings and specify that auth.aspx is Integrated Auth ONLY (no anon). Then create a hidden iframe somewhere on your page. I then created a simple JavaScript action to update the src attribute of the iframe to the auth.aspx page. This forces the browser to try and authenticate using NTLM. Once you enter valid credentials you've successfully elevated your current user beyond the generic anonymous user.
One final touch was to then include a Response.Redirect into the auth.aspx which reloads the current page. Assuming your ASP.net session tokens are set correctly, the page will reload and the user will be authenticated.
Related
For the past 2 years we have created 3 desktop application and 2 admin section(web) for one of my client.
Every application uses its own authentication process.
I have merged the authentication process for web in single unit.
But the client wants to have one screen for getting authenticated on desktop application as well as on website.
he also want to use different browser and the username /password should be asked only once irrespective of browser opend.
I tried to use cookies for web. but every browser has got its own cookies.
Can any one suggest how can i authenticate a user for the whole computer so that authentication information is available to desktop application as well as to website irrespective of the browser being used?
Edit: As suggested by joe using windows authentication is not possible in my case.
So i created one more table with following column
ip,userid,authenticatedat
when ever a user is authenticated i insert its ip,userid, and time in table.
when ever a non authenticate user comes first i look in the table if the ip is present and authenticatedat is within 30 min i assume user is authenticated and set the session/variable with data required.
This i have checked and found it is working .
I have found this is not secure.
Windows authentication is the only way I know of doing this. Assuming your users are on a domain you control, then their Windows credentials would validate them, and they wouldn't ever need to enter a username and password.
Outside of that, I can only think of hacky dirty methods of making this happen. You could install a single authentication service on their machine which is available to connect to remotely from other applications - those apps would call your service, and that service would authenticate the user and pass an authentication token back. Easy enough for Windows apps, but making that work on a web app wouldn't be fun. Your web server wouldn't be able to talk to this service, so you'd have to rely on the client javascript talking to the service and retrieving a token or hash, and then the javascript passing this on to the web server.
Anything you put on a local machine, you have to assume the user can reverse engineer and manipulate, so if you need real security, I doubt you'll find a solution. Best bet is just to make the user log in every time you need to, and have your authentication/authorization code on your web service layer.
I wonder if the following is possible.
A user logs in on my website, using a username and password using his default browser.
Later on, my C# program is run on the same PC. I want to check if the user is logged in in the default browser, so I can access a webpage that is in the registered-only area. Is this somehow possible?
I number of possibilities come to mind:
You could check their cookie folder for a valid cookie for your site
Check the browser history (perhaps using a toolbar)
Use the web browser control so that users log-in through your app
I have never seen either of the above in practice.
I think the best method would be to set up the site to ask for credentials if they're not logged in - so the user can enter them and continue. You'll find this method in most (if not all) of the major websites out there that have client installed software (such as the Gmail Notifier)
You could possibly do it with a cookie saved on the machine, you would need to find where its stored and the naming of the cookie or some kind of api to read the cookie.
here is a few links
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.httpwebrequest.cookiecontainer.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.application.getcookie.aspx
http://bytes.com/topic/c-sharp/answers/677862-reading-creating-cookies-local-machine-using-windows-application
http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/2981086/How-to-read-cookies-in-winforms-Net.aspx
I want to open a native SharePoint 2010 page from my application (for example the Edit Properties page of a document) without the need to enter username/password, but instead to authenticate silently (prior or during the page request). is that possible?
In other words, i have a windows forms application, i enter a sharepoint document path and i click on a button, this will open up a windows form with a browser control that will navigate to the native "editform.aspx" sharepoint 2010 page for this document.Is there a way to authenticate the user without the need for him to enter his credentials?
Thanks,
There is no way to pass credentials on the first visit to the SharePoint site. But if you are using an authentication option that allows saving (especially NTML) and the user's browser settings allow for saved passwords, then subsequent logins will be automatic. This would be same experience if they were to open a browser and navigate directly to the EditForm.aspx URL.
In IE you can set the "Automatic Login" settings in the Advanced Options. It treats URLs differently based on the zone, so it would be simpler if your page is in the user's "Intranet Zone".
If you set it up correctly, the first time they user your SharePoint site they will be prompted but every time after that they will be automatically logged in.
YOu could try setting the PreAuthenticate property of the WebRequest (which i assume your using). Although I have to admit to have seen similar questions with mixed results.
The logon challenge screen you get is inherent to NTLM:
from the NTLM wiki page:
"First, the client establishes a network path to the server and sends a NEGOTIATE_MESSAGE advertising its capabilities.[11] Next, the server responds with CHALLENGE_MESSAGE which is used to establish the identity of the client.[12] Finally, the client responds to the challenge with a AUTHENTICATE_MESSAGE".
And more about PreAuthenticate (MSDN):
"With the exception of the first request, the PreAuthenticate property indicates whether to send authentication information with subsequent requests without waiting to be challenged by the server. When PreAuthenticate is false, the WebRequest waits for an authentication challenge before sending authentication information."
By doing what Peter suggested (adding the site to your IE's Intranet Zone means your credentials will be cached and webrequest uses these cached requests and honors the settings in IE.
For an ASP.NET application, how can I prompt the user for their username / password when Integrated Windows Authentication is used? I would like to use C# in the code behind of the pages to do this.
I want some pages (e.g. http://intranet/admin/) to prompt for a password, while others automatically go though (via IWA/NTLM). I would then like it to remember that the user has logged in as they visit other pages in the folder / site and offer a logout link for when they are finished.
Edit:
What I want to do is send a 401 status and WWW-Authentication headers to the user, so they then log in using their Windows Credentials.
Basically, how Firefox / IE do it if the site isn't trusted.
Edit 2:
SharePoint does this kind of thing, where you automatically log in, but can log out and log in as someone else without needing to log out of Windows.
Edit 3:
An example (other than SharePoint): You are logged in as a standard (limited access) Windows / Active Directory user to a trusted site, which passes on your credentials. You then want to log into an admin part of the site with different credentials (but still Windows, not WebForms). The only other way of doing it is if you log off Windows, then log in again. Not practical if you have files open (that you may wish to access) or the administrator can't log in locally (Interactive Login Privilege disabled). Impersonation may be set, as the page allows access to applications the regular user account doesn't (e.g. databases, files, Active Directory admin).
Basically making a page within the site behave as though it is not part of the Trusted Sites zone.
Sounds like you need to use Impersonation. This allows you to "run as" another Windows user. See here: ASP.NET Impersonation
Here are a couple CodeProject examples:
Windows Impersonation using C#
User Impersonation in .NET
No seperate code for this.
When the user/client open the particular pate eg., http://intranet/admin/index.aspx
if you configure the particular folder with windows authentication, the browser will
automatically ask for the username and password of the particular user/client.
so this is the configuration that you have to do in the IIS to the particular folder
to which you would like to apply the integrated windows authentication.
I have a c# class which uses the WindowsIdentity namespace to return details of the current Active Directory user. This is accessible through a web part on SPS and sure enough returns the desired record values specific to that user.
I have a classic ASP application which I would like to have inherit this functionality. After wrapping it up as a COM and registering it to the server, I created a Classic ASP page from which to call and display the details to the browser window.
My problem is that when this page is accessed from an authenticated user on a client machine the only user details it displays is that of the local machine.
How do I therefore alter my code so I can display the details of the user accessing the page from a client machine?
Classic ASP takes us back. :-)
Don't think I've touched it since 2002...
Anything wrong with just looking at Request.ServerVariables("logon_user") in the ASP page?
That should give you the domain\username.
Rather than trying to run the COM-wrapped class under the identity of the end-user (which is the problem you're having), you could just pass the domain\username through to a class to retrieve the account details from AD and then display any needed items from there. That would do away with the need of impersonating to obtain the windows-identity of the current user.
Also check to see what authentication methods the site is running as in IIS.
Right click the website in IIS Manager, Properties --> Directory Security --> Authentication and access control --> Edit...
Make sure Integrated Windows authentication is checked, Enable anonymous access is cleared.