I've seen a lot of articles that cover using JWT Tokens in API scenarios. How do I include the JWT Token in my request for a web page?
My ASP.NET Core app has both web pages and API methods so I want to use cookies for the web and token for API.
The way we do it here with Asp.Net, is our auth layer looks for either a cookie or an Authorization header. It pulls the token from either location. This article might be helpful:
http://auth0.com/blog/cookies-vs-tokens-definitive-guide
This takes some custom code, but its not too difficult really. Make your own AuthenticationHandler.
https://wildermuth.com/2017/08/19/Two-AuthorizationSchemes-in-ASP-NET-Core-2
That excellent article will guide you through every step of the process.
Related
I work on an application where I have a separate MVC layer and Web API Layer, both have the same authentication mechanism, I have chosen the individual accounts authentication option while adding the projects. The web api service layer will be directly accessed by some other mobile clients also.
But when the user logs in through MVC he should be able to access Web Api seamlessly, but I don’t want to really pass the username and password from MVC to the Web Api layer, I am told it is a bad practice. but i need to authenticate and authorize my user, so the only option i have thought of is to have a default account at Web API level to issue tokens, and this will be called from MVC post the authentication and a token will be returned which is written to a cookie in the client. Now the Ajax calls from the UI can use this bearer token and get the job done.
The only glitch I have here is that, because I am using a default account I need user details again for authorization at service level, though I am doing authorization at my UI level, the user can spoof the system. I was lost here and came up with a solution like, when the user logs in to MVC will send across user details also along with the call to get the WebAPI token and issue another token to the user so that the user uses both of the tokens to make a call to web api from MVC.
I am not sure if this works or if it is even the best way. I just wanted to check, how I should go from here. Any help on this will be really great.
This is a really good example of integration - I know they use Angular as the client but you can learn from this:
http://bitoftech.net/2014/06/01/token-based-authentication-asp-net-web-api-2-owin-asp-net-identity/
Check this section to see how they decouple the API from the front end (Part of the same article).
http://bitoftech.net/2014/09/24/decouple-owin-authorization-server-resource-server-oauth-2-0-web-api/
I'm building a mobile application (that might also later become a web application). The server side is a ASP.NET MVC + Web API application and I'm thinking about ways how I could implement the service's user management and authentication.
How should I implement the registration/login screen in the app? Offer native app forms, that will send just API requests to the service or is it preferable to show a web browser component and display the website's login page and then extract a token after the user logs in? I see the first option is more user friendly, but the second one will let me change the login / registration page (like for example adding external authentication providers) without breaking older versions of the app.
My second question is regarding the external authentication providers. ASP.NET Identity has good support for them and it is quite possible to let users register using Facebook or some other OAuth2 provider. Does it make sense to add support for external authentication providers when I plan to expose the app's API publicly? Are there any reasons why that is not a good idea?
Your first option is best if you believe your users will trust you to manage their passwords. You make a secure call to your service, have the service produce a bearer token as the result. That would be an anonymous call. I used the answer from this question to get me going down that path:
Get IPrincipal from OAuth Bearer Token in OWIN
If your users are less likely to trust you with their credentials, then the web view and external provider is a good alternative. You would need to work with providers that support the "Implicit Grant Flow" since don't want to share the apps clientid and client secret on the mobile device. This approach involves using a web view to login in, and then capturing the token on the client uri fragment on the response. I think it is on a location header, but don't have a working example in front of me. Something like:
https://your.domain.com/#access_token = 8473987927394723943294
you would pass that token with each api call afterwards .
Good luck!
I am using AngularJS with ASP.NET Web Api server side. Seems to me like authentication has now become a breeze? Or is this too good to be true?
So I'm thinking of using the Web Api's "Individual User Accounts" authentication. And I am thinking that is all I need. As long as every request is authenticated and noone can get any data they shouldn't I shouldn't need to do much more right?
Or am I missing some key security fundamentals?
When it comes to securing the API you have two main approaches
Cookie based approach. This is the traditional way, where you use the standard form to authenticate the user and then set the form authentication cookie. All unauthorized request take the user to login page. If your API is always supported by UI front end to do login this method with work.
Second is using the authorization token in the header of the request. Once the user is authenticated he get a auth token, which he has to attach to every subsequent request in the Authorize HTTP header. Learn more about it here Individual Accounts in ASP.NET Web API . The advantage here is that you can expose your API without requiring a login page.
But remember when using the second approach, the auth token has to be stored on the client side as all subsequent request require this token. Look at this blog post Cookies vs Tokens. Getting auth right with Angular.JS to understand how to work with token.
Hope it helps.
Here's a great article about using Angular JS with WebAPI 2.0 token based authentication.
http://bitoftech.net/2014/06/01/token-based-authentication-asp-net-web-api-2-owin-asp-net-identity/
I am successfully using bearer token authentication for asp.net web API as is demonstrated in the default single page application template. But now I want to use the same web API from a different site (a different url).
When I make a request to web API AuthorizeEndpoint(by default /api/Account/ExternalLogin) from different site, I get error: invalid_request. I guess the problem is in the redirect_uri value, since changing that to value of site running on same domain as web api resolves the problem.
ValidateClientRedirectUri method in application OAuthAuthorizationServerProvider doesn't get fired. So based on my search in Katana source the error origin is in OAuthAuthorizationServerHandler.InvokeAuthorizeEndpointAsync.
Does anyone else have the same problems or am I doing something wrong?
The Katana OAuth middleware is not designed to be cross application - it is mainly for "embedding" an OAuth authorization server into the business resource.
If you want a proper (free) authorization server - have a look here:
https://github.com/thinktecture/Thinktecture.AuthorizationServer/wiki
The bearer token appears to be a hash into an claims hash, which is local to your application.
We are using a jwt token with a separate validate handler. Works cross application.
Still looking for a better way but for now it works.
I am very new in web api security. I have used form authentication technique. when user logs in, a token is created and stored as a cookie in user's web browser. On each request the token is varified and if user is authenticated and authorized user is given access to the service.
but I think this approach does nothing in web api security. cookies can easily be copied and pasted in other browser and anyone can get the service.
I am thinking to use App key and secret along with form authentication. I am not suggested to use third party service like Oauth for authentication. I am not Sure about the Implementation of app key and secret that how it exactly works.
Please provide better way to secure my web api wihtout using third party services and to prevent cookie hijacking etc. What actions are performed to build a strengthly secure web api.
The forms authentication is good enough. You can also do the following:
Use anti-forgery (antifrogery) tokens. Check this or this
It will also be great if on sensitive actions you check if the call to the function was made from the same site or not.You can implement your own action filter for this. (check if the referral site is your site, or the expected site)
Edited:
Thanks guys for your comments. I guess you are right. Well authentication cookies in ASP are created as httpOnly cookies which means even if the site had some XSS vulnerabilities it will still be safe and cant be stolen. I would also suggest to use https everywhere if the site is used for sensitive operations (like a bank) to make sure the cookies are perfectly safe.