ASP.NET Forms Authentication Across Applications Issue - asp.net

This has been the bane of my existence for the better part of a week.
I have four existing webforms applications that utilize forms authentication. The URL for each is mydomain/app1/, mydomain/app2/, etc. I have been tasked with creating a new application that will function as a single sign-on application with the URL mydomain/ssoapp. Once a user logs in, it basically compiles everything from the pre-existing apps that the user has access to, so our users don't have to go out and log into each of them separately. But the old applications need to function as they currently do.
The important part of my web.config is as follows:
<authentication mode="Forms" >
<forms loginUrl="frmLogin.aspx?Type=login" name="sqlAuthCookie" protection="All" path="/" domain="mydomain"
timeout="60" cookieless="UseCookies" enableCrossAppRedirects="true" />
</authentication>
<machineKey validation="SHA1" decryption="AES" decryptionKey="mykey" validationKey="myvalkey"/>
Simply adding this to the web.config for all of the applications worked like a charm....for three of them.
In the SSO application I'm creating a formsauthenticationticket, cookie, and adding that to the response with the following code. Each of the four pre-existing applications uses this same code as well:
Dim lTicket As New FormsAuthenticationTicket( _
1, _
pstrUserId.ToString, _
System.DateTime.Now, _
System.DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(60), _
True, _
pstrUserId.ToString, _
FormsAuthentication.FormsCookiePath)
' Encrypt the ticket.
Dim lencTicket As String = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(lTicket)
' Create the cookie and add to response
Dim cookie As HttpCookie = New HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, lencTicket)
cookie.Domain = ".mydomain.gov"
pobjResponse.SetCookie(cookie)
pobjResponse.Cookies.Add(cookie)
'Cleanup
lencTicket = Nothing
lTicket = Nothing
In chrome debugger for the SSO application, I log in and the cookie is created with the correct information.
I can click on my menu list, which uses a response.redirect to go out to the other applications. For the 3 working applications, I bypass the login screen, go directly to the form I need, and the cookie is unchanged
For the problem child application, I can still see the cookie however I am redirected back to the login screen.
If I login from this point, a new cookie is created, with the same name as the preexisting one, however the domain has the "www" prefix on it
Other useful information (maybe):
I've ensured that all machinekey, decryption key, validation method, etc match across applications
My domain is in the format of sub1.mid1.gov . I've tried every combination of the format for this in the cookie assignment and web.config. Both with and without the preceding dot.
I've removed httpRuntime from the web.config as some others had mentioned this causes issues.
There are no errors in the IIS logs
All applications are running under the same apppool currently
Currently I'm contemplating taking some vacation time so I don't feel bad about crying in the corner on my employers dime. I'm sure it's something ridiculously simple, but I appreciate any help in the matter. Thanks!

Related

Forms Authentication SSO - Why does User.Identity.IsAuthenticated == false

I'm trying to set up SSO on two separate IIS web sites (with a common domain) using Forms Authentication. I'm using the common approach of setting the auth cookie to the common domain and using matching machine key to enable decryption.
This works with no issues on test sites that I created. However, when trying to implement this in a legacy Web Forms site, I'm running into something that I don't understand.
When I log into one site, the test code on the second site has the following results:
var cookie = FormsAuthentication.GetAuthCookie("username", false); // works
var ft = FormsAuthentication.Decrypt(cookie.Value); // returns correct info
var isAuthentication = User.Identity.IsAuthenticated; // false
As an added bonus, whenever I sign in one site the other gets signed out (happens both ways.)
There must be something fundamental that I'm missing here.
Why is User.Identity.IsAuthenticated set to false, even though the FormsAuthentication ticket seems to be decrypting with no issues?
UPDATE: as pointed out below - FormsAuthentication.GetAuthCookie is not a valid way to obtain the existing auth cookie. Which brings me to this: I can see the top domain cookie in the browser, but it doesn't show up in the request. I suspect this is where the problem is occuring.
Solution: Both sites were not targeting the same version of .Net Framework as specified by the web.config:
<httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5" />
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.5" />
Updating both sites to target the same framework fixed the problem.
The GetAuthCookie creates a new cookie:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/3fay1e4k(v=vs.100).aspx
Creates an authentication cookie for a given user name. This does not set the cookie as part of the outgoing response, so that an application can have more control over how the cookie is issued.
No wonder it works, it doesn't look into the existing cookie.
My theory is that you have your new sites on an x64 machine and the legacy website sits in an x86. The encryption differs in such scenario even if keys are the same. Another possible reason is a different version of .net as the encryption algorithm has been changed in .net 4.

Authentication cookie not working after aplication pool reloads

I use Form Based Authentication in my site
In my login page I have:
FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(user.userName, true)
When I want to check if the user is authenticated I do:
HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated
I'm not using Asp.net Membership, instead i use my on SQL-DB verification
do i have to use Asp.net Membership ?
This is working for me most of the times
The problem is that sometimes after 5 hours or something after 30 hours
The Application pool gets restarted for some reason (I’m on a shared server)
And after that the “User.Identity.IsAuthenticated” returns with false, every time until the user logs in again.
This is strange to me because I can see that the client still have the persistent authCookie so why the user is not authenticated ?
My Web.Config reference:
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms
name="AuthCookie"
loginUrl="~/mySite/ManageLogin.aspx"
timeout="5256000"/>
</authentication>
Any help will be appreciated.
My site www.mentallica.co.il
This may be due to the automatic generation of the machinekey at the application start. You can prevent that by specifying a machinekey for your app in your web.config:
<machineKey
validationKey="410E4E2B06BE457709F2D8C72BB02957A3B4E8BA327F3A6103696857AD3A88598D454489B9D4CAAFC2D5E35E8795B311EE2E94DAA485FD64D7184272A4AE4D8B"
decryptionKey="EFAFA0917D0D8F137F05B26AE053397C48D34DE688E73483D15C8EDAF0D6FD4F"
validation="SHA1"
decryption="AES" />
You shouldn't use this one - you may create your own easily at http://aspnetresources.com/tools/machineKey .
More information about machinekeys: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff649308.aspx

how to set the forms authentication cookie path

On the same IIS web site, I have two ASP.NET web applications called /foo and /bar. Both use forms authentication and I want users to be able to log in and out of both sites independently.
With the standard configuration for forms authentication, it seems to send a cookie path of "/" for the forms auth cookie. This means that when a user logs into /bar it logs him out of /foo which is undesirable behaviour for me.
The obvious solution seems to be this:
FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(username, false, Request.ApplicationPath);
This makes the forms auth cookie have the application path which allows the user to log into /foo and /bar independently :-) However there is a further and more nasty problem: If the user tries to log into /Foo (with a capital F), IIS directs them to the web application /foo, but they can never log in because the browser (chrome in this case) is case sensitive when deciding whether to send the cookie based on the cookie path.
This seems to be a common problem which every ASP.NET web app developer will face but I can't see a sensible solution for it. Please tell me i've missed something obvious?
Thanks
Andy
I assume you have already solved this issue somehow, but since I stumbled upon this question I thought I should add my few cents.
To solve the issue use different cookie names in web.config. Something like:
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms name=".ASPXFORMSAUTH_FOO"
loginUrl="public/login.aspx" cookieless="UseCookies" slidingExpiration="true"/>
</authentication>
and
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms name=".ASPXFORMSAUTH_BAR"
loginUrl="public/login.aspx" cookieless="UseCookies" slidingExpiration="true"/>
</authentication>
Dim ticket As FormsAuthenticationTicket = New FormsAuthenticationTicket(1, _
pUsernameEntered, _
DateTime.Now, _
DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(60), _
True, _
pOperatorID, _
FormsAuthentication.FormsCookiePath)
' Encrypt the ticket.
Dim encTicket As String = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(ticket)
'create a cookie with the encrypted ticket
Dim authenticationCookie As New HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encTicket)
'only create a persistent cookie if ticket persistent is checked
If (ticket.IsPersistent) Then
'give the cookie an expiration date outside of the forms authentication encrypted ticket
authenticationCookie.Expires = ticket.Expiration
End If
'save the cookie
HttpContext.Current.Request.Cookies.Remove(".cookiename")
Response.Cookies.Add(authenticationCookie)
In cookiename you can set you cookie name.
and in AddMinutes you can set your minutes values currently it is 60.

How to have multiple logins with ASP.Net?

I'm working on a website with an internal and an external section.
The users for both sections are different so they require a different login page. I wanted to configure the authentication differently for both folders, but ASP.Net but it's not allowed.
Example (in my main web.config):
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms loginUrl="~/Pages/Internal/Main.aspx" defaultUrl="~/Pages/Internal/Main.aspx" cookieless="UseDeviceProfile" name=".ApplicationAuthenticatedUser" path="/" protection="All" slidingExpiration="true" timeout="45"/>
</authentication>
And in the external subfolder, I try to overwrite the settings:
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms loginUrl="~/Pages/External/Default.aspx" defaultUrl="~/Pages/External/Default.aspx" cookieless="UseDeviceProfile" name=".ApplicationAuthenticatedUser" path="/Pages/External" protection="All" slidingExpiration="true" timeout="45"/>
</authentication>
However this gives me an error.
I tried putting both of them in their subfolders but I get the same error, the authentication configuration section must be set at the application level (I'm guessing that means the root web.config).
A possible solution is to centralize the login page and redirect depending on where the request came from, if it came from an external page, send it to the external login page, otherwise to the internal one.
It would work, but if it's possible I'd like the solution where I can configure this in the web.config.
Thanks
I am confused? Why two user data stores? I understand internal versus external, but if this is the same application, you can assign roles to give more permissions to your internal users. In addition, you can allow your internal users to access the site from home without VPN.
Even so, if you must have two stores, your best bet is duping the application. It can be the exact application, but you put it on one internal server and one external. Then you can authenticate the users at different locations. Note, however, that you still need roles, unless you are kludging up the application.
If you need to authenticate against two stores, you can do it with a custom provider. The ASP.NET login model allows for custom providers and it is very easy to build one:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f1kyba5e.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479048.aspx
Now, if you must redirect to different pages (you are stuck in this model for some reason?), you can possibly do it by IP address. It is likely your internal network uses a 10 dot or 192 dot IP scheme. If so, those addresses get transfered to internal. The rest to external. This will require you setting up something that does the redirect. I know you can do this on the login page, if not with an HTTP Handler.
This seems like an awful lot of work, however. I still do not see the picture of why you have to accomplish the task in this manner.
If you can run as two different IIS applications then you can have different authentication providers (or different instances of the same provider... possibly using the same database with the application attribute on the provider to distinguish).
But different web apps means no shared state (Application and Session) and duplicating the install. For an intranet/internet this would allow the external deployment to not include components that no internet user can access (and thus improve security by reducing surface area).
Otherwise you might need a custom authentication provider that forwards to one of the built in ones depending on who is logging in.
If your your site is a single web application, you could probably use the ASP.NET Role Provider model for that, having two roles, one for internal and one for external pages (you can configure that pr. folder with the <location> configuration element).
For more information, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9ab2fxh0.aspx
I have a simple way of handling this that might be of use to somebody. I basically want to be able to use the same code for a guest login and a registered user. I also have a mobile version of the website that I want to send to a different login page when the authentication ticket expires.
Probably not the most elegant solution, but simple enough:
Public Sub btnSubmit_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
If Page.IsValid Then
Dim userLogin As String = ""
userLogin = System.Guid.NewGuid.ToString
FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(userLogin, False)
' place a url param throughout my app, only four pages so no
' big problem there in this case g stands for guest
Response.Redirect("menu.aspx?m=g", False)
End If
End Sub
Then, in Global.asax:
Protected Sub Application_AuthenticateRequest(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
If Not Request.IsAuthenticated And _
(Not Request.RawUrl.ToLower.Contains("guestlogin.aspx")) And _
(Not Request.RawUrl.ToLower.Contains("registeredlogin.aspx")) And _
(Not Request.RawUrl.ToLower.Contains("mobilelogin.aspx")) Then
Response.Redirect("spLogin.aspx?m=" & Request.QueryString("m"))
End If
End Sub
Then, in your login page (the one specified in your Web.config):
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
If Not Page.IsPostBack Then
if request.querystring("m")="g" then
Response.Redirect("guestlogin.aspx?m=g")
elseif request.querystring("m")="r" then
Response.Redirect("registeredlogin.aspx?m=r")
elseif request.querystring("m")="m" then
Response.Redirect("mobilelogin.aspx?m=m")
end if
End If
End Sib

How do I logout of multiple asp.net applications?

I have a main asp.net app, which is written in asp.net 1.1. Runnning underneath the application are several 2.0 apps. To completely logout a user can I just logout of the 1.1 app with FormsAuthentication.SignOut or is it more complicated than that?
What you are looking to do is called Single Sign On and Single Sign Off. There are differences based on how you have the applications set up. I will try to clarify where those differences come into play.
To implement single sign on and single sign off you need to make the cookie name, protection, and path attributes the same between all the applications.
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms name=".cookiename"
loginUrl="~/Login.aspx"
timeout="30"
path="/" />
</authentication>
Next you need to add the machine keys and they need to be the same between all your applications.
<machineKey validationKey="F9D1A2D3E1D3E2F7B3D9F90FF3965ABDAC304902"
encryptionKey="F9D1A2D3E1D3E2F7B3D9F90FF3965ABDAC304902F8D923AC"
validation="SHA1" />
Are you using second or third level domains for the applications? If so you will need to do a little bit more by adding the domain to the cookie:
protected void Login(string userName, string password)
{
System.Web.HttpCookie cookie = FormsAuthentication.GetAuthCookie(userName, False);
cookie.Domain = "domain1.com";
cookie.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(30);
Response.AppendCookie(cookie);
}
Now to do single sign off, calling FormsAuthentication.SignOut may not be enough. The next best thing is to set the cookie expiration to a past date. This will ensure that the cookie will not be used again for authentication.
protected void Logout(string userName)
{
System.Web.HttpCookie cookie = FormsAuthentication.GetAuthCookie(userName, False);
cookie.Domain = "domain1.com";
cookie.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1);
Response.AppendCookie(cookie);
}
I am taking into consideration you are using the same database for all the applications. If the applications use a separate database for registration and authentication, then we will need to do some more. Just let me know if this is the case. Otherwise this should work for you.
It could be easier if you are having a central session store for all your applications. You can then set the session to null in one place.
This worked for me:
In the Logout event, instead of FormsAuthentication.GetAuthCookie method use Cookies collection in Request object as below:
HttpCookie cookie = Request.Cookies.Get(otherSiteCookieName);
cookie.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1);
HttpContext.Current.Response.Cookies.Add(cookie);
Ofcourse, this requires u know the Cookie name of the site(s) you want the user to be logged out - which however won't be a problem if you are using the same cookie across all the web apps.
I prefer to use web.config
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms domain=".tv.loc" loginUrl="~/signin" timeout="2880" name="auth" />
</authentication>

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