I have successfully setup Elmah at machine level in order to have error logging for all web applications. Now I want to add the RSS feed of each application to Outlook. Problem is applications are secured and won't allow Outlook to access RSS feed (at my.web.application.com/elmah.axd/rss). Since I can't ask Outlook to login in the app, I figured I'd give access to anybody to the elmah path and restrict by IP address (actually restricting to our local network), with the following config:
<location path="elmah.axd">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
<system.webServer>
<security>
<ipSecurity allowUnlisted="false">
<clear/>
<add ipAddress="127.0.0.1" allowed="true" />
<add ipAddress="10.0.0.0" allowed="true" subnetMask="255.255.255.0" />
</ipSecurity>
</security>
</system.webServer>
</location>
This actually works when put in the application's Web.config: I have access to the elmah.axd page without logging in. Perfect. Now I wanted to do this at machine level so every application behaves the same. So I put it at the same places I put the Elmah config, that is:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Config\web.config
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\web.config
C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config (IIS config)
Although putting the config there made Elmah respond on every web application, it doesn't work with that security config: the applications still ask to login... What need I do to make it work at machine level ?
Would it be that in machine level web.config the path is not relative to the applications ? but then how can I make it work ? (I also tried ~/elmah.axd without success...)
Check for overrides in each application's configuration.
The local configuration settings override settings in parent
configuration files.
Source: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178685%28v=vs.140%29.aspx
Related
I want to secure specific folders and resources in my application that are outside of the routes for my mvc application. I want these resources to only be available to authenticated users (which role is not of concequence as long as they are authenticated).
Initially it seemed that the UrlAuthorizationModule would be the answer. I followed this article, Understanding IIS 7.0 URL Authorization, and I can get the module to work in the sense that it responds to the configuration elements in the web.config.
My current problem is that I think it is enacting the rules based on the anonymous user in IIS and not the authenticated user in asp.net identity.
Test Environment
I use a standard html file for testing instead of trying to load a script as this would also be loaded outside of the MVC pipeline.
In Visual Studio 2015.
New default .net 4.6.2 web project
MVC template
Authentication = Individual User Accounts
IIS 8 (for testing outside Visual Studio)
Authentication -> Anonymous Authentication (enabled)
Add to web.config
<configuration>
...
<location path="Data">
<system.webServer>
<security>
<authorization>
<clear/>
<add accessType="Deny" users="*"/>
<add accessType="Allow" users="?"/>
</authorization>
</security>
</system.webServer>
</location>
...
</configuration>
Add to folder structure
/Data/Protected.html // this file just has some basic Hello World content to display so you can see if it is loaded or not.
Observed Results
With this configuration everything in the Data path is always denied, it does not matter if the user is authenticated or not.
The same is true if I switch the 2 lines for Deny and Allow in the web.config.
If I completely remove the line with Deny then access is always allowed even when the user is not authenticated.
If I add a role and use roles with the role name instead of users attribute the role is also completely ignored.
Now What?
What am I missing? How can I get the Url Authorization module to work with MVC/WebAPI and ASP.NET Identity Individual user accounts or is this simply not doable?
I am open to alternative ideas as well, maybe the answer is to write a custom HttpModule or HttpHandler?
Side notes
Why & Specifics
These resources are javascript files, in short only a portion of the scripts should be available to unauthenticated users. There are 2 directories in the root, one for the authenticated part of the app and one for the non-authenticated part of the app. The reason for this has nothing to do with user authorization or security in the application, it is to limit the exposed surface area of the application to non-authenticated requests.
[TL;DR;]
Go to "Complete root web.config" section to see the needed web.config setup.
Test this in incognito-mode to prevent browser caching issues!
And use Ctrl+F5 because scripts and html files get cached.
First deny access to all anonymous users in the root web.config.
<authorization>
<deny users="?"/>
</authorization>
The web.config here allows one folder to be publicly accessible. This folder, in my example here, is called css and sits in the root of the MVC application. For the css folder I add the following authorization to the root web.config:
<location path="css">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
You can add more of these location paths if you want more public folders.
While all other files will not be accessible until the user logs in, the css folder and its contents will always be accessible.
I have also added a static file handler to the root web.config, This is critical as you want the request to be managed by the asp.net pipeline for the specific file type(s):
<handlers>
<add name="HtmlScriptHandler" path="*.html" verb="*" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.StaticFileHandler" />
</handlers>
Complete root web.config
<system.web>
<authentication mode="None" />
<authorization>
<deny users="?"/>
</authorization>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.6.2" />
<httpRuntime targetFramework="4.6.2" />
</system.web>
<location path="css">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
<system.webServer>
<modules>
<remove name="FormsAuthentication" />
<remove name="UrlAuthorization" />
<add name="UrlAuthorization" type="System.Web.Security.UrlAuthorizationModule" />
</modules>
<handlers>
<add name="HtmlScriptHandler" path="*.html" verb="*" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.StaticFileHandler" />
</handlers>
</system.webServer>
ASP.NET by default will only apply the allow and deny rules to files handled by the managed handler. Static files are not managed by the managed handler.
You could also set: (Don't do this, if not really needed!)
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">
With runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" all the HTTP modules will run on every request, not just managed requests (e.g. .aspx, ashx). This means modules will run on every .jpg ,.gif ,.css ,.html, .pdf, ... request.
One important thing
You don't have to add the UrlAuthorizationModule to the modules section as it is already part of the ASP.NET pipeline. This means, it will run only for managed files, not static!
If you now remove and then re-add the UrlAuthorizationModule to the modules section, it will run under precondition "integratedMode" and not under "managedHandler" anymore! And will therefore have access to static files.
<remove name="UrlAuthorization" />
<add name="UrlAuthorization" type="System.Web.Security.UrlAuthorizationModule" />
If you set the precondition to managed:
<add name="UrlAuthorization" type="System.Web.Security.UrlAuthorizationModule" preCondition="managedHandler" />, then the UrlAuthorizationModule will not restrict access to static files anymore.
You can test this by accessing a script file in the scripts folder successfully while being logged out. Hit Ctrl+F5 to make sure you get a fresh copy of the script file.
Difference between ASP.NET UrlAuthorization <--> IIS URL Authorization
It is important to keep in mind that the managedHandler precondition
is on the ASP.NET UrlAuthorization module. The precondition tells you
that the URL authorization module is invoked only when the code that
handles the request is mapped to managed code, typically an .aspx or
.asmx page. IIS URL Authorization, on the other hand, applies to all
content. You can remove the managedHandler precondition from the
ASP.NET Url Authorization module. It is there to prevent a performance
penality you have to pay when every request (such as a request to
.html or .jpg pages) would have to go through managed code.
P.S.: Some web.config attributes are case sensitive!
I want to use cURL from my webserver to call a page on my website (importdata.aspx) on that same webserver. But I want to make sure the importdata.aspx page can not be accessed from the internet.
I use forms authentication on my site, so I can't have the cURL call login for me.
In my web.config file I've disallowed non-authenticated users:
Setting up a different site and allowing anonymous users through IIS, still won't let me access importdata.aspx, as my formsauthentication would prevent that right?
Is there a way to allow importdata.aspx to be accessed only through the local machine and blocking it completely from outside?
Web.config files have some options to set different configs, based on the URL path. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178692(v=vs.90).aspx
Example:
<configuration>
<system.web>
<sessionState cookieless="true" timeout="10" />
</system.web>
<!-- Special configuration for the "importdata.aspx" -->
<location path="importData.aspx">
<system.web>
<authentication mode="Windows" />
</system.web>
</location>
</configuration>
In this example, I defined a different authentication mode for the importData.aspx file.
I have a page that generates a PDF and then returns it to the user. The functionality to generate the PDF will hit other ASP.NET pages and then render those pages as a PDF.
What I want is to only allow those ASP.NET pages to be accessed locally (by the PDF generator). Therefore blocking direct access will allow only the PDF processing tool to get access to it since it is running locally within the ASP.NET application.
I tried adding an ipSecurity element in the web.config to only allow localhost to get access to those aspx pages. Running all of it locally on my machine while developing works fine, however when I deploy and try to generate a report I get a 403 error.
The page that I am requesting that generates the report is in FolderNameHere/ReportPage.aspx. The function on this page will then call the pages in FolderHere/Code/Report to generate the PDF. The problem is I think when I access `FolderNameHere/ReportPage.aspx, it is passing my IP address to future accesses to the Report folder pages even though the function is running locally. Is there a way I can block direct access to these pages except from locally running functions that are called by non local addresses. Here is my config that unfortunately isn't doing the trick.
<location path="Requisite/Code/Report"> <!-- TODO: Move to WebConfig in Requisite-->
<system.webServer>
<security>
<authentication>
<anonymousAuthentication enabled="true"/>
</authentication>
<ipSecurity allowUnlisted="false">
<clear />
<add ipAddress="127.0.0.1" allowed="true"/> <!-- only allow local host -->
</ipSecurity>
</security>
</system.webServer>
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="?" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
There's often a distinction between the loopback IP address and localhost. Try changing 127.0.0.1 to localhost on the deployed config.
In the root of my Admin folder, I have the following in my web.config:
<system.webServer>
<security>
<authorization>
<remove users="*" roles="" verbs="" />
<add accessType="Allow" users="" roles="Admin" />
</authorization>
</security>
</system.webServer>
This is almost verbatim from IIS documentation, but I changed the role to be "Admin" instead of "Administrators",because that's the role in my app.
I have ensured that the ASP.NET UrlAuthorization module is not running via a <remove name="UrlAuthorization" /> in the modules element of my root web.config. I just installed IIS7 UrlAuthorization, so I know it is running.
The problem is that even though I explicitly allow the Admin role and have validated my Admin user is logged in, the Admin gets an unauthorized error. What am I misunderstanding?
Note, since I started writing this questions, I resolved the issue my explicitly enumerating every disallowed role and removing the remove users="*", but I don't know why it worked.
It doesn't look like there's going to be an answer to this. But in case anyone else runs across the same issue, I ended up having to change my approach and manage security externally from the ASP.NET pipeline.
I'm trying to add a directory for anon access in IIS 7.5. It works under Web Dev but not IIS 7.5
I'm currently using this web.config in the directory. This is a directory with style sheets:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!--
Note: As an alternative to hand editing this file you can use the
web admin tool to configure settings for your application. Use
the Website->Asp.Net Configuration option in Visual Studio.
A full list of settings and comments can be found in
machine.config.comments usually located in
\Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v2.x\Config
-->
<configuration>
<appSettings/>
<connectionStrings/>
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</configuration>
Update:
I've went to the folder and under Authentication, I've changed anonymous authentication from IIS_USR to pool. This seems to have correct it.
I will reward anyone who provides a very good explanation and resources for understanding this setting. Also, how to apply it globally would be good to know -- for all folders.
Since you answered your own question, here is the explanation that might help
Authorization deals with who IIS will offer resources to. Those resources, however, have their own security as they are just files on a file system.
The Authentication element in the config assists in determining how IIS will identify a user's requests after its accepted and as it accesses resources beyond/external to IIS.
This is set at the site level, typically in the applicationHost.config file for your server. It can, if properly setup, be overridden at the site level.
IIS.net pages about this:
http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/system.webServer/security/authorization/add
http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/system.webServer/security/authentication/anonymousAuthentication
The .config version of what you did in the UI is:
<location path="/yourSite">
<system.webServer>
<security>
<authentication>
<anonymousAuthentication enabled="true" username="" />
</authentication>
</security>
</system.webServer>
</location>
On the anon. auth method, the username field is who IIS will impersonate when resources are accessed. When you don't specify one, it defaults to use the identity of the apppool.
Now, as to why this mattered ... check the actual file on disk (the .css). If this fixed the problem that would mean IUSR doesn't have access to read that file.
You don't have a location defined for your authorization. You also don't specify what sort of authentication you're using within the web.config (if any).
<location path="/">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>