Is Forms Authentication Hash machine dependent? - asp.net

I'm planning to use this piece of code in my Asp.net app
string strUserInputtedHashedPassword = FormsAuthentication.HashPasswordForStoringInConfigFile(tbPassword.Text, "sha1");
if(strUserInputtedHashedPassword == GetUsersHashedPasswordUsingUserName(tbUserName.Text))
{
// sign-in successful
}
else
{
// sign-in failed
}
Is the Hashing machine dependent... In the sense, If I create some users in my development machine in my development DB... Once I post both DB and Application to production environment with the user table, will the password for the users be same...
Hope I made my question clearly... Otherwise, please let me know..
Thanks

The hash is encoded and decoded using the machineKey in the machine.config, if you want the key to work against all tiers, make sure the keys in the machine.config files match.
This is basically the same problem you encounter with a web farm serving requests and validating each other's cookies...same solution.

Related

Not able to get nJupiter.DataAccess.Ldap work with our Internal LDAP (Lotus Domino)

I've tried everything possible, to setup nJupiter.DataAccess.Ldap as the membership provider on our intranet based web application built using asp.net 3.5.
Challenges I am facing:
Not able to authenticate the user using the default login webpart (says Your login attempt was not successful. Please try again)
I tried this code and I receive a COMException : "There is no such object on the server."
var ldapMembershipUser = System.Web.Security.Membership.GetUser("username") as LdapMembershipUser;
if (ldapMembershipUser != null)
{
var givenName = ldapMembershipUser.Attributes["givenName"];
}
I have placed my web.config and the nJupiter.DataAccess.Ldap.config here:
web.config : http://pastebin.com/9XdDnhUH
nJupiter.DataAccess.Ldap.config : http://pastebin.com/WsSEhi98
I have tried all possible permutations and combinations for different values in the XML and i am not able to take it forward. Please guide. I just am not able to connec to the LDAP and authenticate the user or even search for users.
Just looking at your config is unlikely to be enough since I don't know your Domino server's confguration, so my answer isn't an attempt to fix your problem. It's an attempt to teach you how I would approach it if it were my problem. Here's what I do to troubleshoot connections and queries from code to Domino LDAP:
Configure the Domino LDAP server for logging the highest level of debug information with the notes.ini setting LDAPDEBUG=7. See this IBM technote for more info.
Use an LDAP client and figure out how to successfully connect to the Domino LDAP server. I like the free Softerra client for this. Check the logs and save off the info from your successful connection.
Now run your code and compare what you see in the logs against the successful connection.
If the code is making it past authentication but failing on the query, then find the actual query in the log, go back to your LDAP client, figure out what the query should have been, and adjust your code's configuration appropriately.

Certificate stored in cert store disappearing from ASP.NET application over time

I've got a code signing certificate from Thawte that I'm using to dynamically generate and sign ClickOnce deployment manifests. The problem is that the ASP.NET application that generates and signs these manifests works fine when we restart IIS or re-import the signing certificate, but over time the following function fails to find the certificate:
private static X509Certificate2 GetSigningCertificate(string thumbprint)
{
X509Store x509Store = new X509Store(StoreLocation.CurrentUser);
try
{
x509Store.Open(OpenFlags.ReadOnly);
X509Certificate2Collection x509Certificate2Collection = x509Store.Certificates.Find(
X509FindType.FindByThumbprint, thumbprint, false);
if (x509Certificate2Collection.Count == 0)
throw new ApplicationException(
"SigningThumbprint returned 0 results. Does the code signing certificate exist in the personal store?",
null);
if (x509Certificate2Collection.Count > 1)
throw new ApplicationException(
"SigningThumbprint returned more than 1 result. This isn't possible", null);
var retval = x509Certificate2Collection[0];
if(retval.PrivateKey.GetType() != typeof(RSACryptoServiceProvider))
throw new ApplicationException("Only RSA certificates are allowed for code signing");
return retval;
}
finally
{
x509Store.Close();
}
}
Eventually the application starts throwing errors that it can't find the certificate. I'm stumped because I think the cert is installed correctly (or mostly correct) because it does find the cert when we start the ASP.NET application, but at some point we hit the Count==0 branch and it's just not true: the cert is in the application pool user's "Current User\Personal" cert store.
Question: Why might a cert all of a sudden "disappear" or not be able to be found?
Figured it out on our own (painfully).
The certificate needed to be installed in the LocalMachine store and the application pool account read permissions to the cert using WinHttpCertCfg or CACLS.exe if it's going to be used from an ASP.NET application. Using the CurrentUser store of the account running the application pool was causing the problem. I'm guessing there's some sort of race condition or something that's not entirely cool about accessing the CurrentUser store from a user that isn't running in a interactive logon session.
We were unable to do this at first because we were invoking the MAGE tool to do the ClickOnce deployment manifest creation/signing, and that requires the code signing cert to be in the CurrentUser\My store. However, we've eliminated the need for MAGE by a) creating the manifest from a template file and replacing the values we need to substitute out and b) by signing the manifest by calling the code MAGE calls via reflection that exists in the BuildTasks.v3.5 DLL. As a result we have more control over what cert we use to sign the manifest and can put it wherever we want. Otherwise we'd be stuck had we not gone a little "lower level".
We had the same issue, and it turns out the application pool needed to be set to load the the user profile of the (domain) account that we use to run the application.
If you notice that accessing the My certificate store works while you're signed in with the application pool's user, but not if you were not signed in while the apppool spun up, then this might be the cause for you, too.

How to use SharpSVN in ASP.NET?

Trying to use use SharpSVN in an ASP.NET app. So far, it's been nothing but trouble. First, I kept getting permission errors on "lock" files (that don't exist), even though NETWORK SERVICE has full permissions on the directories. Finally in frustration I just granted Everyone full control. Now I get a new error:
OPTIONS of 'https://server/svn/repo': authorization failed: Could not authenticate to server: rejected Basic challenge (https://server)
This happens whether I have the DefaultCredentials set below or not:
using (SvnClient client = new SvnClient())
{
//client.Authentication.DefaultCredentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("user", "password");
client.LoadConfiguration(#"C:\users\myuser\AppData\Roaming\Subversion");
SvnUpdateResult result;
client.Update(workingdir, out result);
}
Any clues? I wish there was SOME documentation with this library, as it seems so useful.
The user you need to grant permission is most likely the ASPNET user, as that's the user the ASP.NET code runs as by default.
ASPNET user is a local account, preferably youd'd want to run this code in an Impersonate block, using a network account set up for this specific reason

Connecting an ASP.NET application to QuickBooks Online Edition

I am trying to create an ASP.NET page that connects to QuickBooks Online Edition, read a couple of values, and display the results. So far I have downloaded the QuickBooks SDK but I have been unable to find a simple step-by-step example on how to create an asp.net page to connect to QuickBooks Online. The QuickBooks SDK documentation and the SDK itself is very confusing and overwhelming. Anyone know of a simple step by step tutorial on where to get started... or maybe a hint on the very first thing to do.
Yishai's answer is partially correct, but not entirely.
You can have your ASP .NET application log in and issue requests without having to send the user over to the QuickBooks Online log in page if you make sure to set the security preferences correctly when you connect up your application to QuickBooks Online Edition.
During the application registration process/connection process, it will ask you if you want to turn on or off login security with a prompt as below. You must tell it you want to turn off login security if you want to be able to access QuickBooks Online Edition data without forcing the user to log in every time. The prompt is something like:
"Do you want to turn on login security?"
You must select:
"No. Anyone who can log into [Application Name] can use the connection".
Outside of that, Yishai is correct about the process. To re-iterate, in a nutshell:
Register for a QBOE account
Register your integrated application with Intuit's AppReg service
Visit a specific link to tie your AppReg application to your QBOE account (make sure you turn off login security when it asks you!)
Make HTTPS POST requests to Intuit's servers to sign on using the connection ticket Intuit will provide you with
Make HTTPS POST requests to send qbXML requests to Intuit's servers, which you can use to add, modify, delete, and query records within QuickBooks Online Edition.
There is some additional documentation and some example requests on my QuickBooks development and integration wiki, specifically the QuickBooks Online Edition integration page.
I have built a solution that does what you're asking in PHP which adds, modifies, and queries data within QuickBooks Online Edition without requiring the user to log in everytime, and it works like a champ. It pushes and pulls order data between a PHP shopping cart (VirtueMart) and QuickBooks Online Edition. The PHP code is available here:
QuickBooks PHP Framework
As a side note, unless you're very familiar with generating SSL certificates and sending them via HTTPS POSTs, you'll save yourself a whole lot of trouble by using the DESKTOP model of communication, and not the HOSTED model. Just make sure to keep your connection ticket securely encrypted.
Also, Yishai's suggestion to: "One is to programatically hit up their login page and submit the credentials as if you were a user. I'm sure its not "supported" but it would likely work." goes specifically against the security/developer guidelines Intuit and the SDK set forth. If they catch you doing that, they'll ban your application from connecting to QuickBooks.
Here are all the steps I took to get this working. Special thanks to Keith Palmer for his comments, answers, and his website which really helped me get this working.
Register your application at http://appreg.quickbooks.com. This will give you your App ID and Application Name. I used these settings:
Target Application: QBOE
Environment: Production
Application Type: Desktop
(using Desktop made things much easier as far as not needing certificates)
A verification key is sent to your email address which you need to enter on page 2 of this wizard.
Set up your QBOE Connection. Once you finish registering your application in Step 1, you will then have an Application ID. Use this ID in the url below to set up your QBOE Connection:
https://login.quickbooks.com/j/qbn/sdkapp/confirm?serviceid=2004&appid=APP_ID
NOTE: Make sure to replace APP_ID in the above url with the Application ID that was created when you registered your application.
The wizard will take you through the following steps:
Specifying a name for your connection.
Granting Access Rights - I gave All Accounting rights since this was easiest.
Specify Login Security - I turned Login Security Off. This is important since it makes submitting the xml to the QBOE much easier since you do not need to get a session ticket for each user.
You will then be given a Connection Key.
At this point you now have the 3 important pieces of information in order to gain access to your QuickBooks Online Edition (QBOE) account.
Application Name
Application ID
Connection Key
Post the XML to QBOE with the 3 pieces of access information and the actual request into your QBOE database. Here is sample c# code that will post to the QBOE gateway. This will return all customers in your QuickBooks database. Make sure to update the xml below with your Application Name, Application ID, and Connection Key.
string requestUrl = null;
requestUrl = "https://apps.quickbooks.com/j/AppGateway";
HttpWebRequest WebRequestObject = null;
StreamReader sr = null;
HttpWebResponse WebResponseObject = null;
StreamWriter swr = null;
try
{
WebRequestObject = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(requestUrl);
WebRequestObject.Method = "POST";
WebRequestObject.ContentType = "application/x-qbxml";
WebRequestObject.AllowAutoRedirect = false;
string post = #"<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8"" ?>
<?qbxml version=""6.0""?>
<QBXML>
<SignonMsgsRq>
<SignonDesktopRq>
<ClientDateTime>%%CLIENT_DATE_TIME%%</ClientDateTime>
<ApplicationLogin>APPLICATION_LOGIN</ApplicationLogin>
<ConnectionTicket>CONNECTION_TICKET</ConnectionTicket>
<Language>English</Language>
<AppID>APP_ID</AppID>
<AppVer>1</AppVer>
</SignonDesktopRq>
</SignonMsgsRq>
<QBXMLMsgsRq onError=""continueOnError"">
<CustomerQueryRq requestID=""2"" />
</QBXMLMsgsRq>
</QBXML>";
post = post.Replace("%%CLIENT_DATE_TIME%%", DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss"));
XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
xmlDoc.LoadXml(post);
post = xmlDoc.InnerXml;
WebRequestObject.ContentLength = post.Length;
swr = new StreamWriter(WebRequestObject.GetRequestStream());
swr.Write(post);
swr.Close();
WebResponseObject = (HttpWebResponse)WebRequestObject.GetResponse();
sr = new StreamReader(WebResponseObject.GetResponseStream());
string Results = sr.ReadToEnd();
}
finally
{
try
{
sr.Close();
}
catch
{
}
try
{
WebResponseObject.Close();
WebRequestObject.Abort();
}
catch
{
}
}
Couple things to note:
As pointed out by Keith Palmer the qbxml version needs to be 6.0 (even though the IDN Unified On-Screen Reference shows 7.0)
I needed to include the onError="continueOnError" attribute.
Setting the WebRequestObject.ContentLength property is required.
Content Type needs to be "application/x-qbxml"
And finally I received many "The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request." exceptions which were not helpful at all but in the end I was able to trace them to something wrong with the xml. So if you get this exception look to your xml as the source of the problem.
The outline of what you have to do are outlined in Chapter 7 of the QBSDK documentation (at least in the 7.0 version of the SDK that I have). You have to open a test account and get permission to connect to their servers.
Once you have your account setup, the basic authentication procedure consists of redirecting your user to the QuickBooks Online site to log in, and once the user has done that, QuickBooks calls back your application with an HTTPS post with a ticket, which is basically a session handle that you can use for your requests, so that the system knows you are authenticated. When you get that response, you parse it and send your own login request to the system based on what you got back.
Then (if I understood the documentation correctly) you are basically doing Https POSTS of xml files with the QuickBooks requests, and you get XML responses that you have to parse to get the data you want.
I hope that gets you started.
The rest of the SDK is documentation (which you will need to know how to form your requests and parse your responses) and everything else is concerned with how to communicate with the desktop product. The only thing you are going to need from the rest of the documentation is how to do error handling, which is really only important if you are posting data to QuickBooks. If you are just reading, it doesn't matter (either your request works out or it doesn't, you don't need to worry about if you need to retry or if that would result in duplicate data).
EDIT: Given your specific use case I see two options. (You aren't crazy, just not the typical QuickBooks Online scenario).
One is to programatically hit up their login page and submit the credentials as if you were a user. I'm sure its not "supported" but it would likely work.
The other is to cache the results (which you should probably do anyway) and have an admin screen where someone does log into QuickBooks online and update the results every morning or evening or whatever makes sense.
In most small businesses, they are going to opt for the first option, but the second one is going to work more consistently, robustly and actually be supported by Intuit if you have an issue.
This looks pretty close to what you need: www.QuickbooksConnector.com
Wasn't able to download it yet.

WCF Certificate Authentication without installing on the Client

Our setup includes a WCF service and a number of clients written by us. Some of the clients include Silverlight applications, whereas others include Web and Windows applications.
I (think) I would like to authenticate clients based on X.509 certificates. Typically you would install a private key on the client to encrypt (aka digitaly sign) the messages. The server can the use the clients public key to de-crypt it to ensure the message has not been changed and prove the message is from who we expect (aka authenticated).
I dont want to install a certificate on a client machine. Its a hassel to deploy, and we cant really ask our clients to do it. I was speaking to someone the other day who sugested embeding the cert in a client assembly, reading it and using that. Is that possible?
It would be great if someone could point me to an example.
Thanks in advance,
David
Yes, you can load X509certificate2 by passing a certificate byte array with a password like
var certificate = new X509Certificate2(theByteArrary, "password");
To get the certificate byte array, you can simply copy paste the contents in .pfx file, which is a combination of .cer (public key) and .pvk (private key)
and then you can load this certificate on your client by doing:
var channelFactory = new ChannelFactory<IYourService>();
channelFactory.Credentials.ClientCertificate.Certificate =
clientCertificate;
If you use auto-generated client proxy, or you prefer configure the certificate via .config file then you might want to have a look at this from codeproject
Here is a suggestion. Could also be tweaked to use an embedded certificate.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WCF/wcfcertificates.aspx

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