Multiple signin pages in one asp.net application - asp.net

I have one asp.net web application.
It is using two membership provider.
Two sign-in pages one for each provider.
Now i have two folders in root Folder1 & Folder2
Folder1 uses 1st membership provider
Folder2 uses 2nd membership provider
I got almost everything working including signin, create user etc in both provider.
Only issue is in Form authentication i can define only one loginpath. So when session expires or need login to access secure pages. it can only redirct to one sign in page.
Also that section can't be defined by location. by application only.
How can i get folder2 to use 2nd sign in page?
if there is anything i can define by location?

See How to override/change FormsAuthentication LoginUrl in certain cases
It appears from various people researching, that you cannot tell FormsAuthentication to have two different Login pages. But there is nothing preventing you from creating some base page class or other code in your two folders that can determine which login page to direct to. Or, I think that the Application_BeginRequest event fires before the FormsAuthentication module fires, so you could examine requests before they get redirected by FormsAuthentication. Either way though, you would be forced to allow anonymous users to Folder1 and Folder2, which is not ideal.

You need to use the <location> element in your web.config. You can use the <location> tag to apply authorization settings to an individual file or directory.
<location path="/root">
<system.web>
<authentication mode="Forms" >
<forms name="LoginForm" defaultUrl="default.aspx"
loginUrl="/root/login.aspx" protection="Encryption"
timeout="30" path="/"/>
</authentication>
<authorization>
<allow users="?" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
<location path="/root/admin">
<system.web>
<authentication mode="Forms" >
<forms name="formName" defaultUrl="login.aspx"
loginUrl="/root/admin/login.aspx" protection="Encryption"
timeout="30" path="/"/>
</authentication>
<authorization>
<allow users="?" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
MSDN
For centralized administration,
settings can be applied in the
Machine.config file. The settings in
the Machine.config file define
machine-wide policy and can also be
used to apply application-specific
configuration using <location>
elements. Developers can provide
application-configuration files to
override aspects of machine policy.
For ASP.NET Web applications, a
Web.config file is located in the
application's virtual root directory
and optionally in subdirectories
beneath the virtual root.
If you would like 1 login location and different access levels you might want to use roles.
<location path="/root">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow roles="admin,root" />/*admin, root is allowed */
<deny users="*" />
</authorization>
<system.web>
</location>
<location path="/root/admin">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow roles="admin" />/*admin is allowed */
<deny users="*" />
</authorization>
<system.web>
</location>
Users can belong to more than one
role. For example, if your site is a
discussion forum, some users might be
in the role of both Members and
Moderators. You might define each role
to have different privileges on the
site, and a user who is in both roles
would then have both sets of
privileges.
You can access all these element at
the code level if you would like to
manipulate the roles/authentication
programmatically
Page.User.Identity.Name
Page.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated
Page.User.Identity.AuthenticationType
Page.User.IsInRole("string");
Additional Links
Using 2 Membership Providers in asp.net
4 Guys From Rolla Tutorial
The ASP.NET web.config File Demystified

Related

Manage user access to pages in ASP.NET

I am using MembershipProvider and currently a have 3 roles:
User, Super User, Admin.
Also I have pages that can be seen only by Admin and Super User.
For these pages a I use configuration in web config:
<location path="Users.aspx">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow roles="Admin, Super User"/>
<deny users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
And this works perfectly fine.
But I have bunch of pages
Evaluations
Actions
Reports
Files
to which a I want separate access. I want grant access to each page individually.
Is there better way to do it than create roles for each page and than assign to these roles?
P.S.
I am using ASP.NET, not MVC
Yes, modify your folder structure to be something like this:
- Super User
- Admin
- All
And then you can do stuff like this:
<location path="Super User">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow roles="Super User"/>
<deny users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
<location path="Super User/Admin">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow roles="Admin"/>
<deny users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
<location path="Super User/Admin/All">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
And now simply place the pages in the appropriate folders. Per the MSDN Documentation the location element applies to all sub-directories:
Specifies the resource that the contained configuration settings apply to. Using location with a missing path attribute applies the configuration settings to the current directory and all child directories. If location is used with no path attribute and allowOverride is False, configuration settings cannot be altered by Web.config files that are in child directories.
so Super User by definition will have access to all other pages below and so on.
Yes, there is a better a simpler way. Put all your restricted pages in a separate folder and create an additional web.config in this folder. This additional web.config should contain the authorization section only.
The runtime will evaluate your web.configs from the request folder up to the application root. Because the authorization section exists in this additional web.config it will overwrite your root authorization section.
This way a single setting (single web.config) can guard arbitrary number of files (all files in the directory).
You can also assign permissions to a folder instead using the <location> element. This way, you can group a bunch of pages into one permission set. Also, you could validate permissions in code; in global.asax, the application_postauthenticaterequest runs for each request to the server (so for each aspx page), and you can write code here to do the validation, and redirect away if the user doesn't have the permissions.

Login Page for Asp.Net Web Application

I have web application using master pages. I want the login page to be the first page to display when a user navigates to this site. The login page is a content page. When I use the Asp.Net demos and the configuration web site the provide for setting security, my application doesn't render any of the styles. Is there a better tutorial to lock down an entire web application and how to use security?
You need to allow anonymous access to your resources (CSS, JavaScript etc.) in your web.config file. If you don't, then they'll not be served until you log in.
Have a read of Setting authorization rules for a particular page or folder in web.config
Example:
<configuration>
<location path="mystyles.css">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
</configuration>
If you have used form authentication then just add following section in your web.config
<location path="App_Themes"> (location of your style resource)
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
so style would have anonymous access. for automatically redirect anonymous user to login page
you have to add login url as per below
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms loginUrl="~/Login.aspx" protection="All" path="/" timeout="30"></forms>
</authentication>

Authorization settings for a folder in ASP.NET

I have an asp.net web site, I want restrict all users to access a folder named "log" and I have this element in web.config:
<location path="log">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<deny users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
and this element before it in system.web:
<authorization>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
but still I have access to this url: http://www.mydomain.com/log/log.txt
Any ideas?
Thanks.
.txt files are not handled by ASP.NET by default. You'll have to block access to the folder from within IIS.
If you're using IIS 7 you can use Request Filtering to achieve this.
to avoid this confusions I usually create one web.config file at the directories i need to set different permissions.
If you place a web.config file inside your log folder it will work ok (and it will become easier to check the applied permissions at the folder)
Example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<deny users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
</configuration>
I typed up a summary since many were facing the same situation regarding subfolder authentication.
Subfolder Authorization
ASP.NET can only have a single
authentication mode for one
application.
The different
applications CANNOT share resource
among them.
Scenario
Let's say the home page should not prompt login dialog. It should let users pass through without whatever login is. However, in the same applicatiopn, in a different folder presumably, another page needs to check user permission against database table using user network login ID. By default IE treats all web site with only hostname a Intranet. By its default intranet setting, it will not prompt the login dialog and pass user login and password to the application if Windows Authentication is used. However, the tricky party is, if the application has an actual domain, IE will think it is an Internet site, and it will prompt the login and password if Windows Authentication is used.
The only way to not to promopt login dialog for Internet site using Windows Authentication, is to also turn on the anonymous authentication in IIS. However, you will lose the ability to capture the login info because the Anonymous has precedence over the Windows Authentication. The good news is there is a way to resolve that issue. If an application subfolder needs to capture the login information, you will need to overwrite the parent authorization in Location element in web.config.
1 In IIS, configure Authentication as follows:
Enable Anonymous Authentication,
Enable Windows Authentication
2 Add the followings in Web.Config.
<authentication mode="Windows" />
<authorization>
<allow users="*" />
</authorization>
<!-- secured is the relative subfolder name. deny anonymous user, so only the authenticated login will pass through -->
<location path="secured" allowOverride="true">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<deny users="?" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>

<authorization> can protect pages?

Can I use <authorization> to protect webforms from being accessed if a person does not have a specific role?
I tried this:
<authentication mode="windows" />
<authorization>
<allow roles="Admin" />
<deny users="*" />
</authorization>
but if the role Admin is not available then I can still visit the page by typing in the URL. How can I protect this page?
I read the documentation on MSDN (ASP.NET Authorization).
I also put the UrlAuthorizeModule extra in the web.config to make sure that it gets hit.
Best to read this: ASP.NET Authorization
It explains how to set the allow/deny elements for users and roles.

ASP.NET Web Service inside Forms Authentication Application

I have an existing ASP.NET application that implements Forms Authentication site-wide. The application is deployed in multiple instances (e.g., customer1, customer2, test, dev, etc...), with a separate database per instance. SSL is in play. Instance configuration is via an XML config file.
I have a new requirement to allow upload/download of certain data, which I would like to implement as a public web service.
My initial thought here was to selectively disable forms authentication for a subdirectory of the application (e.g., ~/Services), and then do authentication via a SOAP header or similar.
However, I'm not finding a way to selectively disable forms auth.
Question: Is there a way to do this? I've tried the <location> tag in web config to no avail.
If not, what are your recommendations for how to set this up? I can think of the following options:
1) Create a new "Services" project in my solution, and then configure a separate IIS ASP.NET application on that directory in each instance. (Pro: easy access to instance configuration, which may be needed in the future. Con: configuration burden for each relevant instance).
2) Create a separate "Services" solution that references needed assemblies from the application solution and host it as a separate ASP.NET application. Then, lookup the db connection string based on the UserName provided in SOAP Header. (Pro: single app to configure in IIS. Con: No easy access to instance config.)
3) ??
Clarification: I did see the answer here: Override ASP.NET forms authentication for a single page, but the use of a location tag is not helping (requests for the web service are still redirected). The relevant sections in my web.config look like this:
<system.web>
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms loginUrl="Login.aspx"/>
</authentication>
<authorization>
<deny users="?"/>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
<location path="~/Services/MyService.asmx">
<system.web>
<authentication mode="None" />
<authorization>
<allow users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
I would think the location tag would work, where you specify the services folder and allow all users, something like:
<location path="services">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
But you said that didn't work, have you tried putting a web.config file in the services folder and disabling forms authentication and allowing all users in that file?
You could also have a (overriding) web.config file in the services folder with the access control set to anonymous.
what worked for me was to allow users all users access in the folder where my webservices is located.
Firstly i added a configuration file in that folder and inserted the code below to allow all users.
<authorization>
<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>
</system.web>

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