Passing logged on user to Angular services (Windows Authentication) - asp.net-web-api

I'm building a mostly client-side app (HTML/CSS/Angular) and it calls a Web API backend for data retrieval. Pretty standard stuff. However, we are behind a firewall and use Windows Authentication to pass through the currently logged on user. I have exhausted myself trying to determine how to simply retreive the username of the currently logged on user to pass to Angular so I can then pass it up to the Web API.
Any suggestions?
So far I've created a <script> section in the head of my HTML and retrieve the username into a local variable like so:
<script type="text/javascript">
var loggedOnUser = '<%= Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_USER"] %>';
console.log('logged on user is ' + loggedOnUser);
</script>
The problem is that I'm always getting back an empty string (well, no value at all actually).
The controller I'm using looks like this:
public class AuthenticationController : ApiController
{
private static Logger logger = LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();
public IHttpActionResult Get(string activeDirectoryDomainName, string username)
{
string user = HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.Name;
logger.Debug("user: " + user);
return Json(BLL.GetAuthenticationInfo(activeDirectoryDomainName, username));
}
}
The logged result from the controller is empty too.

Your server should be doing the validation and checking who the user is, not the angular application telling the server who they are (not secure!).
If you just want to display the username you should be able to do a call to the web api and have it return the username (that way you can see who they are authenticating as)
If you are returning a Razor / cshtml file as your view / layout, you can include the username there as well with #User.Identity.Name

Related

Changing back the url to original if exception thrown and return back to form

I have a thymeleaf signup form, which if we submit then a controller at "/signup_do" is called which validates and saves the user to database:
<form action="/signup_do" method="post">
...
</form>
The controller at "/signup_do" passes the request to the accountRegistration service method, which does the validation:
#PostMapping("/signup_do")
public String register(Account account, HttpSession session) {
session.setAttribute("accountToRegister", account);
accountManagement.accountRegistration(account);
return "Success";
}
The account registration method can throw an exception SignupFormException, which is handled by the #ExceptionHandler defined in that controller class:
#ExceptionHandler(value=SignupFormException.class)
public String handle(HttpSession session, Model response) {
Account returnDataToForm = (Account) session.getAttribute("accountToRegister");
response.addAttribute("name", returnDataToForm.getFirstName());
session.invalidate();
return "signup";
}
Now the problem is that when exception occurs, the inputs entered in the form is passed back to the signup form, and the entered data remains intact, but the url still remains as /signup_do.
I have tried using return "redirect:/signup" instead, which does change the url, but it ends up making a get request to the /signup url like
/signup?name=John...
but my /signup controller is not designed to handle a get request, it just knows to display the form, so the information is lost.
#GetMapping("/signup")
public String signupPage() {return "signup";}
I also tried using forward:/signup, but that just ended up throwing 405 error.
I figured out a clean workaround a few hours after asking this question.
What I did is change the name of the controller that handles the signup process to ("/signup") as well. Since the controller that displays the page is a #GetMapping("/signup") and the one that handles the signup process is a #PostMapping("/signup") there is no clash.
Now even if the controller changes, the url remains the same, since both of them are signup...
#GetMapping("/signup")
public String signupPage() {return "signup";}
#PostMapping("/signup")
public String register(Account account, HttpSession session) {
session.setAttribute("accountToRegister", account);
accountManagement.accountRegistration(account);
return "success";
}
And this works just like I wanted!!
Redirecting will make a get request to the controller looking for the view to display, which in your situation means losing your data for the reasons you give. I can think of two workarounds:
Don't do the redirect and change the URL manually with javascript everytime you enter this view. If you dislike having a "wrong" URL in a view, editing it manually looks the most reasonable and direct approach. You can see how to do this here, including it in a script that executes everytime the page loads/the submit button is pressed.
Do the redirect and avoid losing your info by storing it in the session for a while longer, accessing it in thymeleaf in this way, instead of getting it from a model attribute. This would mean you would have to be careful to remove this session attributes later. It's also not very "clean" that your get request for the form view includes the user info, so I wouldn't go with this solution if avoidable.

How to best implement simple validation of JWT credential to data being passed to my controller

My ASPNetCore web API is using JWT (Json Web Tokens) for authentication. The JWT token has an external and internal user ID inside it. Having these ID's in the JWT does not concern me, as JWT's can't be tampered with or they become invalid, and the internal ID is not useful anywhere outside the system. Of course, the password is not in the JWT content.
Within the JWT, the external user ID becomes the user's System.Security.Claims.ClaimType.Name. The internal ID is set as a JwtRegisteredClaimName.UniqueName value.
When calls are made to the web API, it is good that the [Authorize] attribute attribute makes sure that the user has authenticated and has a currently valid JWT. The concern I have is that once the user is logged in, there is an opportunity for hacking by using the Web API, sending external or internal user id's as criteria that do not match the currently authenticated user. Some web methods in the controllers accept the internal user ID as part of the request being posted, for example, a call to save user information has the internal user ID inside, used as the key for saving the data. I need to be sure that the authenticated user matches/is the same as the user whose data is being saved via the Web API.
My Question is how and where to best implement this data-level security in my web api? Policies don't seem like they can be applied against the data being passed. Authorization filters don't seem to have access to the message body nor any data bindings. Action filters (Microsoft.ASPNetCore.MVC.Filters) run later, but seem like they may not really be intended for this. Also, how do you access the body of the message that was posted inside an action filter? Or should I always make sure that the user ID is passed to methods as a consistently named parameter that I can access via ActionExecutingContext.ActionArguments?
I've searched many posts and not found any scenarios that match what I'm trying to do.
You can always use Middleware to intercept the call when the Response object has been populated , see code sample form here and here .
Authorization filters could also read the request body with EnableRewind :
public class ReadableBodyStreamAttribute : AuthorizeAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter
{
public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationFilterContext context)
{
var request = context.HttpContext.Request;
context.HttpContext.Request.EnableRewind();
using (var stream = new StreamReader(request.Body))
{
stream.BaseStream.Position = 0;
var requestBody = stream.ReadToEnd();
}
}
}
Also works in action filters :
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method)]
public class ReadableBodyStreamAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext actionContext)
{
var request = actionContext.HttpContext.Request;
var route = request.Path.HasValue ? request.Path.Value : "";
var requestHeader = request.Headers.Aggregate("", (current, header) => current + $"{header.Key}: {header.Value}{Environment.NewLine}");
var requestBody = "";
request.EnableRewind();
using (var stream = new StreamReader(request.Body))
{
stream.BaseStream.Position = 0;
requestBody = stream.ReadToEnd();
}
if (...)
{
var wrongResult = new { error = "Wrong parameters" };
actionContext.Result = new JsonResult(wrongResult);
}
}
}

How to customize WebApi OAuth token validation?

Context
I have a working WebApi2 application, which uses the out of the box bearer token validation, just as was in the original Visual Studio project template.
I would like to add a custom data to the generated token, then check against that custom data when the subsequent api calls happen what are presenting this token.
For the sake of example say I would like to store the IP address of the caller when the token was created, then when validating the token check if the call which is uses the token have the very same IP.
I found the custom class
public class ApplicationOAuthProvider : OAuthAuthorizationServerProvider
in my project and I also see that OAuthOptions is configured to use that custom class in start up.
I suppose where to add my custom token data (the ip):
public override async Task GrantResourceOwnerCredentials(OAuthGrantResourceOwnerCredentialsContext context)
here I can add it to the ticket properties as custom data.
Question
However I can not find out in what method to check against the token has this data, and it matches to the actual call's ip, and if not, then regard the token invalid?
You are absolutely right when you decided to implement OAuthAuthorizationServerProvider . Now you need to add something like this:
private ClaimsIdentity CreateIdentity(User user, string authenticationType)
{
var identity = new ClaimsIdentity(authenticationType);
identity.AddClaim(new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, user.Login));
identity.AddClaim(new Claim(ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier, user.UserID.ToString())); // or ip instead of user.UserID if you need
return identity;
}
And then use it in your Grant... method (for instance GrantResourceOwnerCredentials) like this:
ClaimsIdentity identity = CreateIdentity(user, context.Options.AuthenticationType);
context.Validated(identity);
Then when request come to your webapi controller you can check your data in your custom Attribute:
Claim userIdClaim = ((ClaimsIdentity)actionContext.ControllerContext.RequestContext.Principal.Identity)
.Claims
.FirstOrDefault(c => c.Type == ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier);
hope it helps.

Swagger and WebAPI (Swashbuckle) - making the /swagger endpoint private?

I just installed Swashbuckle in my WebAPI project and so far so good, though the /swagger api endpoint is public.
I'd like to only allow access to my mobile app developer. How can I hide my API behind a password or require forms auth here?
I achieved this with the below:
protected override Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, CancellationToken cancellationToken) {
string username = null;
if (Thread.CurrentPrincipal.Identity != null && Thread.CurrentPrincipal.Identity.Name != null) {
username = Thread.CurrentPrincipal.Identity.Name.ToLower();
}
if (IsSwagger(request) && username != "Admin") {
var response = request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized);
return Task.FromResult(response);
}
else {
return base.SendAsync(request, cancellationToken);
}
}
private bool IsSwagger(HttpRequestMessage request) {
return request.RequestUri.PathAndQuery.StartsWith("/swagger");
}
If your project if hosted under IIS, you can use either Windows (with proper access rights on site folder) or basic authentication on your IIS website, and disable Anonymous authentication.
#bsoulier answer is perfectly reasonable. Another way is to use JavaScript/AJAX.
I have not tried securing the actual swagger-ui index page, since most of the time authentication on the endpoints is enough.
But any JavaScript can easily be injected into the index page or you can use your own custom index page. That means you can use any authentication that you want to. Simply create a simple HTML form and use AJAX to make a call to login the user before allowing them to see any content or before redirecting them to the real swagger-ui page.
Injecting JavaScript files into the swagger-ui page from SwaggerConfig:
c.InjectJavaScript(thisAssembly, "Your.Namespace.testScript1.js");
Injecting custom index page into the swagger-ui page from SwaggerConfig:
c.CustomAsset("index", containingAssembly, "Your.Namespace.index.html");

How to store PreRequestFilter information in AuthUserSession

I am building a web service using ServiceStack which has to support multiple vendors. The web service provides largely the same functionality to all vendors with some exceptions here and there.
In order to re-use as much functionality as possible I have come up with the following URL scheme:
http://localhost/brand1/templates
http://localhost/brand2/templates
"brand1" and "brand2" are not services but "templates" is. The Templates service's request DTO's will have a property called "Brand" like so:
[Route("/{Brand}/templates", "GET")]
public class GetTemplates
{
public Brand Brand { get; set; }
}
So in the Templates service I know which brand I am dealing with. This scheme works well.
What I cannot figure out though is this. The user of the service has to be authenticated and I cannot figure out how to handle the redirection of the service after the user has been authenticated since I have to pass along the brand information. I have created my own CustomAuthProvider class that inherits CredentialsAuthProvider. In the TryAuthenticate method I can set the authService.GetSession().ReferrerUrl property to the correct brand if I know what it was.
The only way I have found so far to get this information is to register a PreRequestFilter. My thinking here was that since the URL (e.g. http://localhost/brand1/templates) contains the brand I can store it in my own AuthUserSession class. I can't figure out how to do this. I have a "SessionFactory" method that I pass to the AuthFeature constructor. But what should I do in there? How do I get to the brand that I've obtained in the PreRequestFilter? Is it safe to store it in a field of the AppHost? I think not because of concurrency issues. How do I tie the PreRequestFilter to the SessionFactory method?
I hope I am explaining my problem clearly enough?
I was overthinking the solution because I didn't realize that I had all the information I needed in the IServiceBase parameter of the TryAuthenticate method of the CredentialsAuthProvider class.
In the end I came to the following solution:
public class CustomCredentialsAuthProvider : CredentialsAuthProvider
{
public override bool TryAuthenticate(IServiceBase authService,
string userName, string password)
{
var session = authService.GetSession();
var origQuery = authService.Request.UrlReferrer.Query;
session.ReferrerUrl = "/error";
var queryString = origQuery.Substring(10); // strip "redirect="
var decodedUrl = HttpUtility.UrlDecode(queryString);
if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(decodedUrl))
{
var query = new Uri(decodedUrl);
session.ReferrerUrl = query.AbsolutePath;
}
return DoAuthentication(userName, password);
}
}
The different places where you can set the Url to redirect to during ServiceStack Authentication, in order of precedence are:
The Session.ReferrerUrl Url if it's populated
The Continue QueryString, FormData param when making the request to /auth (i.e Authenticate.Continue property)
The HTTP Referer HTTP Header
The CallbackUrl of the current AuthProvider used

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