ASP.NET web api - Set custom IIdentity or IPrincipal

Question

In our asp.net mvc/web api project, we want to customize the authorization using AuthorizeAttribute. We have noticed that there are two different AuthorizeAtt

Answer 1

I remember that in WebApi I could only use ControllerContext. But I'm not sure exactly why. From What I read, HttpContext is thread static, but everything in WebApi is more or less async. Take a look at this topic, maybe it will answer some questions.

Answer 2

This AuthorizeAttribute implementation worked for me. It's designed for Http Basic Auth but obviously I want to get the User.Identity.IsAuthenticated and User.Identity.Name from inside a ApiController too and this works:

public class ApiAuthAttribute : AuthorizeAttribute
{
    public override void OnAuthorization(HttpActionContext actionContext)
    {
        var session = (ISession)actionContext.Request.GetDependencyScope().GetService(typeof(ISession));

        if (actionContext.Request.Headers.Authorization != null)
        {
            var authConcat = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(Convert.FromBase64String(actionContext.Request.Headers.Authorization.Parameter));
            var email = authConcat.Split(':')[0];
            var password = authConcat.Split(':')[1];

            var user = session.Query<UserAccount>().SingleOrDefault(u => u.Email == email);
            if (user != null && user.IsAuthenticated(password))
            {
                actionContext.ControllerContext.RequestContext.Principal = new GenericPrincipal(new GenericIdentity(user.Email), new string[] { });
                return;     // and continue with controller
            }
        }

        actionContext.Response = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.NotFound);
    }
}

Answer 3

I implemented something as a proof of concept following mostly this: Authentication Filters in ASP.NET Web API 2

For Web API you can create an Attribute, IAuthenticationFilter. If I remember rightly, you can add it as a filter to the global filters in WebApiConfig

config.Filters.Add(new YourAuthenticationAttribute());

Or you can use it as an attribute on the api controller/ method.

You can then implement AuthenticateAsync, get the request's authorization header, check the scheme, and validate the parameter, and if all is valid, set the principal.

I think the idea is that you can add multiple of these filters in a chain and they can all authenticate against a specific set of requirements, like the scheme they look for, and somewhere in the chain the principal gets set, or a challenge is returned.

public class YourAuthenticationAttribute : Attribute, IAuthenticationFilter
{

public Task AuthenticateAsync(HttpAuthenticationContext context, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
HttpRequestMessage request = context.Request;

if (request.Headers.Authorization != null &&
    request.Headers.Authorization.Scheme.Equals("yourScheme", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
    {
        // get the value sent with the header.
        string authParam = request.Headers.Authorization.Parameter;

        // do some validation on the parameter provided...
        // if it's all valid, create a principal with claims:


    List<Claim> claims = new List<Claim>()
    {
        new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, "Eddie Admin"),
        new Claim(ClaimTypes.Role, "Admin"),
        // new Claim(ClaimTypes.Role, "Delete"),
    };

    // create an identity with the valid claims.
    ClaimsIdentity identity = new ClaimsIdentity(claims, "yourScheme");

    // set the context principal.
    context.Principal = new ClaimsPrincipal(new[] { identity });

When creating the principal you can apply claims and these are checked against the normal authorize attribute. e.g.

[Authorize(Roles = "Admin")]

I haven't used it beyond doing this, but hopefully this points you in the right direction.

Answer 4

Just extend your IPrincipal.

public static class IPrincipalExtension
{
   public static bool IsValid(this IPrincipal p)
   {
       // your custom validation
       return true;
   }
}

Now reference your namespace and use like this.

public class MyAuthorizeAttribute : System.Web.Http.AuthorizeAttribute
{
    protected override bool IsAuthorized(System.Web.Http.Controllers.HttpActionContext actionContext)
    {
        var valid = actionContext.RequestContext.Principal.IsValid(); // this will return boolean
        // your code here


    }
}