Thinktecture IdentityModel AuthenticationConfiguration Mapping for Cookie - how?

Question

I have a Web API based application currently set up using the amazing Thinktecture IdentityModel 4.5.

It is set up for claims-based authentication, accepting a Basic auth credential sent in on the Authorization header. The javascript client saves the returned session token and uses this for subsequent requests by including it in the Authorization header preceded by Session as the scheme.

The javascript client also saves the token to a cookie, for retrieval if the window is closed and reopened quickly, or when new windows are opened to prevent the user having to re-authenticate. The cookie is named sessionToken and it's value is the actual token.

It all works wonderfully well.

The problem is I have a link on the app page that links to a direct address (/api/controller/id/pdfdocument) and opens it in a new window (target: _blank). Therefore there is no way to include the Authorization header in this request. However, the cookie is transferred over correctly as the session is still active.

I have tried to add a mapping to the AuthenticationConfig.Mappings collection to add support for collecting the token from the cookie, however I just can't get the configuration right to get this working, and havn't been able to find any other resources online. I'm assuming there's something very simple that needs to get fixed.

My code:

    private static AuthenticationConfiguration CreateAuthenticationConfiguration()
    {
        var sessionTokenConfiguration = new SessionTokenConfiguration();
        sessionTokenConfiguration.EndpointAddress = "/Authenticate";
        sessionTokenConfiguration.DefaultTokenLifetime = new TimeSpan(1, 0, 0);

        var authenticationConfig = new AuthenticationConfiguration
        {
            ClaimsAuthenticationManager = _authenticationManager,
            RequireSsl = false,
            EnableSessionToken = true,
            SessionToken = sessionTokenConfiguration,
            SendWwwAuthenticateResponseHeaders = false
        };

        var securityTokenHandler = new Thinktecture.IdentityModel.Tokens.Http.BasicAuthenticationWithRoleSecurityTokenHandler(_userService.ValidateUser, _userService.GetRolesForUser);
        securityTokenHandler.RetainPassword = false;
        var realm = "localhost";

        var authorizationMapping = new AuthenticationOptionMapping
        {
            Options = AuthenticationOptions.ForAuthorizationHeader(scheme: "Basic"),
            TokenHandler = new System.IdentityModel.Tokens.SecurityTokenHandlerCollection { securityTokenHandler },
            Scheme = AuthenticationScheme.SchemeAndRealm("Basic", realm)
        };
        authenticationConfig.AddMapping(authorizationMapping);

        var cookieMapping = new AuthenticationOptionMapping
        {
            Options = AuthenticationOptions.ForCookie("sessionToken"),
            TokenHandler = new System.IdentityModel.Tokens.SecurityTokenHandlerCollection { securityTokenHandler },
            Scheme = AuthenticationScheme.SchemeOnly(scheme: "Session")
        };
        authenticationConfig.AddMapping(cookieMapping);

        //authenticationConfig.AddBasicAuthentication(_userService.ValidateUser, _userService.GetRolesForUser);

        return authenticationConfig;
    }

This configuration is then applied like so:

HttpConfiguration config;
var authenticationConfig = CreateAuthenticationConfiguration();
config.MessageHandlers.Add(new AuthenticationHandler(authenticationConfig));

And this is what the cookie looks like in the request header:

Cookie: sessionToken=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.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.UlPeD9HzduQfwHE7NuXi9eMVo40hypi_LBK-f76VYFI; username=a

Any help most appreciated!

Answer 1

So after waiting a few minutes and receiving no replies and desperately needing this functionality I dived into the Thinktecture IdentityModel 4.5 source code to see what was going on and it seems this feature is not actually supported. Not only is it not supported but from the looks of it cookie mapping is not actually implemented.

I forked the repository and made a few small changes to allow for this feature: https://github.com/ibraheemhlaiyil/Thinktecture.IdentityModel.45

and sent Dominick Baier of Thinktecture this in a pull request: https://github.com/thinktecture/Thinktecture.IdentityModel.45/pull/95

Cookie usage has it's disadvantages, and it seems Thinktecture are trying to stay away from them as far as possible, however I could not come up with a different solution to my problem - a javascript client web applications that needs to open a new window/tab and maintain the authenticated session in the new window/tab.

If you want to use this feature, you simply set the new CookieName property on the SessionTokenConfiguration object. IdentityModel uses the HeaderName property to determine which header to look up for authentication data. In the same way, if the CookieName property is set this determines which cookie name is looked up for authentication data if no authentication data was found on the header.

In the example below, authentication data is looked for on the cookie named sessionToken if no authentication data is found on the Authorization header.

    private static AuthenticationConfiguration CreateAuthenticationConfiguration()
    {

        var authenticationConfig = new AuthenticationConfiguration
        {
            ClaimsAuthenticationManager = _authenticationManager,
            RequireSsl = false,
            SendWwwAuthenticateResponseHeaders = false,
            EnableSessionToken = true,
            SessionToken = new SessionTokenConfiguration
            {
                EndpointAddress = "/Authenticate",
                DefaultTokenLifetime = new TimeSpan(1, 0, 0),
                HeaderName = "Authorization",
                CookieName = "sessionToken",
                SigningKey = CryptoRandom.CreateRandomKey(32)
            }
        };

        authenticationConfig.AddBasicAuthentication(_userService.ValidateUser, _userService.GetRolesForUser);

        return authenticationConfig;
    }

As before, this configuration is applied like so during your application start up:

HttpConfiguration config;
var authenticationConfig = CreateAuthenticationConfiguration();
config.MessageHandlers.Add(new AuthenticationHandler(authenticationConfig));

The cookie authentication data has the exact same form as the data sent in the Authorization header, so if sent, the cookie should look like:

Cookie: sessionToken=Session eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.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.UlPeD9HzduQfwHE7NuXi9eMVo40hypi_LBK-f76VYFI

Hope someone finds this of some use!