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Authentication (1) - Windows Authentication

This article will discuss Web Authentication in general, and Specifically Setup Windows Authentication.
 

A: Introduction

 
A-1: What is Authentication
  • Authentication is knowing the identity of the user. For example, Alice logs in with her username and password and the server uses the password to authenticate Alice.
  • Authorization is deciding whether a user is allowed to perform an action. For example, Alice has permission to get a resource but not create a resource.
Web App assumes that authentication happens in the host, such as IIS, which uses HTTP modules for authentication. One can configure the project to use any of the authentication modules built into IIS or ASP.NET, or write your own HTTP module to perform custom authentication.

When the host authenticates the user, it creates a principal, which is an IPrincipal object that represents the security context under which code is running. For example, Web API authentication and authorization the process could be like this:
 
 
A-2: Authentication Types
  • Windows Authentication
  • Forms Authentication
  • Passport Authentication
  • None
In details,
  • Windows Authentication, IIS performs the authentication, and the authenticated token is forwarded to the ASP.NET worker process.
  • Forms Authentication: authenticates the user by inspecting the forms authentication ticket, which is typically included in the user's cookies collection. If no form of authentication ticket is present, the user is anonymous..
  • Passport Authentication: Centralized authentication service provided by Microsoft that offers single logon and core profile services for member sites.
  • None: No Authentication provided. This is the default Authentication mode.
 
 
 
All types are fit into the four types of Windows/Forms/Passport/None authentications, we may discuss some of them later.  For In this article, we will discuss the basic concept of Windows Authentication, configuration setup, and test, as a starting point.
 

B: Windows Authentication

 
In Windows authentication, IIS performs the authentication, and the authenticated token is forwarded to the ASP.NET worker process. The advantage of using Windows authentication is that it requires minimal coding. One may want to use Windows authentication to impersonate the Windows user account that IIS authenticates beforehand off the request to ASP.NET.
 
Windows authentication needs two steps configurations, one is in Web App, another is in IIS.
 
B-1: Authentication Configuration in Web App
 
1， File Configuration
 
For .NET Framework, configuration is in the web.config file,
  1. <authentication mode= ' [ Windows | Forms | Passport | None ] '> </authentication>   
  • The following is ASP.NET app Windows Authentication configuration in web.config file:
 
For .NET Core, configuration is in the launchSettings.json file under Profiles folder:
 
Such as,
  1. "iisSettings": {  
  2.   "windowsAuthentication": true,  
  3.   "anonymousAuthentication": false,  
  4.   "iisExpress": {  
  5.     "applicationUrl": "http://localhost:9877",  
  6.     "sslPort": 44313  
  7.   }  
  8. }, 
2， Application Configuration
 
For both .NET Framework and .NET Core, we can easily configure the Windows Authentication when we start an app:
 
For .NET Framework: 
  • Start Visual Studio and select Create a new project.
  • In the Create a new project dialog, select ASP.NET Web Application (.NET Framework) > Next.
  • In the Configure your new project dialog, enter Project name > Create.
  • In the Create a new ASP.NET Web Application dialog,
    • on the right-side panel Click Change under Authentication,
    • on the left panel Choose: Windows Authentication
this will set web.config file as,
  1. <authentication mode= 'Windows'> </authentication>  
For .NET Core, 
  • Start Visual Studio and select Create a new project.
  • In the Create a new project dialog, select ASP.NET Core Web App (or Web API) > Next
  • In the Configure your new project dialog, enter Project name > Next
  • In the Additional Information dialog, select Authentication Type as Windows
 
this will set launchSettings.json file as,
  1. "windowsAuthentication": true,    
  2. "anonymousAuthentication": false, 
For .NET Core, Existing project,
  • Right-click the project in Solution Explorer and select Properties.
  • Select the Debug tab.
  • Clear the check box for Enable Anonymous Authentication.
  • Select the check box for Enable Windows Authentication.
 
3, Code Configuration
 
We can access the Mode property programmatically to configure the type of Authentication, such as,
  1. // Get the current Mode property.  
  2. AuthenticationMode currentMode = authenticationSection.Mode;  
  3.   
  4. // Set the Mode property to Windows.  
  5. authenticationSection.Mode = AuthenticationMode.Windows; 
B-2: Authentication Configuration in IIS Server
 
After publishing and deploying the project, perform server-side configuration with the IIS Manager:
  • In IIS Manager, select the IIS site under the Sites node of the Connections sidebar.
  • Highlight the Web Site for your app, in our case: ContosoUniversity
  • Double-click Authentication in the IIS area on the middle panel, the Authentication window will show the authentication type IIS supports
  • Select Anonymous Authentication. Select Disable in the Actions sidebar, or right Click => Disable
  • Select Windows Authentication. Select Enable in the Actions sidebar, or right Click => Enable
IIS provides three types of authentication mechanisms,
  • Basic Authentication
    The Windows user name and password has to be provided to connect and this information is sent over the network in plain text, and, hence, this is an insecure method of authentication.

  • Digest Authentication
    It is the same as basic authentication except that the password is hashed before it is sent across the network.

  • Integrated Windows Authentication
    In this kind of authentication technique, passwords are not sent across the network. The application here uses either the Kerberos or challenge/response protocols to authenticate users.
B-3: Test Cases
 
For the purpose of the test, we must use two different computers, from one remote access to another one, otherwise, as an administrator in a local machine, one can always pass the Windows Authentication.
 
Case 1
 
Web app set as Windows Authentication, IIS set Windows Authentication enabled, we got Windows Login page for protection:
 
 
If we give the correction login id/password, we can login and access the web app,
 
 
While if we give wrong credentials, the access is denied with a 401 unauthorized error,
 
 
 
Case 2
 
If web app set as Windows Authentication, IIS set Windows Authentication is disabled,
  • for ASP.NET (.NET Framework): we got 401 unauthorized error, access is denied.
  • for ASP.NET Core: we have passed as an anonymous user:
 
Case 3
 
Further test, we set authorize attribute in the code for Privacy() action,
  1. namespace WindowsAuth_MVC.Controllers  
  2. {  
  3.     public class HomeController : Controller  
  4.     {  
  5.         private readonly ILogger<HomeController> _logger;  
  6.   
  7.         public HomeController(ILogger<HomeController> logger)  
  8.         {  
  9.             _logger = logger;  
  10.         }  
  11.   
  12.         public IActionResult Index()  
  13.         {  
  14.             return View();  
  15.         }  
  16.         [Authorize]  
  17.         public IActionResult Privacy()  
  18.         {  
  19.             return View();  
  20.         }  
  21.   
  22.         [ResponseCache(Duration = 0, Location = ResponseCacheLocation.None, NoStore = true)]  
  23.         public IActionResult Error()  
  24.         {  
  25.             return View(new ErrorViewModel { RequestId = Activity.Current?.Id ?? HttpContext.TraceIdentifier });  
  26.         }  
  27.     }  
  28. } 
When we Click Privacy, we got the error message, however, this message page is not from IIS Server, but from the ASP.NET application
 
 
It seems ASP.NET Core has more features in Windows Authentication.
 

Summary

 
We briefly discussed Authentication in general and Windows Authentication in specific. We will discuss some other types of Authentication later on, and even for different tools, such as Angular.


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