Basic Authentication in ASP.NET Core - asp.net-core

Question

Question
How can I implement Basic Authentication with Custom Membership in an ASP.NET Core web application?
Notes
In MVC 5 I was using the instructions in this article which requires adding a module in the WebConfig.
I am still deploying my new MVC Coreapplication on IIS but this approach seems not working.
I also do not want to use the IIS built in support for Basic authentication, since it uses Windows credentials.

Answer 1

ASP.NET Security will not include Basic Authentication middleware due to its potential insecurity and performance problems.
If you require Basic Authentication middleware for testing purposes, then please look at https://github.com/blowdart/idunno.Authentication

Answer 2

ASP.NET Core 2.0 introduced breaking changes to Authentication and Identity.
On 1.x auth providers were configured via Middleware (as the accepted answer's implementation).
On 2.0 it's based on services.
Details on MS doc:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/migration/1x-to-2x/identity-2x
I've written a Basic Authentication implementation for ASP.NET Core 2.0 and publish to NuGet:
https://github.com/bruno-garcia/Bazinga.AspNetCore.Authentication.Basic

Answer 3

I'm disappointed by the ASP.NET Core authentication middleware design. As a framework it should simplify and led to greater productivity which isn't the case here.
Anyway, a simple yet secure approach is based on the Authorization filters e.g. IAsyncAuthorizationFilter. Note that an authorization filter will be executed after the other middlewares, when MVC picks a certain controller action and moves to filter processing. But within filters, authorization filters are executed first (details).
I was just going to comment on Clays comment to Hector's answer but didn't like Hectors example throwing exceptions and not having any challenge mechanism, so here is a working example.
Keep in mind:
Basic authentication without HTTPS in production is extremely bad. Make sure your HTTPS settings are hardened (e.g. disable all SSL and TLS < 1.2 etc.)
Today, most usage of basic authentication is when exposing an API that's protected by an API key (see Stripe.NET, Mailchimp etc). Makes for curl friendly APIs that are as secure as the HTTPS settings on the server.
With that in mind, don't buy into any of the FUD around basic authentication. Skipping something as basic as basic authentication is high on opinion and low on substance. You can see the frustration around this design in the comments here.
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Filters;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Security.Claims;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace BasicAuthFilterDemo
{
public class BasicAuthenticationFilterAttribute : Attribute, IAsyncAuthorizationFilter
{
public string Realm { get; set; }
public const string AuthTypeName = "Basic ";
private const string _authHeaderName = "Authorization";
public BasicAuthenticationFilterAttribute(string realm = null)
{
Realm = realm;
}
public async Task OnAuthorizationAsync(AuthorizationFilterContext context)
{
try
{
var request = context?.HttpContext?.Request;
var authHeader = request.Headers.Keys.Contains(_authHeaderName) ? request.Headers[_authHeaderName].First() : null;
string encodedAuth = (authHeader != null && authHeader.StartsWith(AuthTypeName)) ? authHeader.Substring(AuthTypeName.Length).Trim() : null;
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(encodedAuth))
{
context.Result = new BasicAuthChallengeResult(Realm);
return;
}
var (username, password) = DecodeUserIdAndPassword(encodedAuth);
// Authenticate credentials against database
var db = (ApplicationDbContext)context.HttpContext.RequestServices.GetService(typeof(ApplicationDbContext));
var userManager = (UserManager<User>)context.HttpContext.RequestServices.GetService(typeof(UserManager<User>));
var founduser = await db.Users.Where(u => u.Email == username).FirstOrDefaultAsync();
if (!await userManager.CheckPasswordAsync(founduser, password))
{
// writing to the Result property aborts rest of the pipeline
// see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/mvc/controllers/filters?view=aspnetcore-3.0#cancellation-and-short-circuiting
context.Result = new StatusCodeOnlyResult(StatusCodes.Status401Unauthorized);
}
// Populate user: adjust claims as needed
var claims = new[] { new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, username, ClaimValueTypes.String, AuthTypeName) };
var principal = new ClaimsPrincipal(new ClaimsIdentity(claims, AuthTypeName));
context.HttpContext.User = principal;
}
catch
{
// log and reject
context.Result = new StatusCodeOnlyResult(StatusCodes.Status401Unauthorized);
}
}
private static (string userid, string password) DecodeUserIdAndPassword(string encodedAuth)
{
var userpass = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(Convert.FromBase64String(encodedAuth));
var separator = userpass.IndexOf(':');
if (separator == -1)
return (null, null);
return (userpass.Substring(0, separator), userpass.Substring(separator + 1));
}
}
}
And these are the supporting classes
public class StatusCodeOnlyResult : ActionResult
{
protected int StatusCode;
public StatusCodeOnlyResult(int statusCode)
{
StatusCode = statusCode;
}
public override Task ExecuteResultAsync(ActionContext context)
{
context.HttpContext.Response.StatusCode = StatusCode;
return base.ExecuteResultAsync(context);
}
}
public class BasicAuthChallengeResult : StatusCodeOnlyResult
{
private string _realm;
public BasicAuthChallengeResult(string realm = "") : base(StatusCodes.Status401Unauthorized)
{
_realm = realm;
}
public override Task ExecuteResultAsync(ActionContext context)
{
context.HttpContext.Response.StatusCode = StatusCode;
context.HttpContext.Response.Headers.Add("WWW-Authenticate", $"{BasicAuthenticationFilterAttribute.AuthTypeName} Realm=\"{_realm}\"");
return base.ExecuteResultAsync(context);
}
}

Answer 4

We implemented Digest security for an internal service by using an ActionFilter:
public class DigestAuthenticationFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
private const string AUTH_HEADER_NAME = "Authorization";
private const string AUTH_METHOD_NAME = "Digest ";
private AuthenticationSettings _settings;
public DigestAuthenticationFilterAttribute(IOptions<AuthenticationSettings> settings)
{
_settings = settings.Value;
}
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext context)
{
ValidateSecureChannel(context?.HttpContext?.Request);
ValidateAuthenticationHeaders(context?.HttpContext?.Request);
base.OnActionExecuting(context);
}
private void ValidateSecureChannel(HttpRequest request)
{
if (_settings.RequireSSL && !request.IsHttps)
{
throw new AuthenticationException("This service must be called using HTTPS");
}
}
private void ValidateAuthenticationHeaders(HttpRequest request)
{
string authHeader = GetRequestAuthorizationHeaderValue(request);
string digest = (authHeader != null && authHeader.StartsWith(AUTH_METHOD_NAME)) ? authHeader.Substring(AUTH_METHOD_NAME.Length) : null;
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(digest))
{
throw new AuthenticationException("You must send your credentials using Authorization header");
}
if (digest != CalculateSHA1($"{_settings.UserName}:{_settings.Password}"))
{
throw new AuthenticationException("Invalid credentials");
}
}
private string GetRequestAuthorizationHeaderValue(HttpRequest request)
{
return request.Headers.Keys.Contains(AUTH_HEADER_NAME) ? request.Headers[AUTH_HEADER_NAME].First() : null;
}
public static string CalculateSHA1(string text)
{
var sha1 = System.Security.Cryptography.SHA1.Create();
var hash = sha1.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(text));
return Convert.ToBase64String(hash);
}
}
Afterwards you can annotate the controllers or methods you want to be accessed with Digest security:
[Route("api/xxxx")]
[ServiceFilter(typeof(DigestAuthenticationFilterAttribute))]
public class MyController : Controller
{
[HttpGet]
public string Get()
{
return "HELLO";
}
}
To implement Basic security, simply change the DigestAuthenticationFilterAttribute to not use SHA1 but direct Base64 decoding of the Authorization header.

Answer 5

Super-Simple Basic Authentication in .NET Core:
1. Add this utility method:
static System.Text.Encoding ISO_8859_1_ENCODING = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("ISO-8859-1");
public static (string, string) GetUsernameAndPasswordFromAuthorizeHeader(string authorizeHeader)
{
if (authorizeHeader == null || !authorizeHeader.Contains("Basic "))
return (null, null);
string encodedUsernamePassword = authorizeHeader.Substring("Basic ".Length).Trim();
string usernamePassword = ISO_8859_1_ENCODING.GetString(Convert.FromBase64String(encodedUsernamePassword));
string username = usernamePassword.Split(':')[0];
string password = usernamePassword.Split(':')[1];
return (username, password);
}
2. Update controller action to get username and password from Authorization header:
public async Task<IActionResult> Index([FromHeader]string Authorization)
{
(string username, string password) = GetUsernameAndPasswordFromAuthorizeHeader(Authorization);
// Now use username and password with whatever authentication process you want
return View();
}
Example
This example demonstrates using this with ASP.NET Core Identity.
public class HomeController : Controller
{
private readonly UserManager<IdentityUser> _userManager;
public HomeController(UserManager<IdentityUser> userManager)
{
_userManager = userManager;
}
[AllowAnonymous]
public async Task<IActionResult> MyApiEndpoint([FromHeader]string Authorization)
{
(string username, string password) = GetUsernameAndPasswordFromAuthorizeHeader(Authorization);
IdentityUser user = await _userManager.FindByNameAsync(username);
bool successfulAuthentication = await _userManager.CheckPasswordAsync(user, password);
if (successfulAuthentication)
return Ok();
else
return Unauthorized();
}
}