I have created and tested a WCF REST service that is protected with SSL and Windows Authentication through IIS 7. I have also created and tested a pure html/javascript web client that is hosted in IIS 7 that is protected with SSL and Windows Authentication -- same server, different "site" within IIS. The REST service is not public, but the web client is.
Without security, everything works beautifully, but now we are ready for field testing and security must be implemented.
My end goal is to have the user visit mywebclient.com and authenticate using their Active Directory accounts. Initially I thought it would be safe to leave the service calls from the client to the REST service unprotected (since the traffic from the web client to the web service would be internal), but this does not protect us from an internal attacker. Also, in the future, the REST services will be available to handhelds through native applications.
I've tried to gain as much information on this subject as possible, but every piece of Microsoft documentation contains client examples written in .NET.
How can I share the security context between these sites without converting the web client to a .NET-based application? Could this be accomplished by combining the web client and service into one IIS "site"?
Edit: If the client and service exist in the same app pool, does that mean they could share authentication information between client and server processes?
Related
I have a WPF application that uses Client Application Services to allow authentication (username/password logon) against a related web application that uses Forms authentication and the SqlMembershipProvider/SqlProfileProvider/SqlRoleProvider. This all works and I can reliably validate a user/password combination.
The WPF application also calls a number of WCF services that are exposed by the same web application as is used for the CAS authentication. I now want to be able to pass through the authentication details (from Client Application Services) to the WCF services in order that I can identify the user that was authenticated within those services. I also need to be able to prevent the WCF services from being used if no authentication has taken place.
I have found a couple of .NET 3.5 examples where CAS authentication is used against .asmx web services, or authentication is provided against WCF Data Services which does not use ClientBase and has authentication facilities built in, but I cannot find any examples with pure WCF. Can anybody point me toward instruction that will enable this scenario? I am using .NET 4.0 for this project.
I have also found this stackoverflow question but again this is answered for .asmx web services and not for WCF.
The closest I have gotten involves the creation of an OperationContextScope and then copying the cookie header from the ClientFormsIdentity object to an HttpRequestMessageProperty and adding this to the OutgoingMessageProperties of the current OperationContext. I then call one or more methods of the service within the lifespan of the OperationContextScope. Thing is, when I then get to the WCF service, I still cannot see anything that resembles authentication in such a way as I can identify the original user. This methodology has been taken from various examples but I am obviously missing a step at the WCF end.
I think you need to switch to the Web API that Microsoft is now having people use for WCF Services. Check out Using Forms Authentication with Web API and http://aamirposwal.blogspot.com/2012/05/aspnet-web-api-custom-authorize-and.html
Found it.
In my binding, I specified allowCookies="true".
According to Wiktor Zychla, "setting the AllowCookies property on a BasicHttpBinding to true turns on the automatic cookie management" - this means that any attempt to set a cookie in code will be ignored and this is what I was doing.
I need to host a WCF service that will give its clients access to internal business systems on a public facing web server. Obviously I must secure this so that no one from the outside world even knows the service exists, let alone be able to call methods and access the data it exposes.
The overall idea is that the public facing website hosted on the same machine will call the WCF service and then the WCF service will provide it with the required data...
Public Facing Web Site <-> WCF Service <-> Business Systems / Databases
So I need to understand how to secure the service so it can only be accessed via the public facing website.
Ideas I had..
IIS filtering so that the IIS Site hosting the WCF service will only accept requests from a certain IP address.
Obscure port that will not be allowed through the public facing firewall.
Protocol such as NetTCP or NamedPipes
But what about the actual WCF security set up? As both the Public Facing Site and the service are on the same machine is Windows Authentication as option? Questions I have regarding this are...
Should the service client and the service simply use Windows Authentication?
Do I need specific user accounts as opposed to Network Service? If the website runs under network service would this then automatically authenticate to the service?
My objective is that someone in the outside world should not know of the services existance or be able to make access to it.
Thanks in advance.
Technical environment is: IIS7, .Net 4 and WCF 4.
I would suggest you create a http handler '.ashx' and use that as the endpoint for client requests.
If your using asp.net you can secure it by using simple forms authentication and retrieving username and password from the request headers to authenticate the request.
Then execute any requests to your business webservices which is also secured by your forms authentication.
Cheers
I have a number of WCF 4.0 rest services on an internal application server which are accessed from a DMZ'd public facing web server. Essentially I am looking for the simplest way to restrict access to the services to calls from the web server and select internal accounts. It seems like a simple task of which I can find no simple answer.
Info:
IIS6 for both the web server and the application server
.NET 4
Web Server is not a part of a trusted domain
REST Services are 100% code.
Client calls are passing credentials via System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials ( not sure if this is the way to go )
For the network part, you can disallow all IP's except the one of the ones you trust in IIS.
I have client apps that talk to my silverlight application and its web services. So the client app is running on the client machine and making calls directly to the silverlight app running on the machine and also making web service calls.
I want the usernames/password security to be handled by the 3rd party client app.
Any idea how I can do this?
I'd try the Application Scenario's, Guidelines and How Tos sections of this CodePlex Link. You should be able to find a scenario that matches closely to yours and follow the guidelines and configuration to get yourself going.
If I've understood this correctly, the client application would pass a username/password to your silverlight app which would require a wsHttpBinding that has clientCredentials="Username". You would need to be able to authenticate this against a user store configured on your server, for example you could configure a SQL Server provider.
I'm not sure how your 3rd party client app works, but you would require a seperate security configuration for that communication. You could use a less secure binding if the apps were on the same machine and possibly use clientCredentials="Windows"/"None"/"Basic".
Difficult to advise further without knowing your exact situation. What do you have so far?
The environment is in-house service based applications running in a Windows environment with WCF.
There are several "middle-tier" ASP.NET Web Applications and Web Services that authenticate the final client using Windows authentication, and use ASP.NET Roles to set Thread.CurrentPrincipal to a suitable RolePrincipal. These applications each run under their own service account, which is a domain account, and are considered to be trusted subsystems.
Some back-end WCF web services that may only be accessed by these trusted "middle-tier" applications. They use Windows Authentication to limit access to the service accounts used by these applications.
We now have a requirement for the back-end services to audit the identity of the final client whose call to the middle-tier application resulted in the call to the back-end service.
To avoid making any application changes, I was thinking of writing an endpoint behavior which inserts a SOAP Header with the final client's identity into the request sent to the back-end service. Note that the middle-tier applications are trusted, so no authentication of this SOAP Header would be required.
It occurred to me that this requirement may not be unique, so before I invent my own SOAP Header for this purpose I thought I'd ask if there exist any standards in this area I could reuse?
It sounds like you're after WCF Impersonation, check out the MSDN Link or Google that search term for more info. I've never used it myself so can't fully advise, but hopefully it's what you're after. Good luck
Edit: Does the WCF OperationContext not carry through the identity to the second phase? (OperationContext.Current.ServiceSecurityContext.PrimaryIdentity.Name)