Windows Authentication Headers without .NET. Possible?

Question

I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to use Windows Authentication without hosting on an ASP site. It\'s an intranet w/ access to LDAP, so I\'m wondering if there\'s a way to

Answer 1

Update: There's now a module that implements Windows-integrated authentication.

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In your 401 response, you need to provide a WWW-Authenticate header with a value of NTLM, which informs browsers that they need to send Windows credentials.

response.writeHead(401, {
    'WWW-Authenticate': 'NTLM',
});

You then have the fun of implementing NTLM authentication. Quoting from this document about the NTLM authentication protocol:

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1. The client requests a protected resource from the server:

   GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
   

2. The server responds with a 401 status, indicating that the client must authenticate. NTLM is presented as a supported authentication mechanism via the WWW-Authenticate header. Typically, the server closes the connection at this time:

   HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
   WWW-Authenticate: NTLM
   Connection: close
   

   Note that Internet Explorer will only select NTLM if it is the first mechanism offered; this is at odds with RFC 2616, which states that the client must select the strongest supported authentication scheme.

3. The client resubmits the request with an Authorization header containing a Type 1 message parameter. The Type 1 message is Base-64 encoded for transmission. From this point forward, the connection is kept open; closing the connection requires reauthentication of subsequent requests. This implies that the server and client must support persistent connections, via either the HTTP 1.0-style "Keep-Alive" header or HTTP 1.1 (in which persistent connections are employed by default). The relevant request headers appear as follows:

   GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
   Authorization: NTLM TlRMTVNTUAABAAAABzIAAAYABgArAAAACwALACAAAABXT1JLU1RBVElPTkRPTUFJTg==
   

4. The server replies with a 401 status containing a Type 2 message in the WWW-Authenticate header (again, Base-64 encoded). This is shown below.

   HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
   WWW-Authenticate: NTLM TlRMTVNTUAACAAAADAAMADAAAAABAoEAASNFZ4mrze8AAAAAAAAAAGIAYgA8AAAARABPAE0AQQBJAE4AAgAMAEQATwBNAEEASQBOAAEADABTAEUAUgBWAEUAUgAEABQAZABvAG0AYQBpAG4ALgBjAG8AbQADACIAcwBlAHIAdgBlAHIALgBkAG8AbQBhAGkAbgAuAGMAbwBtAAAAAAA=
   

5. The client responds to the Type 2 message by resubmitting the request with an Authorization header containing a Base-64 encoded Type 3 message:

   GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
   Authorization: NTLM TlRMTVNTUAADAAAAGAAYAGoAAAAYABgAggAAAAwADABAAAAACAAIAEwAAAAWABYAVAAAAAAAAACaAAAAAQIAAEQATwBNAEEASQBOAHUAcwBlAHIAVwBPAFIASwBTAFQAQQBUAEkATwBOAMM3zVy9RPyXgqZnr21CfG3mfCDC0+d8ViWpjBwx6BhHRmspst9GgPOZWPuMITqcxg==
   

6. Finally, the server validates the responses in the client's Type 3 message and allows access to the resource.

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   

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It should be easy enough to get the user's username – it's sent as plain text in the Type 3 message. Actually validating that they've supplied the correct password is another matter entirely. Implementing all of this is left as an exercise for the reader.