WebAPI CORS with Windows Authentication - allow Anonymous OPTIONS request

Question

I have a WebAPI 2 REST service running with Windows Authentication. It is hosted separately from the website, so I've enabled CORS using the ASP.NET CORS NuGet package. My client site is using AngularJS.

So far, here's what I've been through:

1. I didn't have withCredentials set, so the CORS requests were returning a 401. Resolved by adding withCredentials to my $httpProvider config.
2. Next, I had set my EnableCorsAttribute with a wildcard origin, which isn't allowed when using credentials. Resolved by setting the explicit list of origins.
3. This enabled my GET requests to succeed, but my POST issued a preflight request, and I hadn't created any controller actions to support the OPTIONS verb. To resolve this, I've implemented a MessageHandler as a global OPTIONS handler. It simply returns 200 for any OPTIONS request. I know this isn't perfect, but works for now, in Fiddler.

Where I'm stuck - my Angular preflight calls aren't including the credentials. According to this answer, this is by design, as OPTIONS requests are designed to be anonymous. However, the Windows Authentication is stopping the request with a 401.

I've tried putting the [AllowAnonymous] attribute on my MessageHandler. On my dev computer, it works - OPTIONS verbs do not require authentication, but other verbs do. When I build and deploy to the test server, though, I am continuing to get a 401 on my OPTIONS request.

Is it possible to apply [AllowAnonymous] on my MessageHandler when using Windows Authentication? If so, any guidance on how to do so? Or is this the wrong rabbit hole, and I should be looking at a different approach?

UPDATE: I was able to get it to work by setting both Windows Authentication and Anonymous Authentication on the site in IIS. This caused everything to allow anonymous, so I've added a global filter of Authorize, while retaining the AllowAnonymous on my MessageHandler.

However, this feels like a hack...I've always understood that only one authentication method should be used (no mixed). If anyone has a better approach, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Answer 1

I used self-hosting with HttpListener and following solution worked for me:

1. I allow anonymous OPTIONS requests
2. Enable CORS with SupportsCredentials set true

var cors = new EnableCorsAttribute("*", "*", "*");
cors.SupportsCredentials = true;
config.EnableCors(cors);
var listener = appBuilder.Properties["System.Net.HttpListener"] as HttpListener;
if (listener != null)
{
    listener.AuthenticationSchemeSelectorDelegate = (request) => {
    if (String.Compare(request.HttpMethod, "OPTIONS", true) == 0)
    {
        return AuthenticationSchemes.Anonymous;
    }
    else
    {
        return AuthenticationSchemes.IntegratedWindowsAuthentication;
    }};
}

Answer 2

I have struggled for a while to make CORS requests work within the following constraints (very similar to those of the OP's):

• Windows Authentication for all users
• No Anonymous authentication allowed
• Works with IE11 which, in some cases, does not send CORS preflight requests (or at least do not reach global.asax BeginRequest as OPTIONS request)

My final configuration is the following:

web.config - allow unauthenticated (anonymous) preflight requests (OPTIONS)

<system.web>
    <authentication mode="Windows" />
    <authorization>
        <allow verbs="OPTIONS" users="*"/>
        <deny users="?" />
    </authorization>
</system.web>

global.asax.cs - properly reply with headers that allow caller from another domain to receive data

protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (Context.Request.HttpMethod == "OPTIONS")
    {
        if (Context.Request.Headers["Origin"] != null)
            Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", Context.Request.Headers["Origin"]);

        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, MaxDataServiceVersion");
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS");
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Credentials", "true");

        Response.End();
    }
}

CORS enabling

public static class WebApiConfig
{
    public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
    {
        // all requests are enabled in this example. SupportsCredentials must be here to allow authenticated requests          
        var corsAttr = new EnableCorsAttribute("*", "*", "*") { SupportsCredentials = true };
        config.EnableCors(corsAttr);
    }
}

protected void Application_Start()
{
    GlobalConfiguration.Configure(WebApiConfig.Register);
}

Answer 3

This is a much simpler solution -- a few lines of code to allow all "OPTIONS" requests to effectively impersonate the app pool account. You can keep Anonymous turned Off, and configure CORS policies per normal practices, but then add the following to your global.asax.cs:

            protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
            {
                if (Context.Request.HttpMethod == "OPTIONS" && Context.User == null)
                {
                    Context.User = System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal.Current;
                }
            }

Answer 4

I solved it in a very similar way but with some details and focused on oData service

I didn't disable anonymous authentication in IIS since i needed it to POST request

And I've added in Global.aspx (Adding MaxDataServiceVersion in Access-Control-Allow-Headers) the same code than above

protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if ((Context.Request.Path.Contains("api/") || Context.Request.Path.Contains("odata/")) && Context.Request.HttpMethod == "OPTIONS")
    {
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", Context.Request.Headers["Origin"]);
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept,MaxDataServiceVersion");
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS");
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Credentials", "true");
        Context.Response.End();
    }
} 

and WebAPIConfig.cs

public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
   // Web API configuration and services
   var cors = new EnableCorsAttribute("*", "*", "*");
   cors.SupportsCredentials = true;
   config.EnableCors(cors);


   config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
       name: "DefaultApi",
       routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
       defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
   );
}

and AngularJS call

$http({
       method: 'POST',
        url: 'http://XX.XXX.XXX.XX/oData/myoDataWS.svc/entityName',
        withCredentials: true,
        headers: {
            'Content-Type': 'application/json;odata=verbose',
            'Accept': 'application/json;odata=light;q=1,application/json;odata=verbose;q=0.5',
            'MaxDataServiceVersion': '3.0'
        },
        data: {
            '@odata.type':'entityName',
            'field1': 1560,
            'field2': 24,
            'field3': 'sjhdjshdjsd',
            'field4':'wewewew',
            'field5':'ewewewe',
            'lastModifiedDate':'2015-10-26T11:45:00',
            'field6':'1359',
            'field7':'5'
        }
    });

Answer 5

Dave,

After playing around with the CORS package, this is what caused it to work for me: [EnableCors(origins: "", headers: "", methods: "*", SupportsCredentials=true)]

I had to enable SupportsCredentials=true. Origins,Headers, and Methods are all set to "*"

Answer 6

disable anonymous authentication in IIS if you don't need it.

Than add this in your global asax:

protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if ((Context.Request.Path.Contains("api/") || Context.Request.Path.Contains("odata/")) && Context.Request.HttpMethod == "OPTIONS")
    {
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", Context.Request.Headers["Origin"]);
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept");
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS");
        Context.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Credentials", "true");
        Context.Response.End();
    }
} 

Make sure that where you enable cors you also enable the credential usage, like:

public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
   // Web API configuration and services
   var cors = new EnableCorsAttribute("*", "*", "*");
   cors.SupportsCredentials = true;
   config.EnableCors(cors);

   // Web API routes
   config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();

   config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
       name: "DefaultApi",
       routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
       defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
   );
}

As you can see I enable CORS globally and using the application BeginRequest hook I authenticate all the OPTIONS requests for the api (Web Api) and the odata requests (if you use it).

This works fine with all browsers, in the client side remember to add the xhrFiled withCredentials like shown below.

$.ajax({
    type : method,
    url : apiUrl,
    dataType : "json",
    xhrFields: {
        withCredentials: true
    },
    async : true,
    crossDomain : true,
    contentType : "application/json",
    data: data ? JSON.stringify(data) : ''
}).....

I'm trying to find another solution avoiding to use the hook but without success until now, I would use the web.config configuration to do something like the following: WARNING THE CONFIGURATION BELOW DOESN'T WORK!

  <system.web>
    <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.5" />
    <httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5" />
    <authentication mode="Windows" />
    <authorization>
      <deny verbs="GET,PUT,POST" users="?" />
      <allow verbs="OPTIONS" users="?"/>
    </authorization>
  </system.web>
  <location path="api">
    <system.web>
      <authorization>
        <allow users="?"/>
      </authorization>
    </system.web>
  </location>

Answer 7

Other solutions I found on the web didn't work for me or seemed too hacky; in the end I came up with a simpler and working solution:

web.config:

<system.web>
    ...
    <authentication mode="Windows" />
    <authorization>
        <deny users="?" />
    </authorization>
</system.web>

Project properties:

1. Turn on Windows Authentication
2. Turn off Anonymous Authentication

Setup CORS:

[assembly: OwinStartup(typeof(Startup))]
namespace MyWebsite
{
    public class Startup
    {
        public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
        {
            app.UseCors(CorsOptions.AllowAll);

This requires Microsoft.Owin.Cors assembly that is avaliable on NUget.

Angular initialization:

$httpProvider.defaults.withCredentials = true;

Answer 8

This is my solution.

Global.asax*

protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if(!ListOfAuthorizedOrigins.Contains(Context.Request.Headers["Origin"])) return;

    if (Request.HttpMethod == "OPTIONS")
    {
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Headers.Remove("Access-Control-Allow-Origin");
        HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", Context.Request.Headers["Origin"]);
        HttpContext.Current.Response.StatusCode = 200;
        HttpContext.Current.Response.End();
    }

    if (Request.Headers.AllKeys.Contains("Origin"))
    {
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Headers.Remove("Access-Control-Allow-Origin");
        HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", Context.Request.Headers["Origin"]);
    }
}

Answer 9

In our situation:

• Windows Authentication
• Multiple CORS origins
• SupportCredentials set to true
• IIS Hosting

we found that the solution was elsewhere:

In Web.Config all we had to do was to add runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests=true

<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">

We ended up to this solution by looking into a solution on why the Application_BeginRequest was not being triggered.

The other configurations that we had:

in Web.Config

    <authentication mode="Windows" />
    <authorization>
      <allow verbs="OPTIONS" users="*" />
      <deny users="?"/>
    </authorization>

in WebApiConfig

        private static string GetAllowedOrigins()
        {
            return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["CorsOriginsKey"];
        }

        public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
        {
            //set cors origins
            string origins = GetAllowedOrigins();
            var cors = new EnableCorsAttribute(origins, "*", "*");
            config.EnableCors(cors);

            config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
                name: "DefaultApi",
                routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
                defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
            );
       }

BTW "*" cors origin is not compatible with Windows Authentication / SupportCredentials = true

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/security/enabling-cross-origin-requests-in-web-api#pass-credentials-in-cross-origin-requests