ASP.NET Web API and OpenID Connect: how to get Access Token from Authorization Code

Dunken picture Dunken · Aug 12, 2014 · Viewed 27.4k times · Source

I try to get OpenID Connect running... A user of my Web API managed to get an Authorization Code of a OpenID Connect Provider. How am I supposed to pass this code to my ASP.NET Web API? How do I have to configure OWIN Middleware such that I can get an Access Token using the Authorization Code?

UPDATE: A SPA uses AJAX for communicating with my web service (ASP.NET Web API). In my web service a use OWIN Middleware. I set OpenIDConnect as the authentication mechanism. When the web service is called for the first time it successfully redirected the user to the login page of the OpenID Connect Provider. The user could login and got an Authorization Code as a result. AFAIK this code could now be used (by my web service) to the an Access Token. However, I don't know how to get this code back to my web service (is this done using a header?) and then what to configure to get the Access Token. I guess I could call the token endpoint manually but I would like to take advantage of the OWIN component instead.

Answer

BenV picture BenV · Aug 12, 2014

Looks like the recommended approach is to use the AuthorizationCodeReceived event to exchange the Auth code for an Access Token. Vittorio has a blog entry that outlines the overall flow.

Here's an example from this sample app on GitHub of the Startup.Auth.cs code to set this up:

app.UseOpenIdConnectAuthentication(
    new OpenIdConnectAuthenticationOptions
    {
        ClientId = clientId,
        Authority = Authority,
        Notifications = new OpenIdConnectAuthenticationNotifications()
        {
            AuthorizationCodeReceived = (context) =>
           {
               var code = context.Code;
               ClientCredential credential = new ClientCredential(clientId, appKey);
               string tenantID = context.AuthenticationTicket.Identity.FindFirst("http://schemas.microsoft.com/identity/claims/tenantid").Value;
               string signedInUserID = context.AuthenticationTicket.Identity.FindFirst(ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier).Value;
               AuthenticationContext authContext = new AuthenticationContext(string.Format("https://login.windows.net/{0}", tenantID), new EFADALTokenCache(signedInUserID));
               AuthenticationResult result = authContext.AcquireTokenByAuthorizationCode(
                           code, new Uri(HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.GetLeftPart(UriPartial.Path)), credential, graphResourceID);

               return Task.FromResult(0);
            },
            ...
    }

Note: The AuthorizationCodeReceived event is invoked only once when authorization really takes place. If the auth code is already generated and stored, this event is not invoked. You have to logout or clear cookies to force this event to take place.