Enable OPTIONS header for CORS on .NET Core Web API

Question

I solved this problem after not finding the solution on Stackoverflow, so I am sharing my problem here and the solution in an answer.

After enabling a cross domain policy in my .NET Core Web Api application with AddCors, it still does not work from browsers. This is because browsers, including Chrome and Firefox, will first send an OPTIONS request and my application just responds with 204 No Content.

Answer 1

Add a middleware class to your project to handle the OPTIONS verb.

using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;

namespace Web.Middlewares
{
    public class OptionsMiddleware
    {
        private readonly RequestDelegate _next;

        public OptionsMiddleware(RequestDelegate next)
        {
            _next = next;
        }

        public Task Invoke(HttpContext context)
        {
            return BeginInvoke(context);
        }

        private Task BeginInvoke(HttpContext context)
        {
            if (context.Request.Method == "OPTIONS")
            {
                context.Response.Headers.Add("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", new[] { (string)context.Request.Headers["Origin"] });
                context.Response.Headers.Add("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", new[] { "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept" });
                context.Response.Headers.Add("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", new[] { "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS" });
                context.Response.Headers.Add("Access-Control-Allow-Credentials", new[] { "true" });
                context.Response.StatusCode = 200;
                return context.Response.WriteAsync("OK");
            }

            return _next.Invoke(context);
        }
    }

    public static class OptionsMiddlewareExtensions
    {
        public static IApplicationBuilder UseOptions(this IApplicationBuilder builder)
        {
            return builder.UseMiddleware<OptionsMiddleware>();
        }
    }
}

Then add app.UseOptions(); this as the first line in Startup.cs in the Configure method.

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
{
    app.UseOptions();
}