[c#] JWT authentication for ASP.NET Web API

I've managed to achieve it with minimal effort (just as simple as with ASP.NET Core).

For that I use OWIN Startup.cs file and Microsoft.Owin.Security.Jwt library.

In order for the app to hit Startup.cs we need to amend Web.config:

<configuration>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="owin:AutomaticAppStartup" value="true" />
    ...

Here's how Startup.cs should look:

using MyApp.Helpers;
using Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens;
using Microsoft.Owin;
using Microsoft.Owin.Security;
using Microsoft.Owin.Security.Jwt;
using Owin;

[assembly: OwinStartup(typeof(MyApp.App_Start.Startup))]

namespace MyApp.App_Start
{
    public class Startup
    {
        public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
        {
            app.UseJwtBearerAuthentication(
                new JwtBearerAuthenticationOptions
                {
                    AuthenticationMode = AuthenticationMode.Active,
                    TokenValidationParameters = new TokenValidationParameters()
                    {
                        ValidAudience = ConfigHelper.GetAudience(),
                        ValidIssuer = ConfigHelper.GetIssuer(),
                        IssuerSigningKey = ConfigHelper.GetSymmetricSecurityKey(),
                        ValidateLifetime = true,
                        ValidateIssuerSigningKey = true
                    }
                });
        }
    }
}

Many of you guys use ASP.NET Core nowadays, so as you can see it doesn't differ a lot from what we have there.

It really got me perplexed first, I was trying to implement custom providers, etc. But I didn't expect it to be so simple. OWIN just rocks!

Just one thing to mention - after I enabled OWIN Startup NSWag library stopped working for me (e.g. some of you might want to auto-generate typescript HTTP proxies for Angular app).

The solution was also very simple - I replaced NSWag with Swashbuckle and didn't have any further issues.

Ok, now sharing ConfigHelper code:

public class ConfigHelper
{
    public static string GetIssuer()
    {
        string result = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Issuer"];
        return result;
    }

    public static string GetAudience()
    {
        string result = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Audience"];
        return result;
    }

    public static SigningCredentials GetSigningCredentials()
    {
        var result = new SigningCredentials(GetSymmetricSecurityKey(), SecurityAlgorithms.HmacSha256);
        return result;
    }

    public static string GetSecurityKey()
    {
        string result = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SecurityKey"];
        return result;
    }

    public static byte[] GetSymmetricSecurityKeyAsBytes()
    {
        var issuerSigningKey = GetSecurityKey();
        byte[] data = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(issuerSigningKey);
        return data;
    }

    public static SymmetricSecurityKey GetSymmetricSecurityKey()
    {
        byte[] data = GetSymmetricSecurityKeyAsBytes();
        var result = new SymmetricSecurityKey(data);
        return result;
    }

    public static string GetCorsOrigins()
    {
        string result = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["CorsOrigins"];
        return result;
    }
}

Another important aspect - I sent JWT Token via Authorization header, so typescript code looks for me as follows:

(the code below is generated by NSWag)

@Injectable()
export class TeamsServiceProxy {
    private http: HttpClient;
    private baseUrl: string;
    protected jsonParseReviver: ((key: string, value: any) => any) | undefined = undefined;

    constructor(@Inject(HttpClient) http: HttpClient, @Optional() @Inject(API_BASE_URL) baseUrl?: string) {
        this.http = http;
        this.baseUrl = baseUrl ? baseUrl : "https://localhost:44384";
    }

    add(input: TeamDto | null): Observable<boolean> {
        let url_ = this.baseUrl + "/api/Teams/Add";
        url_ = url_.replace(/[?&]$/, "");

        const content_ = JSON.stringify(input);

        let options_ : any = {
            body: content_,
            observe: "response",
            responseType: "blob",
            headers: new HttpHeaders({
                "Content-Type": "application/json", 
                "Accept": "application/json",
                "Authorization": "Bearer " + localStorage.getItem('token')
            })
        };

See headers part - "Authorization": "Bearer " + localStorage.getItem('token')