Question

I’m making a test rig for an ActiveX HTTP control, and I need to create a web site to securely POST to. To keep things simple, I’m running the web app with the VS debug server; the web app project is part of the solution with the test application. NTLM authentication is not supported by the AX control. Is there any easy way to require very basic http authentication without NTLM or redirecting to a page form? I just need it to require a username and password during the post. Username and password content doesn’t matter, so everything will be stored as plaintext.

I’ve tried the authentication mode in the Web.Config; Windows appears identical to NTLM (could be wrong there), Forms requires a form to connect and set a cookie through, Passport is beyond the scope of this project, and I don’t know how I’d implement None. Any ideas?

I tried “authentication mode=”Windows”” in the Web.Config, and checked the NTLM checkbox in the web app’s “Web” tab.

Answer 1

You could implement your own basic HTTP authentication using ASP.NET. It doesn’t seem like a very complicated spec, but see RFC1945 for all the details.

If I had to do it I’d start off with an HttpModule that runs on every request and checks the HTTP header HTTP_AUTHORIZATION. If it’s the header for basic authentication, then you can decode username and password. If the header is missing or the username and password are incorrect, then you send back an HTTP 401 response and add the WWW-Authenticate header.

Something like this (not tested, but you get the idea):

public class BasicAuthenticationModule: IHttpModule
{
  public void Init(HttpApplication application)
  {
    application.AuthenticateRequest += new EventHandler(Do_Authentication);
  }

  private void Do_Authentication(object sender, EventArgs e)
  {
    var request = HttpContext.Current.Request;
    string header = request.Headers["HTTP_AUTHORIZATION"];
    if(header != null && header.StartsWith("Basic "))
    {
      // Header is good, let's check username and password
      string username = DecodeFromHeader(header, "username");
      string password = DecodeFromHeader(header, password);

      if(Validate(username, password) 
      {
        // Create a custom IPrincipal object to carry the user's identity
        HttpContext.Current.User = new BasicPrincipal(username);
      }
      else
      {
        Protect();
      }
    }
    else
    {
      Protect();
    }
  }

  private void Protect()
  {
    response.StatusCode = 401;
    response.Headers.Add("WWW-Authenticate", "Basic realm=\"Test\"");
    response.Write("You must authenticate");
    response.End();
  }

  private void DecodeFromHeader()
  {
    // Figure this out based on spec
    // It's basically base 64 decode and split on the :
    throw new NotImplementedException();
  }

  private bool Validate(string username, string password)
  {
    return (username == "foo" && pasword == "bar");
  }

  public void Dispose() {}

  public class BasicPrincipal : IPrincipal
  {
    // Implement simple class to hold the user's identity
  }
}