How to do programmatic sign in using aspnet Identity Framework v2?

Question

I'm cobbling together snippets of code from blogs and different places to try to get this to work. Normally, I'd refer to the reference documentation, but I can't find it here or anywhere else. It's just videos and demos for specific use cases that include user management or facebook or twitter.

I have a proprietary authentication service that I'm using. User accounts are not managed inside my application. So I need to be able to sign in a user that's completely constructed at run time.

Here's what I'm trying now in my MVC app.

using System.Security.Claims;

public class HomeController : Controller {
    public ActionResult Scratch() {
        var claims = new Claim[] {
            new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, "somename"),
            new Claim(ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier, "someidentifier"),
            new Claim("foo", "bar"),
        };

        var identity = new ClaimsIdentity(claims);

        var authenticationManager = HttpContext.GetOwinContext().Authentication;
        authenticationManager.SignIn(identity);

        return Content(
            $"authentication manager type: {authenticationManager.GetType()} \n"
            + $"authenticated: {HttpContext.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated} \n"
            + $"user name: {HttpContext.User.Identity.Name} \n",
            "text/plain");
    }
}

The output is

authentication manager type: Microsoft.Owin.Security.AuthenticationManager 
authenticated: False 
user name:  

Questions:

1. Why does the output show that the user has not been authenticated? What more do I have to do to get this user authenticated?
2. Where is the documentation for this framework?

Update

Startup.cs

public partial class Startup {
    public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app) {
        ConfigureAuth(app);
        ConfigureAnalyticContext(app);
    }
}

Startup.Auth.cs:

(there is actually much more, but all the rest has been commented out, in search of finding a minimal configuration that works)

public partial class Startup {
    public void ConfigureAuth(IAppBuilder app) {
        app.UseExternalSignInCookie(DefaultAuthenticationTypes.ExternalCookie);
    }
}

AnalyticContext.Auth.cs

(this is my Entity Framework context, I doubt it's related to this problem)

public partial class Startup {
    public void ConfigureAnalyticContext(IAppBuilder app) {
        app.CreatePerOwinContext(() => CentoAnalyticsContext.Create());
    }
}

Answer 1

Well, it seems that you are not using ASP.NET Identity. ASP.NET Identity is new membership system of asp.net, which automatically creates database tables for storing users, encrypting password, etc.

What you are trying to do is to use the new authentication system provided by OWIN, which replaces the old FormsAuthentication style.

To make it work, you have to create the cookie authentication. Like this:

public static class AuthConfig
{
    public const string DefaultAuthType = "DefaultAppCookie";
    public const string LoginPath = "/System/SignIn";

    public static void ConfigureAuth(IAppBuilder app)
    {
        app.UseCookieAuthentication(new CookieAuthenticationOptions
        {
            AuthenticationType = DefaultAuthType,
            LoginPath = new PathString(LoginPath)
        });

        AntiForgeryConfig.UniqueClaimTypeIdentifier = ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier; //or whatever

    }
}

In the login action:

var claims = new Claim[] {
        new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, "somename"),
        new Claim(ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier, "someidentifier"),
        new Claim("foo", "bar"),
};

ClaimsIdentity identity = new ClaimsIdentity(claims, AuthConfig.DefaultAuthType);
IAuthenticationManager authManager = Request.GetOwinContext().Authentication;

authManager.SignIn(new AuthenticationProperties() { IsPersistent = true }, identity);

I think that should be enough to make it work in your app. A few days ago I answered a similar question MVC Authentication - Easiest Way, take a look, it might be helpful.

Answer 2

I recently have added Active Directory authentication, constructed ClaimsPrincipal myself and signed-in the same way you do.

And you are indeed missing .UseCookieAuthentication in your ConfigureAuth(IAppBuilder app)

    public void ConfigureAuth(IAppBuilder app)
    {
        app.UseCookieAuthentication(new CookieAuthenticationOptions
        {
            AuthenticationType = "MyAuthenticationName", // <-- this must match the AuthenticatioType name when you do sign-out
            LoginPath = new PathString("/MyLoginPath"),
            CookieName = "MyCookieName",
            CookieHttpOnly = true,
        });
    }

And you don't need UseExternalSignInCookie.

Answer 3

Request.IsAuthenticated will be false with in the same request flow.

I think you still need to update the current security principal if you need to check IsAuthenticated for the request as authenticationManager.SignIn only validates the user against data store and sets the OWIN cookie which when sent back in subsequent request sets the security principal , usually a redirect takes care of this as in most cases there will be redirection in home page or something. If you still need to check with in the same request you can do something like below depending on your requirement

var claims = new Claim[] {
        new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, "somename"),
        new Claim(ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier, "someidentifier"),
        new Claim("foo", "bar"),
    };


var identity = new ClaimsIdentity(claims,DefaultAuthenticationTypes.ApplicationCookie,
          ClaimTypes.Name, ClaimTypes.Role);

var principal = new ClaimsPrincipal(identity);

System.Threading.Thread.CurrentPrincipal = principal;
if (System.Web.HttpContext.Current != null)
    System.Web.HttpContext.Current.User = principal;

Hope this helps.