Handling Forms Authentication timeout in ASP.net - c#

Can I handle forms authentication timeout in Global.asax? Just like the Session_End in global.asax? Please advice.
I'm setting timeout in forms auth in my webconfig with these:
<forms name="formName" loginUrl="Login.aspx" protection="All" path="/" timeout="30"/>
Thanks to all! :)

No you can not because the timeout is encoded on the authentication cookie, and is lives on the browser (not on server side).
You can either make that custom, to also keep on a database the user timeout - but its not so easy, and alternative you can use the Application_AuthenticateRequest on global.asax to check right before the request if the user is not authenticated any more.
One example on how to remove session data if the the user is not authenticate. On global asax.
protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// get the authCookie
HttpCookie authCookie = Context.Request.Cookies[cookieName];
// if is null then the use is not Authendicated
if (null == authCookie && System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Session != null)
{
// now check if you have Session variables that you wish to remove.
if(System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Session["flag"] == "1")
{
// remove your session data
}
}
}
You maybe also check with
if(HttpContext.Current.User == null || HttpContext.Current.User.Identity == null || !HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated)
{
// now check if you have Session variables that you wish to remove.
if(Session["flag"] == "1")
{
// remove your session data
}
}

Related

ValidateAntiForgeryToken in WebForms Application

I have done some reading about the use of ValidateAntiForgeryToken to prevent XSRF/CSRF attacks. However what I have seen seems to relate only to MVC.
These are the articles I've seen:
ValidateAntiForgeryToken purpose, explanation and example
CSRF and AntiForgeryToken
XSRF/CSRF Prevention in ASP.NET MVC and Web Pages
How can I implement this or something similar in a WebForms Application?
CSRF attacks are not exclusive to MVC application, webforms are vulnerable too.
Basically, CSRF attack exploits the trust that a site has in a user's browser, by requesting or posting information to the website, generally through hidden forms or JavaScript XMLHttpRequests within a the malicious website, as user using cookies stored in the browser.
To prevent this attacks you will need an antiforgery token, a unique token sent within your forms, that you need to validate before trusting the form's information.
You can find a detailed explanation here.
To protect your webforms apps against CSRF attacks (it's working in my projects), is to implement it in your master pages, like this:
Add new Class that will handle the CSRF Validations for you:
public class CsrfHandler
{
public static void Validate(Page page, HiddenField forgeryToken)
{
if (!page.IsPostBack)
{
Guid antiforgeryToken = Guid.NewGuid();
page.Session["AntiforgeryToken"] = antiforgeryToken;
forgeryToken.Value = antiforgeryToken.ToString();
}
else
{
Guid stored = (Guid)page.Session["AntiforgeryToken"];
Guid sent = new Guid(forgeryToken.Value);
if (sent != stored)
{
// you can throw an exception, in my case I'm just logging the user out
page.Session.Abandon();
page.Response.Redirect("~/Default.aspx");
}
}
}
}
Then implement this in your master pages:
MyMasterPage.Master.cs:
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
CsrfHandler.Validate(this.Page, forgeryToken);
...
}
MyMaster.Master:
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server"></asp:ScriptManager>
<asp:HiddenField ID="forgeryToken" runat="server"/>
...
</form>
Hope you'll find this useful.
I found this article How To Fix Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) using Microsoft .Net ViewStateUserKey and Double Submit Cookie with the following information code and instructions:
Starting with Visual Studio 2012, Microsoft added built-in CSRF protection to new web forms application projects. To utilize this code, add a new ASP .NET Web Forms Application to your solution and view the Site.Master code behind page. This solution will apply CSRF protection to all content pages that inherit from the Site.Master page.
The following requirements must be met for this solution to work:
•All web forms making data modifications must use the Site.Master
page.
•All requests making data modifications must use the ViewState.
•The web site must be free from all Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
vulnerabilities. See how to fix Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) using
Microsoft .Net Web Protection Library for details.
public partial class SiteMaster : MasterPage
{
private const string AntiXsrfTokenKey = "__AntiXsrfToken";
private const string AntiXsrfUserNameKey = "__AntiXsrfUserName";
private string _antiXsrfTokenValue;
protected void Page_Init(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//First, check for the existence of the Anti-XSS cookie
var requestCookie = Request.Cookies[AntiXsrfTokenKey];
Guid requestCookieGuidValue;
//If the CSRF cookie is found, parse the token from the cookie.
//Then, set the global page variable and view state user
//key. The global variable will be used to validate that it matches in the view state form field in the Page.PreLoad
//method.
if (requestCookie != null
&& Guid.TryParse(requestCookie.Value, out requestCookieGuidValue))
{
//Set the global token variable so the cookie value can be
//validated against the value in the view state form field in
//the Page.PreLoad method.
_antiXsrfTokenValue = requestCookie.Value;
//Set the view state user key, which will be validated by the
//framework during each request
Page.ViewStateUserKey = _antiXsrfTokenValue;
}
//If the CSRF cookie is not found, then this is a new session.
else
{
//Generate a new Anti-XSRF token
_antiXsrfTokenValue = Guid.NewGuid().ToString("N");
//Set the view state user key, which will be validated by the
//framework during each request
Page.ViewStateUserKey = _antiXsrfTokenValue;
//Create the non-persistent CSRF cookie
var responseCookie = new HttpCookie(AntiXsrfTokenKey)
{
//Set the HttpOnly property to prevent the cookie from
//being accessed by client side script
HttpOnly = true,
//Add the Anti-XSRF token to the cookie value
Value = _antiXsrfTokenValue
};
//If we are using SSL, the cookie should be set to secure to
//prevent it from being sent over HTTP connections
if (FormsAuthentication.RequireSSL &&
Request.IsSecureConnection)
responseCookie.Secure = true;
//Add the CSRF cookie to the response
Response.Cookies.Set(responseCookie);
}
Page.PreLoad += master_Page_PreLoad;
}
protected void master_Page_PreLoad(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//During the initial page load, add the Anti-XSRF token and user
//name to the ViewState
if (!IsPostBack)
{
//Set Anti-XSRF token
ViewState[AntiXsrfTokenKey] = Page.ViewStateUserKey;
//If a user name is assigned, set the user name
ViewState[AntiXsrfUserNameKey] =
Context.User.Identity.Name ?? String.Empty;
}
//During all subsequent post backs to the page, the token value from
//the cookie should be validated against the token in the view state
//form field. Additionally user name should be compared to the
//authenticated users name
else
{
//Validate the Anti-XSRF token
if ((string)ViewState[AntiXsrfTokenKey] != _antiXsrfTokenValue
|| (string)ViewState[AntiXsrfUserNameKey] !=
(Context.User.Identity.Name ?? String.Empty))
{
throw new InvalidOperationException("Validation of
Anti-XSRF token failed.");
}
}
}
}
Using WebForms, the best thing to do is leverage the ViewStateUserKey.
Here is how to do it...
void Page_Init(object sender, EventArgs args)
{
ViewStateUserKey = (string)(Session["SessionID"] = Session.SessionID);
}
It seems kind of strange to save the SessionID in a session variable, but this is needed because it will auto-generate a new ID when empty.

Read cookie to login automatic

I store the cookies when someone is logging in, as below:
List<User> listUser;
//returns 1 user
foreach(User u in listUser)
{
HttpCookie cookieNickname = new HttpCookie("UserNickname");
cookieNickname.Value = u.Nickname.ToString();
cookieNickname.Expires = DateTime.MaxValue;
Response.Cookies.Add(cookieNickname);
HttpCookie cookiePassword = new HttpCookie("UserPassword");
cookiePassword.Value = u.Password;
cookiePassword.Expires = DateTime.MaxValue;
Response.Cookies.Add(cookiePassword);
}
When someone visits the site again, I want to read data from the database which is associated with usernickname-cookie and userpassword-cookie.
Then I want to show the firstname and lastname on a label.
This is what I tried:
List<User> cookieLoggedInUser;
if (Request.Cookies["UserNickname"] != null && Request.Cookies["UserPassword"] != null)
{
//returns 1 user
cookieLoggedInUser = Database.SignIn(Request.Cookies["UserNickname"].ToString(), Request.Cookies["UserPassword"].ToString());
if (cookieLoggedInUser.Count > 0)
{
foreach (User u in cookieLoggedInUser)
{
lblFirstName.Text = u.FirstName;
lblLastName.Text = u.LastName;
}
}
}
But both of the Request.Cookies return null.
Why is that happening?
I wouldn't recommend the approach you took other then for experimeting purposes as it has big security risk.
To make your curent solution work check that you are creating cookies in the same domain where you consume them.
If it is not the case, browser will not send cookies to the other domain.
You can make the sign-in cookie permanent using a technique like this:
protected void Login1_OnLoggedIn(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
CheckBox Remember = (CheckBox)((Login)sender).FindControl("Remember");
if (Remember.Checked)
{
FormsAuthenticationTicket t = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(2, Login1.UserName, DateTime.Now, DateTime.Now.AddYears(5), true, "");
string data = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(t);
HttpCookie authCookie = new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, data);
authCookie.HttpOnly = true;
authCookie.Domain = "";
authCookie.Expires = t.Expiration;
Response.Cookies.Remove("FORMAUTH");
Response.Cookies.Add(authCookie);
Response.Redirect(Request.QueryString["ReturnUrl"]);
}
}
This assumes the site is using asp.net membership services.
The line that says Response.Cookies.Remove("FORMAUTH"); should match the cookie name you have set up in your web.config under this section:
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms cookieless="UseCookies" loginUrl="~/Login.aspx" name="FORMAUTH"/>
</authentication>
Wire this up to the OnLoggedIn event of your <asp:Login> control and when the user clicks Remember Me they stay logged in.
This is a lot safer than the alternative which you propose (storing unencrypted passwords in cookies).

MVC3 Session timeout after 10 seconds

Need some help with a Session timeout problem in an ASP.Net web app. Essentially the session expires about 10-15 seconds after login.
Side Note: I use a custom combo of FormsAuthentication and basic security
My Session.IsNewSession gets set to true after 3-4 good postbacks after login.
My Web.Config has the following...
<sessionState mode="InProc" timeout="130" regenerateExpiredSessionId="true" stateNetworkTimeout="120" compressionEnabled="true" cookieless="UseCookies" />
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms timeout="120" ticketCompatibilityMode="Framework40" enableCrossAppRedirects="true" />
</authentication>
Where I believe the timeout refers to minutes....
I have an MVC 3 application with an ActionFilter registered
public static void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters)
{
filters.Add(new MyActionFilterAttribute());
}
Inside the OnActionExecuting I check for a Current Session to prevent access to controller actions which an unauthorized user shouldn't be able to access.
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
HttpContext ctx = HttpContext.Current;
Player player = SessionHelper.GetCurrentPlayer(filterContext.HttpContext.Session);
if (player == null && ctx != null)
{
player = SessionHelper.GetCurrentPlayer(ctx.Session);
}
if (player == null ||
(player.IsAdministrator == false && player.IsCoach == false && player.IsCommittee == false))
{
if (filterContext.Controller is HomeController || filterContext.Controller is AccountController)
{
base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);
return;
}
string ctxError = ctx != null ? "Context Exists" : "Context Doesnt Exist";
string sessionError = filterContext.HttpContext.Session != null ? "filterContext.HttpContext.Session Exists" : "filterContext.HttpContext.Session Doesnt Exist";
string requestSessionError = filterContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Session != null ? "filterContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Session Exists" : "filterContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Session Doesnt Exist";
throw new SecurityException(string.Format("Attempt to access {0} by user at {1} - {2} ({3}, {4}, {5})",
filterContext.HttpContext.Request.RawUrl,
filterContext.HttpContext.Request.UserHostAddress,
filterContext.HttpContext.Session,
ctxError,
sessionError,
requestSessionError));
}
base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);
}
So I've determined that the Web Server was refreshing its AppPool faster than my session lifespan. This would result in the same SessionId to be used, but the IsNewSession flag to be set also.
As I have no control over the AppPool lifespan I was able to keep the session in the InProc mode in IIS.
I resolved the issue by moving Session State persistance to a hosted SqlServer database, thereby allowing the session to persist despite the AppPool being recycled.
I'd recommend the solution for any other person seeing their otherwise stable website losing their session state when hosted on a server which they do not have administrative access to.
Oh, and I found that IIS logs were pretty useless here. The best diagnosis logging here, I found, was my own manual logging to determine that this was the scenario.

Cookies and session in asp.net

I am creating a login and the storing the user details in a cookie using this code
if (ValidateUser(txtUserName.Value,txtUserPass.Value) )
{
//string useremail = Convert.ToString(txtUserName.Value);
Session.Add("useremail", txtUserName.Value);
FormsAuthenticationTicket tkt;
string cookiestr;
HttpCookie ck;
tkt = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(1, txtUserName.Value, DateTime.Now,
DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(30), chkPersistCookie.Checked, "your custom data");
cookiestr = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(tkt);
ck = new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, cookiestr);
if (chkPersistCookie.Checked)
ck.Expires=tkt.Expiration;
ck.Path = FormsAuthentication.FormsCookiePath;
Response.Cookies.Add(ck);
}
I am also creating a session Session.Add("useremail", txtUserName.Value);
After succesfull authentication it is redirected to user.aspx
I want to read the useremail value in the user.aspx page but when I tried to access the value in the user page it is not showing useremail field.
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if
(Session["useremail"] == null) Response.Redirect("Home.aspx");
else
BindGridView(useremail);
}
And this is my webconfig:
<authentication mode="Forms"><forms name=".YAFNET_Authentication" loginUrl="Home.aspx" protection="All" timeout="43200" cookieless="UseCookies"/></authentication>
Correct me if i am doing any wrong. And also please tell me how to pass the useremail value to the user.aspx page so that I can pass that value to gridview function
Just change it to
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (Session["useremail"] == null)
Response.Redirect("Home.aspx");
else
BindGridView((string)Session["useremail"]);
}
You can add an object to the session state like this:
Session["useremail"] = "john.smith#microsoft.com";
You can then retrieve it in the following manner:
var useremail = Session["useremail"] ?? null;
if (useremail == null)
{
//...
}
else
{
BindGridView(useremail);
}
If the item "useremail" is not present in the session state the useremail variable will be set to null otherwhise it will contain the e-mail address.
You are getting confused with relationship between authentication, session state and cookies.
In ASP.NET, Session State and Forms Authentication are not linked i.e. their scope are different. You can have some session state for un-authenticated user. Session and forms authentication uses different cookies for tracking purposes and the cookie management is more or less automatic and you don't really need to write code to manage it as you have done. Besides, what you store in the cookie has no bearing on what goes in the session state. Its also possible to have both session and forms authentication to get working w/o cookies. So code such as below should work for session state
Session["key"] = "put your data here";
// retrieve the data elsewhere
var data = Session["key"];

Setting ViewStateUserKey gives me a "Validation of viewstate MAC failed" error

I have the following in my BasePage class which all my ASPX pages derive from:
protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnInit(e);
ViewStateUserKey = Session.SessionID;
}
I also have a machineKey set in Web.config. I don't think this error is because of a web farm because this happens on my dev machine too.
My host has now upgraded to .NET 3.5 SP1. After this update, everytime I compile with the ViewStateUserKey setting above, I constantly get the "Validation of viewstate MAC failed" error on every postback.
What am I doing wrong here? Is this setting even necessary anymore with the latest framework update?
OK - Im a year late to the conversation - but how is this the correct answer? This applies only in the case of authenticated users and using the ViewStateUserKey as the username is a lot easier to guess than a session id GUID.
BTW if you want to 'fix' the code up top, use the Session ID, however you must set a session variable in order for the session id to stop from changing every time. Ex.
Session["Anything"] = DateTime.Now
ViewStateUserKey = Session.SessionID;
This of course is assuming you are going to use sessions, otherwise you need some other key to use such as the username or any other guid kept in a cookie.
I've searched around quite a bit to find the definitive cause of the issue.
This post from Microsoft really helped explain all the different causes.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2915218
Cause 4 is what we have landed on which is an invalid ViewStateUserKeyValue
Setting ViewStateUserKey to Session.SessionID or User.Identity.Name did not work for us.
We intermittently got the validation error due to the following.
When the application pool is reset by IIS, the session is renewed in effect causing the error.
We drop the Session on login to avoid session fixation, also resulting in the error on login.
What finally worked for us was a cookie based solution, which is now provided in VS2012.
public partial class SiteMaster : MasterPage
{
private const string AntiXsrfTokenKey = "__AntiXsrfToken";
private const string AntiXsrfUserNameKey = "__AntiXsrfUserName";
private string _antiXsrfTokenValue;
protected void Page_Init(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//First, check for the existence of the Anti-XSS cookie
var requestCookie = Request.Cookies[AntiXsrfTokenKey];
Guid requestCookieGuidValue;
//If the CSRF cookie is found, parse the token from the cookie.
//Then, set the global page variable and view state user
//key. The global variable will be used to validate that it matches in the view state form field in the Page.PreLoad
//method.
if (requestCookie != null
&& Guid.TryParse(requestCookie.Value, out requestCookieGuidValue))
{
//Set the global token variable so the cookie value can be
//validated against the value in the view state form field in
//the Page.PreLoad method.
_antiXsrfTokenValue = requestCookie.Value;
//Set the view state user key, which will be validated by the
//framework during each request
Page.ViewStateUserKey = _antiXsrfTokenValue;
}
//If the CSRF cookie is not found, then this is a new session.
else
{
//Generate a new Anti-XSRF token
_antiXsrfTokenValue = Guid.NewGuid().ToString("N");
//Set the view state user key, which will be validated by the
//framework during each request
Page.ViewStateUserKey = _antiXsrfTokenValue;
//Create the non-persistent CSRF cookie
var responseCookie = new HttpCookie(AntiXsrfTokenKey)
{
//Set the HttpOnly property to prevent the cookie from
//being accessed by client side script
HttpOnly = true,
//Add the Anti-XSRF token to the cookie value
Value = _antiXsrfTokenValue
};
//If we are using SSL, the cookie should be set to secure to
//prevent it from being sent over HTTP connections
if (FormsAuthentication.RequireSSL &&
Request.IsSecureConnection)
responseCookie.Secure = true;
//Add the CSRF cookie to the response
Response.Cookies.Set(responseCookie);
}
Page.PreLoad += master_Page_PreLoad;
}
protected void master_Page_PreLoad(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//During the initial page load, add the Anti-XSRF token and user
//name to the ViewState
if (!IsPostBack)
{
//Set Anti-XSRF token
ViewState[AntiXsrfTokenKey] = Page.ViewStateUserKey;
//If a user name is assigned, set the user name
ViewState[AntiXsrfUserNameKey] =
Context.User.Identity.Name ?? String.Empty;
}
//During all subsequent post backs to the page, the token value from
//the cookie should be validated against the token in the view state
//form field. Additionally user name should be compared to the
//authenticated users name
else
{
//Validate the Anti-XSRF token
if ((string)ViewState[AntiXsrfTokenKey] != _antiXsrfTokenValue
|| (string)ViewState[AntiXsrfUserNameKey] !=
(Context.User.Identity.Name ?? String.Empty))
{
throw new InvalidOperationException("Validation of
Anti-XSRF token failed.");
}
}
}
}
Source
I fixed it for now by changing the code to:
protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnInit(e);
if (User.Identity.IsAuthenticated)
ViewStateUserKey = User.Identity.Name;
}
Can you turn off ViewState MAC encoding with the EnableViewStateMac #Page attribute?
VERY Strange, I too had similar issue for 3 days and now i resolved it.
1. I had enabled forms authentication and had ssl false
<forms defaultUrl="~/" loginUrl="~/Account/Login.aspx" requireSSL="false" timeout="2880" />
but in my httpcookies tag I had requireSSL=true. Since in the Site.Master.cs it uses cookies to set the ViewStateUserKey, it was having issues
hence I was getting the error.
I modified this to false and restarted web app, now its all good.

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