WCF - Authentication and Authorization in Enterprise Architecting

In this article I am going to show how to use Authorization and Authentication using a WCF service in Enterprise Architecting standards. This article is about advanced WCF concepts. I am using an error driven approach for better experience with the problems and the solutions.

The core aspects we cover here are:

• WCF
• ASP.NET Authentication Service
• Custom Authentication
• HTTP Cookies
• Authorization PrincipalPermission attribute
• Thread CurrentPrincipal
• Message Interceptors

You will be wondering what the above are. In a quick snap following are the activities involved.

1. Create a WCF Service Application
2. Add a AuthenticationService.svc reusing the ASP.NET Authentication Service
3. Create a User Validator class
4. Enable Custom Authentication in Global.asax
5. Return Cookie if valid user
6. Modify service configuration
7. Try accessing the Authentication Service in the browser
8. Create a UtilityService.svc with a method named GetData(int)
9. Decorate GetData(int) with the PrincipalPermission attribute for Authorized Access only
10. Decorate the UtilityService class with the AspNetCompatibilityRequirements attribute
11. Set he Utility Service constructor to set CurrentPrincipal from the Cookie
12. Create the client application and add references to both services
13. Create the Authentication Service instance and invoke the Login() method
14. Receive the cookie and store it
15. Create the UtilityService instance and invoke GetData()
16. Attach the Cookie to the UtilityService client
17. Test the application and ensure proper functioning
18. Move the cookie attaching code to Interceptors in the Client Application
19. Move the identity setting code to Interceptors in the Service Application
20. Modify the service side code to include Role instead of Name
21. Use Encrypted Ticket for storing User Name and Roles
22. Retest the application

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