Darrell Booker

IdentityServer3 is a great tool by Thinktecture and this is how it changed everything for me….

This project was pretty typical to any other. A simple Bootstrap/Knockout .NET MVC using WebAPI for all my data calls with a companion Xamarin Forms app utilizing the same WebAPI.

Being in a rush to get a quick sample product up I used simple Basic Authentication to my WebAPIs which worked fine for the front end web pages as well as the Xamarin app. Near completion I ran into a problem where I was forced to use a MVC controller to facilitate downloading of a generated CSV and the damn MVC controller had no visibility to the Identity Claims created using the WebAPI authentication. I was stuck!!! I quickly set to Google to see if it was a way to transfer the claims from one to the other so I could get access to the info I needed. My second or third search result brought me to IdentityServer3 from Thinktecture.

This post would be a book if I tried to detail all the steps but in a nutshell I now have:

a) Central Identity Server-this website will be the single login point for all company wide websites

b) Single WebAPI site-all api’s will be housed here. Since many websites/apps will use common api’s it benefited to have some centralization.  IdentityServer3 allows for restricting access to the api’s to only those authenticated through the Identity Server

c) Slimdown websites and apps-now all websites and apps have become lightweight since all custom authentication has been removed as well as api calls to the database.

My Xamarin app plays nicely with it as well by authenticating against the server and receiving a token to be used for all future api calls.

Well since Microsoft made it virtually impossible to add new users directly via SQL we are forced to use the Reporting Web Services.  After just a few minutes of searching I found an example script that did exactly what I wanted but I kept getting access denied.  Many people like me setup SSRS using Forms Authentication which poses some issues when trying to use the web services.  Not only do you need to pass credentials the real key is staying authorized through each request you are attempting.  The below script properly connects and adds a user...works nicely in my SSIS package.

private bool AddUserToFolderPolicy(string folder, string user, ref string

errMessage)        {            try            {                // instantiate a new Web service proxy                RSClient rs = new RSClient();

               // Pass credentials from the user                NetworkCredential creds = rs.GetCredentials();                rs.LogonUser(creds.UserName, creds.Password, null);                rs.Authorize();

               Role[] roles = rs.ListRoles("All", null);                Role browserRole = new Role();                foreach (Role r in roles)                {                    if (r.Name == "Browser") browserRole = r;                    break;                }

               Role[] policyRoles = new Role[1];                policyRoles[0] = new Role();                policyRoles[0] = browserRole;

               //Get the current policies of the folder in question                string path = "/" + folder;                bool inheritParent = false;

               Policy[] currentPolicies = rs.GetPolicies(path, out inheritParent);                MessageBox.Show("ppolicies");

               //If the user is currently in the current policy set just return                for (int i = 0; i < currentPolicies.Length; i++)                    if (currentPolicies[i].GroupUserName == user)                        return true;

               //Create the new policy array and add the new user                ArrayList arrPolicies = new ArrayList(currentPolicies);                Policy p = new Policy();                p.GroupUserName = user;                p.Roles = policyRoles;                arrPolicies.Add(p);

               Policy[] finalPolicies = (Policy[])arrPolicies.ToArray(typeof(Policy));

               //Set the policies                rs.SetPolicies(path, finalPolicies);

           }            catch (Exception e)            {                errMessage = e.Message;                return false;            }            return true;        }

public class RSClient : ReportingService2010        {            public bool m_needLogon = false;            private string m_authCookieName;            private Cookie m_authCookie;

           public RSClient()            {                // Set the server URL                base.Url = "http://localhost/reportserver/reportservice2010.asmx";                // Set default credentials to integrated.                Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;            }

            /// <summary>

           /// Get whether the given credentials can connect to the report server.            /// Returns false if not authorized. Other errors throw an exception.            /// </summary>            public void Authorize()            {                try                {                    NetworkCredential creds = Credentials as NetworkCredential;                    if (creds != null && creds.UserName != null)                    {                        try                        {                            base.CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();                            base.LogonUser("username", "password", null);                        }                        catch (Exception ex)                        {                            Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);                        }                    }

               }                catch (WebException e)                {                    if (!(e.Response is HttpWebResponse) ||                       ((HttpWebResponse)e.Response).StatusCode != HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized)                    {                        throw;                    }                }                catch (InvalidOperationException)                {                    // This condition could be caused by a redirect to a forms logon page                    Console.WriteLine("InvalidOperationException");                    if (m_needLogon)                    {                        NetworkCredential creds = Credentials as NetworkCredential;                        if (creds != null && creds.UserName != null)                        {                            try                            {                                base.CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();                                base.LogonUser("username", "password", null);                            }                            catch (Exception ex)                            {                                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);                            }                        }                    }                    else                    {                        throw;                    }                }            }            /// <summary>            /// Enables users to enter credentials from the command prompt.            /// </summary>            public NetworkCredential GetCredentials()            {                return new NetworkCredential("username”, "password”);            }

           protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri uri)            {                HttpWebRequest request;                request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(uri);                request.Credentials = base.Credentials;                request.CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();                if (m_authCookie != null)                {                    request.CookieContainer.Add(m_authCookie);                }                return request;            }

           protected override WebResponse GetWebResponse(WebRequest request)            {                WebResponse response = base.GetWebResponse(request);                string cookieName = response.Headers["RSAuthenticationHeader"];                if (cookieName != null)                {                    m_authCookieName = cookieName;                    HttpWebResponse webResponse = (HttpWebResponse)response;                    Cookie authCookie = webResponse.Cookies[cookieName];                    // save it away                    m_authCookie = authCookie;                }                // need to call logon                if (response.Headers["RSNotAuthenticated"] != null)                {                    m_needLogon = true;                }                return response;            }

           #region ScriptResults declaration            /// <summary>            /// This enum provides a convenient shorthand within the scope of this class for setting the            /// result of the script.            ///            /// This code was generated automatically.            /// </summary>            enum ScriptResults            {                Success = Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.DTSExecResult.Success,                Failure = Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.DTSExecResult.Failure            };            #endregion

It was so long ago since I pre-ordered the Coin I had lost the excitement.  For those that don’t know, Coin replaces up to 8 credit cards.  You can easily switch between cards prior to swiping. Especially with me using Apple Pay more and more I started to wonder if the Coin was even necessary.  But I realized that I do still swipe 1 of 4 credit cards daily that I carry around in my wallet.  So 2 days after it being delivered I finally opened the package.

Day 1:

First of all, the very Apple like white box the Coin came in immediately set a very high expectation.  My first impression of the Coin was “wow, this looks and feels just like a regular credit card”.  Syncing it with the Coin app on my iPhone was pretty much a breeze as well as adding my credit cards.  In less than 5 minutes I had 4 cards loaded and the Coin was ready to go.  I did notice the button on the Coin that you press to switch between cards was a little quirky and took me a couple presses to figure it out.  I removed one of my less used cards from my wallet and slid the Coin in its place. I was ready to make purchases tomorrow.

Day 2:

1. 7 Eleven ATM- 1st swipe

2. 7 Eleven register-Worked after 3 swipes. Not sure if it was the Coin, I was swiping wrong or maybe their terminal was just a little jacked up.

3. McDonalds Drive Thru-1st swipe. I watched as the cashier flipped it over and looked at it several times before swiping.  He handed it back to me and was smiling saying “hey I never seen a card like that before”.

4. Five Below-Worked flawlessly on 1st swipe after spending almost a minute convincing the cashier and his partner that it would work.  They were so stuck on the fact it didn’t have a Visa or MasterCard logo that they didn’t even want to try.  He finally swiped it and both of their jaws dropped.  

5. Chic Fil’a-2nd swipe

6. Food Lion-1st swipe

Day 3:

1. Shell Gas Pump-1st swipe

2. Mellow Mushroom-This was the first time handing it to a waitress…..well she came back a few minutes later and asked if I had another card because it didn’t work.  But I looked at the paper she handed me and it said Declined.  This was a new Bank of America account so I wondered if had it been flagged for fraud.  I opened the Bank of America app on my phone and as I thought there was a message wanting me to verify transactions.  I verified the transactions and handed her back the Coin.  She came back a couple minutes later and all was well.  I was also a little amazed she made no mention of the Coin at all.

Day 4:

1. Target, H&M, Sunglass Hut, Kickback’s Restaurant(via bartender), Cleaners-1st Swipe

2. Dick’s Sporting Goods -So something weird happened here.  I swiped the Coin and the keypad registered it as normal then asked me for my pin or press X for credit.  The keypad was locked up and wouldn’t accept any input.  The cashier cleared and we tried two more times with the same result.  They cleared it again and I pulled out the real Bank of America card and it worked.  Not sure what happened here. Seems odd the Coin would lookup the keypad.

3. Halligan’s Restaurant-1st swipe but the bartender (who had heard of the Coin and was very intrigued by it) said it wouldn’t let him open a tab with it but no problem paying the bill with it. 

Day 5:

1. McDonald’s-1st Swipe

2. Bojangle’s Drive Thru-3 swipes and no luck, had to hand her the real card.

3. Shell Gas Pump-1st Swipe

For some odd reason (which I can’t understand) the good folks at Microsoft didn't add a logout feature to SSRS Report Manager.  Here’s a quick tutorial on how to add the logout feature plus a little taste of manipulating the html of the report manager.  The goal is to add a logout link to the breadcrumb in the below image.

Step 1:  Create logout page

If you are reading this that means you’ve already followed tutorials such as this to add forms authentication to the Custom Security Extension.

Add a new page named logout.aspx

Add the following code to the load event of the page

Dim sqlAuthCookie As New HttpCookie("sqlAuthCookie", "sqlAuthCookie")        sqlAuthCookie.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1)        HttpContext.Current.Response.Cookies.Add(sqlAuthCookie)

Compile the project

Upload the aspx page to the Pages folder of the ReportManger and upload the dll to the Bin folder

Step 2: Edit Folder.aspx

Here we will be editing the breadcrumb to add our new link

Upload your favorite or latest jQuery js to the Pages folder of Reporting Services on your server.  I’m using jQuery-1.7.1.min.js in this example

Edit the Folder.aspx and the following lines to the end of the file

<html> <head> <title></title>

<script type="text/Javascript"  src="jquery-1.7.1.min.js" > </script><script type="text/Javascript" >

$(function() { var a = $('.msrs-topBreadcrumb'); var d = '<span style="margin-left:2px;">| <a href="logout.aspx">Logout</a></span>'; $(d).appendTo(a.find('a').last().parent()); });

</script>

</head>

</html>

Save the file and visit your site and you should notice you now have a Logout link added to the breadcrumb(screenshot below).  Clicking it logs the user out and takes you to the login screen.

You can take it a step further and remove the Help link.  Personally, the link isn’t that helpful and also removing it is another step in making your report manager custom and fitting your brand.  Use the following code instead to remove the Help link.

<html> <head> <title></title>

<script type="text/Javascript"  src="jquery-1.7.1.min.js" > </script>

<script type="text/Javascript" >

$(function() { var a = $('.msrs-topBreadcrumb'); $(a).find('a').last().remove() var d = '<span style="margin-left:2px;"> <a href="logout.aspx">Logout</a></span>'; $(d).appendTo(a.find('a').last().parent()); });

</script>

</head>

</html>

Don’t forget to make the same changes to the Report.aspx file.

I could never figure out why people would put header rows in an excel file that will be used for import.  i was forced to go back to them and have them provide a pure data file or do some magic on my end to strip out the headers.  Who knew right in my SSIS package I could use a sql query to ignore the dumb headers.

So this won't be a lenghty post giving you step by step instructions but instead I'll point you to all the resources that helped me over a 2 week period to go from "I should be able to do it" to reality.

In building a cross platform app for a client using Xamarin.Forms I decided to give Azure and Azure Mobile Services a try after being convinced it was the route to go after meeting some great people with Microsoft at Xamarin Evolve 2014.  The client also needed a companion website to administer users and other administrative tasks.  Even though I've been using .Net since inception, I never got into their MVC platform.  MVC wasn't new to me since I'd used it with other platforms.

So, here was the task..create a MVC website with a Azure SQL Database and an Xamarin app using the same Azure Database while making use of Azure Mobile Services for ease of authentication and api access.

First Step: Create ASP.NET MVC website and publish to Azure

Follow this tutorial to the letter.  It introduced me to Entity Framework and guides you through every step until you have your site running on Azure.

http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/data/using-web-api-with-entity-framework/part-1

Second Step: Setting Identity 2.0 For Authentication Using

Here I'm able to take the database and site that we created above and add Identity Framework for user authentication

http://danieleagle.com/blog/2014/05/setting-up-asp-net-identity-framework-2-0-with-database-first-vs2013-update-2-spa-template/

Third Step: Add Log In, Email Confirmation and Password Reset to 

For some strange reason, none of the ASP.NET MVC templates give you user administration out of the box(creating/editing/deleting users and roles) nor other features such as email confirmation and password reset.  Here's two guides to help you out.

http://typecastexception.com/post/2014/06/22/ASPNET-Identity-20-Customizing-Users-and-Roles.aspx#Extending-Identity-Role

http://www.asp.net/mvc/overview/security/create-an-aspnet-mvc-5-web-app-with-email-confirmation-and-password-reset

Fourth Step: Create our Azure Mobile Service

Follow the easy steps in the Azure Control panel to create the mobile service.  Make sure you select .Net as your backend and select your Azure SQL database created earlier.  One lesson learned..contrary to what a lot of tutorials say, you do not need to move your SQL tables from your dbo schema to the schema name of Azure Mobile Service when implementing a .NET backed.(this IS required however with a Javascript backed).  The following two guides will have you connecting your mobile service to the existing Azure SQL database in no time.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/azuremobile/archive/2014/05/27/bring-your-own-database-with-the-net-backend.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/azuremobile/archive/2014/05/22/tables-with-integer-keys-and-the-net-backend.aspx

Almost Done...

Fifth Step: Configure Azure Mobile Service For Identity Authentication

Out of the box, Azure Mobile Service lets you easily use providers such as Facebook, Twitter and Active Directory for authentication.  But since we are using Identity in the MVC site, it would be great to authenticate our mobile users using the same credentials.  Here's how to do that.

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/mobile-services-dotnet-backend-get-started-custom-authentication/

I did modify the CustomLoginController from the above guide to a simpler implementation.  Here I'm simply using the PasswordHasher to compare the password provided with the hashed password retrieved for the account with the provided username/email.

public HttpResponseMessage Post(LoginRequest loginRequest) { ExistingCommunityHealthDatabaseContext context = new ExistingCommunityHealthDatabaseContext(); AspNetUser aspnetUser = context.AspNetUsers.Where(a => a.UserName == loginRequest.username).SingleOrDefault(); if (aspnetUser != null) { PasswordHasher hasher = new PasswordHasher(); if (hasher.VerifyHashedPassword(aspnetUser.PasswordHash, loginRequest.password) != PasswordVerificationResult.Failed) { ClaimsIdentity claimsIdentity = new ClaimsIdentity(); claimsIdentity.AddClaim(new Claim(ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier, loginRequest.username)); LoginResult loginResult = new CustomLoginProvider(handler).CreateLoginResult(claimsIdentity, Services.Settings.MasterKey); return this.Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, loginResult); } } return this.Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized, "Invalid username or password"); }

Last Step:  Authenticate user in my Xamarin.Forms app and post a new item

Follow the easy steps to add the mobile services package to your Xamarin project.  Once that's done just follow this flow.  Send a JSON request to our CustomLoginController we created in Step 5, retrieve the authentication token and store it to be passed in future api calls such as posting an item.

-Define Mobile Service

public static MobileServiceClient MobileService = new MobileServiceClient( "https://yourAzureMobileService/", "applicationkey" );

-RestSharp to send credentials and retrieve/save token

var client = new RestClient(); var request = new RestRequest("https://yourAzureMobileService/Api/CustomLogin", Method.POST); request.AddParameter("username", "[email protected]"); // adds to POST or URL querystring based on Method request.AddParameter("password", "foo"); // adds to POST or URL querystring based on Method request.OnBeforeDeserialization = resp => { resp.ContentType = "application/json"; }; IRestResponse response = client.Execute(request); MobileService.CurrentUser = new MobileServiceUser(response.Data.user.userId); MobileService.CurrentUser.MobileServiceAuthenticationToken =response.Data.authenticationToken;

-Set a reference to a table manager that we can call from within our Forms shared code

testTable = MobileService.GetTable(); TestItemManager = new testItemManager(testTable); App.SetTestItemManager (TestItemManager);

The Xamarin TodoAzure sample will give you more insight on getting all those pieces in place. https://github.com/conceptdev/xamarin-forms-samples/tree/master/TodoAzure

-Post a new item from our shared code

await App.TestManager.SaveTaskAsync (new testDto { name = "Awesome item2"});

That's it! We've come full cycle now.  An ASP.NET MVC website with Identiy Authentication hosted on Azure with an Azure SQL Database and a companion Xamarin.Forms app using Azure Mobile Services.

As you know, custom renderers in Xamarin.Forms allow us to tap into native aspects and truly customize elements.  If your app makes use of various combinations of fonts, font sizes and colors you may find yourself making a custom renderer for each combination.  After doing a couple of these you will quickly see its getting out of hand and will not scale well.  Instead here's how you can use one renderer to make it all happen.

Step 1: Subclass the control

public class MyLabel : Label { public static readonly BindableProperty CustomFontProperty = BindableProperty.Create<MyLabel, string>( p => p.CustomFont, default(string)); public string CustomFont { get { return (string)GetValue(CustomFontProperty); } set { SetValue(CustomFontProperty, value); } } public static readonly BindableProperty CustomFontSizeProperty = BindableProperty.Create<MyLabel, float>( p => p.CustomFontSize, default(float)); public float CustomFontSize { get { return (float)GetValue(CustomFontSizeProperty); } set { SetValue(CustomFontSizeProperty, value); } } }

What's new here are the lines of code (bolded) to add bindable properties to your class.  This is what will allow you to specify your own custom properties in your Forms pages.

Step2: Create Your Renderer

[assembly: ExportRenderer(typeof(MyLabel), typeof(MyLabelRenderer))] namespace YourApp { public class MyLabelRenderer : LabelRenderer { private MyLabel MyLabel { get { return (MyLabel)Element; } } protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs e) { base.OnElementChanged(e); var label = this.MyLabel; Control.Font= UIFont.FromName (label.CustomFont, label.CustomFontSize); } } }

Here is the iOS version of the renderer. I simply added a reference to the underlying element which then allows me to reference my custom properties

Step 3: Add your element in Forms

var fullname = new MyLabel { TextColor = Color.White, CustomFont="Signika-Regular", CustomFontSize=30f };

I had a requirement in an app to send tweets programmatically without displaying the ui.  Xamarin.Social seemed to be exactly what I needed once I found the ShareAsync Method.

twitter.ShareItemAsync (item, e.Account);

The only thing I needed to was to specify the Twitter account to use. So, using Xamarin.Social I called the TwitterService to get the Twitter account installed on the device.

var twitter = new TwitterService { ConsumerKey ="123", ConsumerSecret ="145" }; var accounts = AccountStore.Create(this).FindAccountsForService("Twitter"); var acc = accounts.ToList ().FirstOrDefault(); var item = new Item { Text = "Xamarin.Social is the bomb.com." }; item.Links.Add (new Uri ("http://github.com/xamarin/xamarin.social")); try { await twitter.ShareItemAsync (item, acc); } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); }

But for some reason accounts kept coming back null. Modifying the code to the following also didn't work.

var twitter = new TwitterService { ConsumerKey ="123", ConsumerSecret ="145" }; var accounts = await twitter.GetAccountsAsync(); var acc = accounts.ToList ().FirstOrDefault(); var item = new Item { Text = "Xamarin.Social is the bomb.com." }; item.Links.Add (new Uri ("http://github.com/xamarin/xamarin.social")); try { await twitter.ShareItemAsync (item, acc); } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); }

I couldn't figure it out. It seemed so simple. I'm telling the code to pull the already configured Twitter account on the device. But why was it null??? Here's why. The following two lines of codes wasn't doing what I thought

var accounts = AccountStore.Create(this).FindAccountsForService("Twitter"); var accounts = await twitter.GetAccountsAsync();

Neither of these lines pulled the devices accounts. Instead, the fix was to use Xamarin.Auth to authenticate the Twitter account then store it to be used later. Here's the code

var auth = new OAuth1Authenticator ( consumerKey: App.Instance.OAuth1Settings.ConsumerKey, consumerSecret : App.Instance.OAuth1Settings.ConsumerSecret, requestTokenUrl: new Uri (App.Instance.OAuth1Settings.RequestTokenUrl), authorizeUrl: new Uri (App.Instance.OAuth1Settings.AuthorizeUrl), accessTokenUrl: new Uri (App.Instance.OAuth1Settings.AccessTokenUrl), callbackUrl: new Uri (App.Instance.OAuth1Settings.CallbackUrl)); auth.Completed += async (s, e) => { if (e.IsAuthenticated) { // Use eventArgs.Account to do wonderful things AccountStore.Create().Save(e.Account,"MyApp-Twitter"); var twitter = new TwitterService { ConsumerKey ="App.Instance.OAuth1Settings.ConsumerKey", ConsumerSecret =App.Instance.OAuth1Settings.ConsumerSecret }; var item = new Item { Text = "Xamarin.Social is the bomb.com." }; item.Links.Add (new Uri ("http://github.com/xamarin/xamarin.social")); try { await twitter.ShareItemAsync (item, e.Account); } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); } } else { // The user cancelled } }; PresentViewController (auth.GetUI (), true, null);

The magic is this line

AccountStore.Create().Save(e.Account,"MyApp-Twitter");

where I saved the authenticated account to the Account Store using a unique ServiceID(my app name and twitter). Then I passed e.Account to the ShareItemAsync method.

Later in my app I can simply use

var accounts = AccountStore.Create(this).FindAccountsForService("MyApp-Twitter");

Here's a little app I created to help with mass sending emails using ManDrill's API. enjoy!

Depending on the settings for each email account I can specify whether the default action is archive or trash. Well hello Apple, sometimes I may want to archive and sometime I may want to trash. What's the deal here? Every other mail app for iOS gives the user each option and even Mail for OS X gives you the option.

If you're like me and hate the fact OS X saves screenshots to your desktop and quickly clutters it up; here's how you change it.  Paste these two commands in terminal:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Downloads/Screenshots

killall SystemUIServer