Custom Authentication in a .NET Core Web API using OIDC tokens

appsettings.json

{
  "OidcOptions": {
    "TrustedAudiences": [ "[YOUR_GCP_PROJECT_ID]" ],
    "CertificatesUrl": "https://www.googleapis.com/service_accounts/v1/jwk/[email protected]" 
  },
  "Logging": {
    "LogLevel": {
      "Default": "Information",
      "Microsoft": "Warning",
      "Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime": "Information"
    }
  },
  "AllowedHosts": "*"
}

OIDCAuthenticationHandler.cs

using System;
using System.Security.Claims;
using System.Text.Encodings.Web;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authentication;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Options;
using Google.Apis.Auth;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.WebUtilities;
using System.Text.Json;

namespace OIDCAuthentication
{
    public static class OIDCAuthenticationDefaults
    {
        public const string AuthenticationScheme = "OIDCAuthentication";
    }

    public static class AuthenticationBuilderExtensions
    {
        public static AuthenticationBuilder AddCustomAuth(this AuthenticationBuilder builder, Action<ValidateOIDCAuthenticationSchemeOptions> configureOptions)
        {
            return builder.AddScheme<ValidateOIDCAuthenticationSchemeOptions, ValidateOIDCAuthenticationHandler>
                (OIDCAuthenticationDefaults.AuthenticationScheme, configureOptions);
        }
    }
    public class ValidateOIDCAuthenticationSchemeOptions: AuthenticationSchemeOptions
    {
        public SignedTokenVerificationOptions TokenVerificationOptions { get; set; }
    }

    public class ValidateOIDCAuthenticationHandler: AuthenticationHandler<ValidateOIDCAuthenticationSchemeOptions>
    {
        public ValidateOIDCAuthenticationHandler(
            IOptionsMonitor<ValidateOIDCAuthenticationSchemeOptions> options,
            ILoggerFactory logger,
            UrlEncoder encoder,
            ISystemClock clock)
            : base(options, logger, encoder, clock) { }

        protected override async Task<AuthenticateResult> HandleAuthenticateAsync()
        {
            if (!Request.Headers.ContainsKey("Authorization"))
            {
                return AuthenticateResult.Fail("Authorization header missing");
            }
            var rawToken = ExtractRawToken(Request.Headers["Authorization"].ToString());
            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(rawToken))
            {
                return AuthenticateResult.Fail("Bearer token missing");
            }
            try
             {
                // Payload returned by JsonWebSignature.VerifySignedTokenAsync does not include the email claim
                // Will decode it using WebEncoders.Base64UrlDecode 
                // JsonWebSignature.Payload payload = await JsonWebSignature.VerifySignedTokenAsync(token, Options.TokenVerificationOptions);
                var generalValidationTask = JsonWebSignature.VerifySignedTokenAsync(rawToken, Options.TokenVerificationOptions);
                var payload = rawToken.Split('.').ElementAtOrDefault(1);    // A token has the form 'header.payload.signature'
                JsonDocument payloadJson = JsonDocument.Parse(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(WebEncoders.Base64UrlDecode(payload)));
                var sub = payloadJson.RootElement.GetString("sub");
                var email = payloadJson.RootElement.GetString("email");
                if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(sub) || string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(email))
                {
                    return AuthenticateResult.Fail("Error validating token: 'sub' and 'email' claims are required");
                }
                var claims = new[] {
                    new Claim(ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier, sub),
                    new Claim(ClaimTypes.Email, email)};
                var claimsIdentity = new ClaimsIdentity(claims, nameof(ValidateOIDCAuthenticationHandler));
                var ticket = new AuthenticationTicket(new ClaimsPrincipal(claimsIdentity), this.Scheme.Name);
                await generalValidationTask.ConfigureAwait(false);
                return AuthenticateResult.Success(ticket);
            }
            catch(Exception ex)
            {
                switch(ex)
                {
                    case FormatException:       // Payload decoding failed - malformed input (i.e. whitespace or padding characters)
                    case ArgumentNullException: // Payload decoding failed - rawToken likely not in 'header.payload.signature' format
                        return AuthenticateResult.Fail("Error validating token: payload decoding failed");
                    case JsonException:         // Payload failed to serialize to JSON
                        return AuthenticateResult.Fail("Error validating token: converting payload to JSON failed");
                    case InvalidJwtException:   // Token failed verification
                    default:
                        return AuthenticateResult.Fail($"Error validating token: ${ex.Message}");
                }
            }
        }

        private static string ExtractRawToken(string Header)
        {
            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(Header))
            {
                return string.Empty;
            }
            string[] splitHeader = Header.ToString().Split(' ');
            if (splitHeader.Length != 2)
            {
                return string.Empty;
            }
            var scheme = splitHeader[0];
            var token = splitHeader[1];
            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(token) || scheme.ToLowerInvariant() != "bearer")
            {
                return string.Empty;
            }
            return token;
        }
    }
}

Startup.cs

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting;
using Microsoft.OpenApi.Models;
using Google.Apis.Auth;
using OIDCAuthentication;

namespace WebApiCustomAuthOIDC
{
    public class Startup
    {
        public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
        {
            Configuration = configuration;
        }

        public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }

        // This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            services.AddAuthentication(options =>
            {
                options.DefaultAuthenticateScheme = OIDCAuthenticationDefaults.AuthenticationScheme;
                options.DefaultChallengeScheme = OIDCAuthenticationDefaults.AuthenticationScheme;
            })
            .AddCustomAuth(options => {
                SignedTokenVerificationOptions tokenOptions = new SignedTokenVerificationOptions();
                Configuration.GetSection("OidcOptions").Bind(tokenOptions);
                options.TokenVerificationOptions = tokenOptions;
            });

            services.AddControllers();
            services.AddSwaggerGen(c =>
            {
                c.SwaggerDoc("v1", new OpenApiInfo { Title = "WebApiCustomAuthOIDC", Version = "v1" });
            });


        }

        // This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to configure the HTTP request pipeline.
            public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
        {
            if (env.IsDevelopment())
            {
                app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
                app.UseSwagger();
                app.UseSwaggerUI(c => c.SwaggerEndpoint("/swagger/v1/swagger.json", "WebApiCustomAuthOIDC v1"));
            }

            app.UseHttpsRedirection();

            app.UseRouting();

            app.UseAuthentication();

            app.UseAuthorization();

            app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
            {
                endpoints.MapControllers();
            });
        }
    }
}

Implements an ASP.NET (Core) custom Authentication Handler and Scheme for OIDC tokens (user_id) passed in the Authorization HTTP header (Bearer Token; see: (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6750)) The CertificatesUrl setting in appsetting.json is for Google Identity Platform/Firebase. For Google/Cloud Identity or IAP endpoints, see: this (https://github.com/salrashid123/google_id_token#how-to-verify-an-id-token).

Special thanks to these posts for helping show the way:

• (https://ignas.me/tech/custom-authentication-asp-net-core-20/)
• (https://referbruv.com/blog/posts/implementing-custom-authentication-scheme-and-handler-in-aspnet-core-3x)

Google.Apis.Auth repo can be found here: (https://github.com/googleapis/google-api-dotnet-client/tree/master/Src/Support/Google.Apis.Auth)