Can I access IIdentity from Web API

Question

I'm adding some Web API services to an existing MVC application. I have a model binder for my MVC controllers to get the user object stored in a CustomIdentity. I'm trying to reproduce this for my Web API actions.

In the MVC Controller or its binders I can use

controllerContext.HttpContext.User.Identity 

The ApiController doesn't have the HttpContext object. Is there anyway to access the IIdentity object from the Web API?

Answer 1

They removed GetUserPrincipal in ASP.NET MVC 4 RC. However it seems the ApiController property User has replaced this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.http.apicontroller.user

Answer 2

Yes you can. ApiController has a Request property of type System.Net.Http.HttpRequestMessage; this holds details about the current request naturally (it also has a setter for unit testing purposes). HttpRequestMessage has a Properties dictionary; you will find the value of the key MS_UserPrincipal holds your IPrincipal object.

In researching this answer, I came across the System.Web.Http.HttpRequestMessageExtensions which has a GetUserPrincipal(this HttpRequestMessage request) extension method which accesses this dictionary value; I hadn't seen this extension method before and was accessing Request.Properties["MS_UserPrincipal"] directly, but this might be a better method (less dependent on the ASP.NET Web Api team keeping the name of the key the same...)