Enabling SSL in ASP.NET MVC 5 app results in OpenIdConnectProtocolValidator issue

Question

I have an ASP.NET MVC 5 app that authenticates against Azure Active Directory. I wanted to enable SSL on it across the app. and hence leveraged global filters as follows:

public class FilterConfig
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Registers the global filters.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="filters">The filters.</param>
    public static void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters)
    {
        filters.Add(new RequireHttpsAttribute());
    }
}

After this I also set 'Enable SSL' in the project's properties to true. This gave me the following SSL URL -> https://localhost:34567. I updated the project to have this in its IIS Express path under the 'Web Tab' under Servers in 'Project URL'. However on running the site I run in to the following error:

IDX10311: RequireNonce is 'true' (default) but validationContext.Nonce is null. A nonce cannot be validated. If you don't need to check the nonce, set OpenIdConnectProtocolValidator.RequireNonce to 'false'.

I have auth. enabled on the site. I use Azure Active directory.

The security code is as follows:

app.UseOpenIdConnectAuthentication(
            new OpenIdConnectAuthenticationOptions
            {
                ClientId = clientId,
                Authority = authority,
                PostLogoutRedirectUri = postLogoutRedirectUri                    
            });

        app.UseWindowsAzureActiveDirectoryBearerAuthentication(
            new WindowsAzureActiveDirectoryBearerAuthenticationOptions
            {
                Audience = audience,
                Tenant = tenant,      
            });

The auth. values are being read from the web.config and are as follows:

<add key="ida:ClientId" value="<some_guid>" />
<add key="ida:Audience" value="https://localhost:34567/" />
<add key="ida:AADInstance" value="https://login.windows.net/{0}" />
<add key="ida:Tenant" value="microsoft.onmicrosoft.com" />
<add key="ida:PostLogoutRedirectUri" value="https://localhost:34567/" />

I tried setting RequireNonce to false as directed in the error message as follows:

ProtocolValidator = new OpenIdConnectProtocolValidator
                {
                    RequireNonce = false
                }

But this just resulted in an invalid request error.

Could someone help me understand what the problem is here? Everything worked great until SSL was enabled.

Answer 1

You can ignore exceptions if the error message starts with OICE_20004 or contains IDX10311. Note: do it on your own risk.

Notifications = new OpenIdConnectAuthenticationNotifications()
{
    RedirectToIdentityProvider = (context) =>
    {
        // Ensure the URI is picked up dynamically from the request;
        string appBaseUrl = context.Request.Scheme + "://" + context.Request.Host + context.Request.PathBase + context.Request.Uri.PathAndQuery;
        context.ProtocolMessage.RedirectUri = context.Request.Scheme + "://" + context.Request.Host + context.Request.PathBase + context.Request.Uri.PathAndQuery;
        context.ProtocolMessage.PostLogoutRedirectUri = appBaseUrl;
        return Task.FromResult(0);
    },
    AuthenticationFailed = (context) =>
    {
        if (context.Exception.Message.StartsWith("OICE_20004") || context.Exception.Message.Contains("IDX10311"))
        {
            context.SkipToNextMiddleware();
            return Task.FromResult(0);
        }
        return Task.FromResult(0);
    },
}

Answer 2

From the Azure management portal, check that your application under the corresponding active directory has the same Sign On URL and reply URL.

If they are not same, you will get this error.

This happens when you enable SSL because it changes only the sign on URL to the HTTPS URL while the reply URL remains the same HTTP URL.

Edit: Read on if you want to know exactly why this is happening,

When you try to access your app using the https URL, it sets a cookie with a unique number(nonce) in your browser and hits Azure AD for authentication. After authentication, the browser has to give access to that cookie. But since the sign on URL and reply URL are different the browser does not recognise your app and does not give access to that cookie and hence the application throws this error.