Verifying JWT signed with the RS256 algorithm using public key in C#

Question

Ok, I understand that the question I am asking may be pretty obvious, but unfortunately I lack the knowledge on this subject and this task seems to be quite tricky for me.

I have an id token (JWT) returned by OpenID Connect Provider. Here it is:

eyJraWQiOiIxZTlnZGs3IiwiYWxnIjoiUlMyNTYifQ.ewogImlzcyI6ICJodHRwOi8vc2VydmVyLmV4YW1wbGUuY29tIiwKICJzdWIiOiAiMjQ4Mjg5NzYxMDAxIiwKICJhdWQiOiAiczZCaGRSa3F0MyIsCiAibm9uY2UiOiAibi0wUzZfV3pBMk1qIiwKICJleHAiOiAxMzExMjgxOTcwLAogImlhdCI6IDEzMTEyODA5NzAsCiAiY19oYXNoIjogIkxEa3RLZG9RYWszUGswY25YeENsdEEiCn0.XW6uhdrkBgcGx6zVIrCiROpWURs-4goO1sKA4m9jhJIImiGg5muPUcNegx6sSv43c5DSn37sxCRrDZZm4ZPBKKgtYASMcE20SDgvYJdJS0cyuFw7Ijp_7WnIjcrl6B5cmoM6ylCvsLMwkoQAxVublMwH10oAxjzD6NEFsu9nipkszWhsPePf_rM4eMpkmCbTzume-fzZIi5VjdWGGEmzTg32h3jiex-r5WTHbj-u5HL7u_KP3rmbdYNzlzd1xWRYTUs4E8nOTgzAUwvwXkIQhOh5TPcSMBYy6X3E7-_gr9Ue6n4ND7hTFhtjYs3cjNKIA08qm5cpVYFMFMG6PkhzLQ

Its header and payload are decoded as this:

{
 "kid":"1e9gdk7",
 "alg":"RS256"
}.
{
 "iss": "http://server.example.com",
 "sub": "248289761001",
 "aud": "s6BhdRkqt3",
 "nonce": "n-0S6_WzA2Mj",
 "exp": 1311281970,
 "iat": 1311280970,
 "c_hash": "LDktKdoQak3Pk0cnXxCltA"
}

From the OIDC provider's discovery, I've got the public key (JWK):

{
 "kty":"RSA",
 "kid":"1e9gdk7",
 "n":"w7Zdfmece8iaB0kiTY8pCtiBtzbptJmP28nSWwtdjRu0f2GFpajvWE4VhfJAjEsOcwYzay7XGN0b-X84BfC8hmCTOj2b2eHT7NsZegFPKRUQzJ9wW8ipn_aDJWMGDuB1XyqT1E7DYqjUCEOD1b4FLpy_xPn6oV_TYOfQ9fZdbE5HGxJUzekuGcOKqOQ8M7wfYHhHHLxGpQVgL0apWuP2gDDOdTtpuld4D2LK1MZK99s9gaSjRHE8JDb1Z4IGhEcEyzkxswVdPndUWzfvWBBWXWxtSUvQGBRkuy1BHOa4sP6FKjWEeeF7gm7UMs2Nm2QUgNZw6xvEDGaLk4KASdIxRQ",
 "e":"AQAB"
}

So, the question is how exactly in C# can I verify this JWT using the public key for the RS256 algorithm I've got? It would be awesome if there is a good tutorial describing this procedure explicitly. However, an example of how to do this using System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt will also work fine.

UPDATE: I understand, that I need to do something like the code below, but I have no idea where to get 'key' for calculating SHA256 hash.

  string tokenStr = "eyJraWQiOiIxZTlnZGs3IiwiYWxnIjoiUlMyNTYifQ.ewogImlzcyI6ICJodHRwOi8vc2VydmVyLmV4YW1wbGUuY29tIiwKICJzdWIiOiAiMjQ4Mjg5NzYxMDAxIiwKICJhdWQiOiAiczZCaGRSa3F0MyIsCiAibm9uY2UiOiAibi0wUzZfV3pBMk1qIiwKICJleHAiOiAxMzExMjgxOTcwLAogImlhdCI6IDEzMTEyODA5NzAsCiAiY19oYXNoIjogIkxEa3RLZG9RYWszUGswY25YeENsdEEiCn0.XW6uhdrkBgcGx6zVIrCiROpWURs-4goO1sKA4m9jhJIImiGg5muPUcNegx6sSv43c5DSn37sxCRrDZZm4ZPBKKgtYASMcE20SDgvYJdJS0cyuFw7Ijp_7WnIjcrl6B5cmoM6ylCvsLMwkoQAxVublMwH10oAxjzD6NEFsu9nipkszWhsPePf_rM4eMpkmCbTzume-fzZIi5VjdWGGEmzTg32h3jiex-r5WTHbj-u5HL7u_KP3rmbdYNzlzd1xWRYTUs4E8nOTgzAUwvwXkIQhOh5TPcSMBYy6X3E7-_gr9Ue6n4ND7hTFhtjYs3cjNKIA08qm5cpVYFMFMG6PkhzLQ";
  string[] tokenParts = tokenStr.Split('.');

  RSACryptoServiceProvider rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
  rsa.ImportParameters(
    new RSAParameters() {
      Modulus = FromBase64Url("w7Zdfmece8iaB0kiTY8pCtiBtzbptJmP28nSWwtdjRu0f2GFpajvWE4VhfJAjEsOcwYzay7XGN0b-X84BfC8hmCTOj2b2eHT7NsZegFPKRUQzJ9wW8ipn_aDJWMGDuB1XyqT1E7DYqjUCEOD1b4FLpy_xPn6oV_TYOfQ9fZdbE5HGxJUzekuGcOKqOQ8M7wfYHhHHLxGpQVgL0apWuP2gDDOdTtpuld4D2LK1MZK99s9gaSjRHE8JDb1Z4IGhEcEyzkxswVdPndUWzfvWBBWXWxtSUvQGBRkuy1BHOa4sP6FKjWEeeF7gm7UMs2Nm2QUgNZw6xvEDGaLk4KASdIxRQ"),
      Exponent = FromBase64Url("AQAB")
    });

  HMACSHA256 sha = new HMACSHA256(key);
  byte[] hash = sha.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(tokenParts[0] + '.' + tokenParts[1]));
  byte[] signature = rsa.Encrypt(hash, false);
  string strSignature = Base64UrlEncode(signature);
  if (String.Compare(strSignature, tokenParts[2], false) == 0)
    return true;

Answer 1

Thanks to jwilleke, I have got a solution. To verify the RS256 signature of a JWT, it is needed to use the RSAPKCS1SignatureDeformatter class and its VerifySignature method.

Here is the exact code for my sample data:

  string tokenStr = "eyJraWQiOiIxZTlnZGs3IiwiYWxnIjoiUlMyNTYifQ.ewogImlzcyI6ICJodHRwOi8vc2VydmVyLmV4YW1wbGUuY29tIiwKICJzdWIiOiAiMjQ4Mjg5NzYxMDAxIiwKICJhdWQiOiAiczZCaGRSa3F0MyIsCiAibm9uY2UiOiAibi0wUzZfV3pBMk1qIiwKICJleHAiOiAxMzExMjgxOTcwLAogImlhdCI6IDEzMTEyODA5NzAsCiAiY19oYXNoIjogIkxEa3RLZG9RYWszUGswY25YeENsdEEiCn0.XW6uhdrkBgcGx6zVIrCiROpWURs-4goO1sKA4m9jhJIImiGg5muPUcNegx6sSv43c5DSn37sxCRrDZZm4ZPBKKgtYASMcE20SDgvYJdJS0cyuFw7Ijp_7WnIjcrl6B5cmoM6ylCvsLMwkoQAxVublMwH10oAxjzD6NEFsu9nipkszWhsPePf_rM4eMpkmCbTzume-fzZIi5VjdWGGEmzTg32h3jiex-r5WTHbj-u5HL7u_KP3rmbdYNzlzd1xWRYTUs4E8nOTgzAUwvwXkIQhOh5TPcSMBYy6X3E7-_gr9Ue6n4ND7hTFhtjYs3cjNKIA08qm5cpVYFMFMG6PkhzLQ";   string[] tokenParts = tokenStr.Split('.');    RSACryptoServiceProvider rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();   rsa.ImportParameters(     new RSAParameters() {       Modulus = FromBase64Url("w7Zdfmece8iaB0kiTY8pCtiBtzbptJmP28nSWwtdjRu0f2GFpajvWE4VhfJAjEsOcwYzay7XGN0b-X84BfC8hmCTOj2b2eHT7NsZegFPKRUQzJ9wW8ipn_aDJWMGDuB1XyqT1E7DYqjUCEOD1b4FLpy_xPn6oV_TYOfQ9fZdbE5HGxJUzekuGcOKqOQ8M7wfYHhHHLxGpQVgL0apWuP2gDDOdTtpuld4D2LK1MZK99s9gaSjRHE8JDb1Z4IGhEcEyzkxswVdPndUWzfvWBBWXWxtSUvQGBRkuy1BHOa4sP6FKjWEeeF7gm7UMs2Nm2QUgNZw6xvEDGaLk4KASdIxRQ"),       Exponent = FromBase64Url("AQAB")     });    SHA256 sha256 = SHA256.Create();   byte[] hash = sha256.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(tokenParts[0] + '.' + tokenParts[1]));    RSAPKCS1SignatureDeformatter rsaDeformatter = new RSAPKCS1SignatureDeformatter(rsa);   rsaDeformatter.SetHashAlgorithm("SHA256");   if (rsaDeformatter.VerifySignature(hash, FromBase64Url(tokenParts[2])))     MessageBox.Show("Signature is verified");  //...   static byte[] FromBase64Url(string base64Url)   {     string padded = base64Url.Length % 4 == 0         ? base64Url : base64Url + "====".Substring(base64Url.Length % 4);     string base64 = padded.Replace("_", "/")                           .Replace("-", "+");     return Convert.FromBase64String(base64);   } 

Answer 2

Here is an example using IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt for validation:

string tokenStr = "eyJraWQiOiIxZTlnZGs3IiwiYWxnIjoiUlMyNTYifQ.ewogImlzcyI6ICJodHRwOi8vc2VydmVyLmV4YW1wbGUuY29tIiwKICJzdWIiOiAiMjQ4Mjg5NzYxMDAxIiwKICJhdWQiOiAiczZCaGRSa3F0MyIsCiAibm9uY2UiOiAibi0wUzZfV3pBMk1qIiwKICJleHAiOiAxMzExMjgxOTcwLAogImlhdCI6IDEzMTEyODA5NzAsCiAiY19oYXNoIjogIkxEa3RLZG9RYWszUGswY25YeENsdEEiCn0.XW6uhdrkBgcGx6zVIrCiROpWURs-4goO1sKA4m9jhJIImiGg5muPUcNegx6sSv43c5DSn37sxCRrDZZm4ZPBKKgtYASMcE20SDgvYJdJS0cyuFw7Ijp_7WnIjcrl6B5cmoM6ylCvsLMwkoQAxVublMwH10oAxjzD6NEFsu9nipkszWhsPePf_rM4eMpkmCbTzume-fzZIi5VjdWGGEmzTg32h3jiex-r5WTHbj-u5HL7u_KP3rmbdYNzlzd1xWRYTUs4E8nOTgzAUwvwXkIQhOh5TPcSMBYy6X3E7-_gr9Ue6n4ND7hTFhtjYs3cjNKIA08qm5cpVYFMFMG6PkhzLQ";  RSACryptoServiceProvider rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(); rsa.ImportParameters(   new RSAParameters()   {       Modulus = FromBase64Url("w7Zdfmece8iaB0kiTY8pCtiBtzbptJmP28nSWwtdjRu0f2GFpajvWE4VhfJAjEsOcwYzay7XGN0b-X84BfC8hmCTOj2b2eHT7NsZegFPKRUQzJ9wW8ipn_aDJWMGDuB1XyqT1E7DYqjUCEOD1b4FLpy_xPn6oV_TYOfQ9fZdbE5HGxJUzekuGcOKqOQ8M7wfYHhHHLxGpQVgL0apWuP2gDDOdTtpuld4D2LK1MZK99s9gaSjRHE8JDb1Z4IGhEcEyzkxswVdPndUWzfvWBBWXWxtSUvQGBRkuy1BHOa4sP6FKjWEeeF7gm7UMs2Nm2QUgNZw6xvEDGaLk4KASdIxRQ"),       Exponent = FromBase64Url("AQAB")   });  var validationParameters = new TokenValidationParameters                 {                     RequireExpirationTime = true,                     RequireSignedTokens = true,                     ValidateAudience = false,                     ValidateIssuer = false,                     ValidateLifetime = false,                     IssuerSigningKey = new RsaSecurityKey(rsa)                 };  SecurityToken validatedSecurityToken = null; var handler = new JwtSecurityTokenHandler(); handler.ValidateToken(tokenStr, validationParameters, out validatedSecurityToken); JwtSecurityToken validatedJwt = validatedSecurityToken as JwtSecurityToken; 

Answer 3

For anyone that is looking for a quick method to validate RS256 with a public key that has "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----"/"-----END PUBLIC KEY------"

Here are two methods with the help of BouncyCastle.

    public bool ValidateJasonWebToken(string fullKey, string jwtToken)
    {
        try
        {
            var rs256Token = fullKey.Replace("-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----", "");
            rs256Token = rs256Token.Replace("-----END PUBLIC KEY-----", "");
            rs256Token = rs256Token.Replace("\n", "");

            Validate(jwtToken, rs256Token);
            return true;
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(e);
            return false;
        }
    }

    private void Validate(string token, string key)
    {
        var keyBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(key); // your key here

        AsymmetricKeyParameter asymmetricKeyParameter = PublicKeyFactory.CreateKey(keyBytes);
        RsaKeyParameters rsaKeyParameters = (RsaKeyParameters)asymmetricKeyParameter;
        RSAParameters rsaParameters = new RSAParameters
        {
            Modulus = rsaKeyParameters.Modulus.ToByteArrayUnsigned(),
            Exponent = rsaKeyParameters.Exponent.ToByteArrayUnsigned()
        };
        using (RSACryptoServiceProvider rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider())
        {
            rsa.ImportParameters(rsaParameters);
            var validationParameters = new TokenValidationParameters()
            {
                RequireExpirationTime = false,
                RequireSignedTokens = true,
                ValidateAudience = false,
                ValidateIssuer = false,
                IssuerSigningKey = new RsaSecurityKey(rsa)
            };
            var handler = new JwtSecurityTokenHandler();
            var result = handler.ValidateToken(token, validationParameters, out var validatedToken);
        }
    }

This is a combination of http://codingstill.com/2016/01/verify-jwt-token-signed-with-rs256-using-the-public-key/ and @olaf answer that uses system.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt

Answer 4

NET Core

To use this in a .NET core web api (.NET Framework see below) in a AddJwtBearer() auth flow I enhanced NvMat's great answer:

Very important is to not use the RSACryptoServiceProvider in an using statement.

    private TokenValidationParameters GetTokenValidationParameters(string key)
    {
        var rs256Token = key.Value.Replace("-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----", "");
        rs256Token = rs256Token.Replace("-----END PUBLIC KEY-----", "");
        rs256Token = rs256Token.Replace("\n", "");

        var keyBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(rs256Token);

        var asymmetricKeyParameter = PublicKeyFactory.CreateKey(keyBytes);
        var rsaKeyParameters = (RsaKeyParameters)asymmetricKeyParameter;
        var rsaParameters = new RSAParameters
        {
            Modulus = rsaKeyParameters.Modulus.ToByteArrayUnsigned(),
            Exponent = rsaKeyParameters.Exponent.ToByteArrayUnsigned()
        };
        var rsa = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();

        rsa.ImportParameters(rsaParameters);

        var validationParameters = new TokenValidationParameters()
        {
            RequireExpirationTime = false,
            RequireSignedTokens = true,
            ValidateAudience = false,
            ValidateIssuer = false,
            IssuerSigningKey = new RsaSecurityKey(rsa),
        };

        return validationParameters;
    }

Then you are able to use authentication in the startup like this:

services.AddAuthentication(x =>
{
    x.DefaultAuthenticateScheme = JwtBearerDefaults.AuthenticationScheme;
    x.DefaultChallengeScheme = JwtBearerDefaults.AuthenticationScheme;
})
.AddJwtBearer(options =>
{
    options.RequireHttpsMetadata = false;
    options.SaveToken = true;
    options.IncludeErrorDetails = true;
    options.TokenValidationParameters = GetTokenValidationParameters(configuration["Key"]);
    options.Audience = configuration["ClientId"];
});

NET Framework

It is also possible to use this approach in a .NET Framework web api project. All you have to do is add this line to your startup Configure() method:

app.UseJwtBearerAuthentication(new JwtBearerAuthenticationOptions()
{
     TokenValidationParameters = GetTokenValidationParameters(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Key"])
});

One important thing: Make sure you use a verion >=5.0.0 of the JwtSecurityTokenHandler I had problems with the 4.X.X versions.