How do you create a custom AuthorizeAttribute in ASP.NET Core?

I'm trying to make a custom authorization attribute in ASP.NET Core. In previous versions it was possible to override bool AuthorizeCore(HttpContextBase httpContext). But this no longer exists in AuthorizeAttribute.

What is the current approach to make a custom AuthorizeAttribute?

What I am trying to accomplish: I am receiving a session ID in the Header Authorization. From that ID I'll know whether a particular action is valid.

The approach recommended by the ASP.Net Core team is to use the new policy design which is fully documented here. The basic idea behind the new approach is to use the new [Authorize] attribute to designate a "policy" (e.g. [Authorize( Policy = "YouNeedToBe18ToDoThis")] where the policy is registered in the application's Startup.cs to execute some block of code (i.e. ensure the user has an age claim where the age is 18 or older).

The policy design is a great addition to the framework and the ASP.Net Security Core team should be commended for its introduction. That said, it isn't well-suited for all cases. The shortcoming of this approach is that it fails to provide a convenient solution for the most common need of simply asserting that a given controller or action requires a given claim type. In the case where an application may have hundreds of discrete permissions governing CRUD operations on individual REST resources ("CanCreateOrder", "CanReadOrder", "CanUpdateOrder", "CanDeleteOrder", etc.), the new approach either requires repetitive one-to-one mappings between a policy name and a claim name (e.g. options.AddPolicy("CanUpdateOrder", policy => policy.RequireClaim(MyClaimTypes.Permission, "CanUpdateOrder));), or writing some code to perform these registrations at run time (e.g. read all claim types from a database and perform the aforementioned call in a loop). The problem with this approach for the majority of cases is that it's unnecessary overhead.

While the ASP.Net Core Security team recommends never creating your own solution, in some cases this may be the most prudent option with which to start.

The following is an implementation which uses the IAuthorizationFilter to provide a simple way to express a claim requirement for a given controller or action:

public class ClaimRequirementAttribute : TypeFilterAttribute
{
    public ClaimRequirementAttribute(string claimType, string claimValue) : base(typeof(ClaimRequirementFilter))
    {
        Arguments = new object[] {new Claim(claimType, claimValue) };
    }
}

public class ClaimRequirementFilter : IAuthorizationFilter
{
    readonly Claim _claim;

    public ClaimRequirementFilter(Claim claim)
    {
        _claim = claim;
    }

    public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationFilterContext context)
    {
        var hasClaim = context.HttpContext.User.Claims.Any(c => c.Type == _claim.Type && c.Value == _claim.Value);
        if (!hasClaim)
        {
            context.Result = new ForbidResult();
        }
    }
}


[Route("api/resource")]
public class MyController : Controller
{
    [ClaimRequirement(MyClaimTypes.Permission, "CanReadResource")]
    [HttpGet]
    public IActionResult GetResource()
    {
        return Ok();
    }
}

I'm the asp.net security person. Firstly let me apologize that none of this is documented yet outside of the music store sample or unit tests, and it's all still being refined in terms of exposed APIs. Detailed documentation is here.

We don't want you writing custom authorize attributes. If you need to do that we've done something wrong. Instead, you should be writing authorization requirements.

Authorization acts upon Identities. Identities are created by authentication.

You say in comments you want to check a session ID in a header. Your session ID would be the basis for identity. If you wanted to use the Authorize attribute you'd write an authentication middleware to take that header and turn it into an authenticated ClaimsPrincipal. You would then check that inside an authorization requirement. Authorization requirements can be as complicated as you like, for example here's one that takes a date of birth claim on the current identity and will authorize if the user is over 18;

public class Over18Requirement : AuthorizationHandler<Over18Requirement>, IAuthorizationRequirement
{
  public override void Handle(AuthorizationHandlerContext context, Over18Requirement requirement)
  {
    if (!context.User.HasClaim(c => c.Type == ClaimTypes.DateOfBirth))
    {
      context.Fail();
      return;
    }

    var dobVal = context.User.FindFirst(c => c.Type == ClaimTypes.DateOfBirth).Value;
    var dateOfBirth = Convert.ToDateTime(dobVal);
    int age = DateTime.Today.Year - dateOfBirth.Year;
    if (dateOfBirth > DateTime.Today.AddYears(-age))
    {
      age--;
    }

    if (age >= 18)
    {
      context.Succeed(requirement);
    }
    else
    {
      context.Fail();
    }
  }
}

Then in your ConfigureServices() function you'd wire it up

services.AddAuthorization(options =>
{
    options.AddPolicy("Over18", 
        policy => policy.Requirements.Add(new Authorization.Over18Requirement()));
});

And finally, apply it to a controller or action method with

[Authorize(Policy = "Over18")]

It seems that with ASP.NET Core 2, you can again inherit AuthorizeAttribute, you just need to also implement IAuthorizationFilter (or IAsyncAuthorizationFilter):

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = true, Inherited = true)]
public class CustomAuthorizeAttribute : AuthorizeAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter
{
    private readonly string _someFilterParameter;

    public CustomAuthorizeAttribute(string someFilterParameter)
    {
        _someFilterParameter = someFilterParameter;
    }

    public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationFilterContext context)
    {
        var user = context.HttpContext.User;

        if (!user.Identity.IsAuthenticated)
        {
            // it isn't needed to set unauthorized result 
            // as the base class already requires the user to be authenticated
            // this also makes redirect to a login page work properly
            // context.Result = new UnauthorizedResult();
            return;
        }

        // you can also use registered services
        var someService = context.HttpContext.RequestServices.GetService<ISomeService>();

        var isAuthorized = someService.IsUserAuthorized(user.Identity.Name, _someFilterParameter);
        if (!isAuthorized)
        {
            context.Result = new StatusCodeResult((int)System.Net.HttpStatusCode.Forbidden);
            return;
        }
    }
}

Based on Derek Greer GREAT answer, i did it with enums.

Here is an example of my code:

public enum PermissionItem
{
    User,
    Product,
    Contact,
    Review,
    Client
}

public enum PermissionAction
{
    Read,
    Create,
}


public class AuthorizeAttribute : TypeFilterAttribute
{
    public AuthorizeAttribute(PermissionItem item, PermissionAction action)
    : base(typeof(AuthorizeActionFilter))
    {
        Arguments = new object[] { item, action };
    }
}

public class AuthorizeActionFilter : IAuthorizationFilter
{
    private readonly PermissionItem _item;
    private readonly PermissionAction _action;
    public AuthorizeActionFilter(PermissionItem item, PermissionAction action)
    {
        _item = item;
        _action = action;
    }
    public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationFilterContext context)
    {
        bool isAuthorized = MumboJumboFunction(context.HttpContext.User, _item, _action); // :)

        if (!isAuthorized)
        {
            context.Result = new ForbidResult();
        }
    }
}

public class UserController : BaseController
{
    private readonly DbContext _context;

    public UserController( DbContext context) :
        base()
    {
        _logger = logger;
    }

    [Authorize(PermissionItem.User, PermissionAction.Read)]
    public async Task<IActionResult> Index()
    {
        return View(await _context.User.ToListAsync());
    }
}

You can create your own AuthorizationHandler that will find custom attributes on your Controllers and Actions, and pass them to the HandleRequirementAsync method.

public abstract class AttributeAuthorizationHandler<TRequirement, TAttribute> : AuthorizationHandler<TRequirement> where TRequirement : IAuthorizationRequirement where TAttribute : Attribute
{
    protected override Task HandleRequirementAsync(AuthorizationHandlerContext context, TRequirement requirement)
    {
        var attributes = new List<TAttribute>();

        var action = (context.Resource as AuthorizationFilterContext)?.ActionDescriptor as ControllerActionDescriptor;
        if (action != null)
        {
            attributes.AddRange(GetAttributes(action.ControllerTypeInfo.UnderlyingSystemType));
            attributes.AddRange(GetAttributes(action.MethodInfo));
        }

        return HandleRequirementAsync(context, requirement, attributes);
    }

    protected abstract Task HandleRequirementAsync(AuthorizationHandlerContext context, TRequirement requirement, IEnumerable<TAttribute> attributes);

    private static IEnumerable<TAttribute> GetAttributes(MemberInfo memberInfo)
    {
        return memberInfo.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(TAttribute), false).Cast<TAttribute>();
    }
}

Then you can use it for any custom attributes you need on your controllers or actions. For example to add permission requirements. Just create your custom attribute.

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = true)]
public class PermissionAttribute : AuthorizeAttribute
{
    public string Name { get; }

    public PermissionAttribute(string name) : base("Permission")
    {
        Name = name;
    }
}

Then create a Requirement to add to your Policy

public class PermissionAuthorizationRequirement : IAuthorizationRequirement
{
    //Add any custom requirement properties if you have them
}

Then create the AuthorizationHandler for your custom attribute, inheriting the AttributeAuthorizationHandler that we created earlier. It will be passed an IEnumerable for all your custom attributes in the HandleRequirementsAsync method, accumulated from your Controller and Action.

public class PermissionAuthorizationHandler : AttributeAuthorizationHandler<PermissionAuthorizationRequirement, PermissionAttribute>
{
    protected override async Task HandleRequirementAsync(AuthorizationHandlerContext context, PermissionAuthorizationRequirement requirement, IEnumerable<PermissionAttribute> attributes)
    {
        foreach (var permissionAttribute in attributes)
        {
            if (!await AuthorizeAsync(context.User, permissionAttribute.Name))
            {
                return;
            }
        }

        context.Succeed(requirement);
    }

    private Task<bool> AuthorizeAsync(ClaimsPrincipal user, string permission)
    {
        //Implement your custom user permission logic here
    }
}

And finally, in your Startup.cs ConfigureServices method, add your custom AuthorizationHandler to the services, and add your Policy.

        services.AddSingleton<IAuthorizationHandler, PermissionAuthorizationHandler>();

        services.AddAuthorization(options =>
        {
            options.AddPolicy("Permission", policyBuilder =>
            {
                policyBuilder.Requirements.Add(new PermissionAuthorizationRequirement());
            });
        });

Now you can simply decorate your Controllers and Actions with your custom attribute.

[Permission("AccessCustomers")]
public class CustomersController
{
    [Permission("AddCustomer")]
    IActionResult AddCustomer([FromBody] Customer customer)
    {
        //Add customer
    }
}