How to integrate Visual Guard in ASP.Net application 2.0

To integrate Visual Guard in your ASP.Net Web Site, Web Application or Web Service project you have to:

Add the assemblies of Visual Guard as references of your project.
Modify the "web.config" file of your application to integrate the Visual Guard module.
Integrate Visual Guard in the code of your application.
Create a Visual Guard repository and declare your application by using the Visual Guard console. This repository will contain all security items (users, roles, permissions ...) of your application.
Generate the Visual Guard configuration files by using the Visual Guard console. These configuration files will be needed to connect your application to the repository.
Grant read/write permissions to the repository.

Integration Demo

This demo shows how to integrate Visual Guard in ASP.Net applications: Play Demo

Referencing Visual Guard assemblies

In order to use Visual Guard, you must add references to Visual Guard assemblies:

Opens the solution of your project in Visual Studio.
In the solution explorer, expands the project node.
Right-click the Project node for the project and select Add Reference from the shortcut menu.
In .Net tab, select the 4 assemblies
1. Novalys.VisualGuard.Security
2. Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm
3. Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.<RepositoryType> (Files, SQLServer or Oracle)
4. Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.<ApplicationFrameworkType> (Depending on type of application's framework, whether .NetFramework or .NetCore)
And, then click the Select button, and then click the OK button

Note
Once the Visual Guard assemblies are referenced into project, you need to mark "Copy Local" property to "true" for each assembly.

Note
You must add either Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.NetFramework or Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.Core (Depending on type of application's framework)

Description of Visual Guard assemblies:

Novalys.VisualGuard.Security contains the main Visual Guard classes.
Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.Files contains the classes needed to access to a file based repository.
Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.SQLServer contains the classes needed to access to a repository stored in a Microsoft SQLServer database (SQLServer 2005 or higher). Available only in Visual Guard Enterprise Edition
Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.Oracle contains the classes needed to access to a repository stored in an Oracle database (9i or higher). Available only in Visual Guard Enterprise Edition
Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm contains the classes needed for ASP.Net application. You must reference this assembly in ASP.Net web application or WebService project.
Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.NetFramework contains all classes required to support .Net Framework applications. This assembly is needed only if you want to integrate Visual Guard in .net framework applications.
Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.Core contains all classes required to support .Net Core applications. This assembly is needed only if you want to integrate Visual Guard in .net core applications.

Modifying the "web.config" file of your application

To enable Visual Guard in your application, you must declare the class VGHttpModule in the list of HttpModules in the "web.config" of your application. To do that, you must:

Open the "web.config" file of your application or add a new one to your project.
Add the following line of code in the <httpModules> node.

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<add type="Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm.VGHttpModule,Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm" name="VGModule"/>

For example:

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 <configuration> 
    <system.web> 
    ... 
    <!--  Classic Mode -->
    <httpModules> 
        <add type= "Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm.VGHttpModule,Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm" name="VGModule"/>
     </httpModules> 
    ... 
    </system.web>
    <system.webServer>
    ...
    <!--  Integrated Mode -->
    <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" > 
        <add  type= "Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm.VGHttpModule,Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm" name="VGModule"/> 
    </modules>
    ... 
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

This module will enable Visual Guard in your application. It will automatically detect the type of authentication used in your application. Visual Guard supports Forms and Windows authentication mode.

If you use Form authentication mode, you can use the Visual Guard authentication mechanism. In this case you must call the method VGSecurityManager.Authenticate in your login form. You can find an example of the authentication integrated in a login form in the chapter "Integrate Visual Guard in your code".

If you use Windows authentication mode, Visual Guard will automatically detect the authenticated user and load the security permissions granted to this user.

If the user does not have any role in the application or if the user is not declared in the repository or if the user is anonymous, Visual Guard will deny the user access to all pages in your web site.

If you want to allow anonymous sessions in your web site, you must declare an anonymous role to your application in the Visual Guard console.

To enable anonymous sessions, you must:

Open the Visual Guard console and connect to the repository associated to your application.
Create a new role in your application with a permission set containing permissions for an anonymous user.
Select the item corresponding to your application and, in the property "Anonymous role", select the role created above.
To take into account this modification in your application, you must regenerate the Visual Guard configuration files of your application or edit them and change the option anonymousSessionSupported.
Modify your authorization section of web.config file in order to allow anonymous access to your website.

You can use Visual Guard in conjunction with the URL Authorization module to deny access to specific users (anonymous or not) or roles. Visual Guard users and roles are fully compatible with the URL Authorization module.

If you have not allowed anonymous session in your web application and you want to allow certain files to have anonymous access, you must configure your web.config with following:

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<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="VGWebConfiguration" type="Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm.VGWebConfiguration" />
  </configSections>
  ...
  <VGWebConfiguration excludeExtension=".css,.png,.js,.gif,.jpg,.Gif">
    <ExcludePages>
      <add Url="^~/$" />
      <add Url="~/Account/Login" />
    </ExcludePages>
    <VGCookieConfig Domain=".vg.local" DomainScope="WebSSO" AutoRedirect="true" AuthenticationUrl="http://vg.local/webApp/Account/Login" />
  </VGWebConfiguration>
</configuration>

Web SSO

To enable web sso, you must enable VGCookieConfig as mentioned above. Please go through points below which explains possible scenarios with it.

If the tag VGCookieConfig is not defined, Visual Guard Authentication restricts its scope for the website only.
Value for the property Domain restricts Visual Guard Authentication to that particular domain. Hence, all web application coming under that domain will be authenticated.
Value for the property DomainScope defines the scope of Visual Guard Authentication.

Website: Restricts authentication only for current web application.
WebSSO: Restricts authentication for all web applications which comes under defined domain. Signing out from one application results sign out from all web applications.
All: Restricts authentication for all web applications which comes under defined domain. But here signing out from one application would not affect other applications.

If the value of property AutoRedirect is true and the user is not authenticate VG redirects the user to AuthenticationUrl.
Value of the property AuthenticationUrl gets or sets the url for authentication.

Configuring Membership

Visual Guard is fully compatible with Membership API and allows you to use the Web Site administration tools and Login ASP.Net controls (Login, LoginView, PasswordRecovery, CreateUserWizard ...). To use Membership features, you must declare VGMemberShipProvider and VGRoleProvider in your web.config file.

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<configuration>
  <system.web>
    ...
    <roleManager defaultProvider="VGRoleProvider" enabled="true">
      <providers>
        <add name="VGRoleProvider" type="Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm.VGRoleProvider,
            Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm"/>
      </providers>                
    </roleManager>

    <membership defaultProvider="VGMemberShipProvider">
      <providers>
        <add name="VGMemberShipProvider" type="Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm.VGMemberShipProvider,
            Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.WebForm"/>
      </providers>
    </membership>
    ...
  </system.web>
</configuration>

Integrating Visual Guard in your code

The main class in Visual Guard is Novalys.VisualGuard.SecurityVGSecurityManager. This class provides the main access point for interacting with Visual Guard. It provides authentication and authorization features, it allows you to set the security of your application objects.

You have 3 types of code to integrate Visual Guard in your code:

When you want to use the Form Authentication mode, you must create authentication form that will be used to identify the users.
When you want to secure a WebService, a custom class or custom control, you must call Visual Guard to set the security of this object (Form and Master class are automatically secured by Visual Guard).
When you want to check if a user has a specific permission or a specific role, you can use VGSecurityManagerPrincipal or use the property HttpContext.User HttpContext.User.

To create a Login page

If you use Form Authentication mode, Visual Guard is fully compatible with Login ASP.Net controls (Login, LoginView, PasswordRecovery, CreateUserWizard ...).

If you want to use them, you must configure your web.config file as described in the previous chapter. You can also use your own controls or develop a custom form page.

The following example demonstrates how to authenticate a user. This code can be inserted in the click event of the OK button in a login form:

[C#]

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    Page.Validate();
    if (!Page.IsValid)
    {
        return;
    }

    VGAuthenticationState state = VGSecurityManager.Authenticate(usernameTextBox.Text, passwordTextBox.Text, VGAuthenticationMode.VisualGuard);

    // Check if the authentication is failed. 
    if (state.IsFailed)
    {
        FormsAuthentication.SignOut();
        // The username/password is invalid 
        if (state.IsCredentialInvalid)
        {
            if (state.IsLastBadLogin)
            {
                // According to the password policy, the next bad login will lock the {account}
                errorLabel.Text = "Invalid user or password. The next bad login will lock your account.";
            }
            else
            {
                errorLabel.Text = "Invalid user or password";
            }
        }
        else if (state.IsUserNotAuthorized)
        {
            // The credentials are valid but the user does not have any role granted for the application 
            errorLabel.Text = "You are not authorized to log on to this application";
        }
        else if (state.IsUserAccountExpired)
        {
            // The account of the user has expired
            errorLabel.Text = "Your account is no more valid. Contact your administrator";
        }
        else if (state.IsUserAccountNotYetAvailable)
        {
            // The account of the user is not yet available 
            errorLabel.Text = "Your account is not yet available.";
        }
        else if (state.IsUserAccountLockedOut)
        {
            // The account of the user is locked out and must be unlocked by using the Visual { Guard console.}
            errorLabel.Text = "Your account is locked. Contact your administrator.";
        }
        else if (state.MustChangePasswordAtNextLogon)
        {
            // The user must change the password 
            RedirectToChangePasswordPage();
        }
        errorLabel.Visible = true;
    }
    else
    {
        if (!state.IsPasswordSecure)
        {
            // According to the password policy, the password is enough secure
            FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(usernameTextBox.Text,remenberCheckBox.Checked); RedirectToChangePasswordPage();
        }
        else
        {
            FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(usernameTextBox.Text,remenberCheckBox.Checked);
        }
    }
}

[Visual Basic]

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 Private Sub SurroundingSub()
    Page.Validate()

    If Not Page.IsValid Then
        Return
    End If

    Dim state As VGAuthenticationState = VGSecurityManager.Authenticate(usernameTextBox.Text, passwordTextBox.Text, VGAuthenticationMode.VisualGuard)

    If state.IsFailed Then
        FormsAuthentication.SignOut()

        If state.IsCredentialInvalid Then

            If state.IsLastBadLogin Then
                errorLabel.Text = "Invalid user or password. The next bad login will lock your account."
            Else
                errorLabel.Text = "Invalid user or password"
            End If
        ElseIf state.IsUserNotAuthorized Then
            errorLabel.Text = "You are not authorized to log on to this application"
        ElseIf state.IsUserAccountExpired Then
            errorLabel.Text = "Your account is no more valid. Contact your administrator"
        ElseIf state.IsUserAccountNotYetAvailable Then
            errorLabel.Text = "Your account is not yet available."
        ElseIf state.IsUserAccountLockedOut Then

            If True Then
                Dim console As Guard
            End If

            errorLabel.Text = "Your account is locked. Contact your administrator."
        ElseIf state.MustChangePasswordAtNextLogon Then
            RedirectToChangePasswordPage()
        End If

        errorLabel.Visible = True
    Else

        If Not state.IsPasswordSecure Then
            FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(usernameTextBox.Text, remenberCheckBox.Checked)
            RedirectToChangePasswordPage()
        Else
            FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(usernameTextBox.Text, remenberCheckBox.Checked)
        End If
    End If
End Sub

To secure your application objects

If you want to understand how Visual Guard sets the security of your application objects, see How Visual Guard secures an application.

How to filter granted roles

If a user has more than one role, by default Visual Guard creates a permission set that will be a union of all permission sets. If you want to select only one role or filter roles granted to the user, you can handle the event VGHttpModule.PermissionLoading This event allows you to select roles granted to the user. To handle this event you must declare <VGHTTPModuleName>_ PermissionLoading in the global.asax script (where <VGHTTPModuleName> is the name of the Visual Guard module declared in the web.config files, by default "VGModule").

The following example demonstrates how to select the role Administrator if this role is granted:

[Visual Basic]

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[Visual Basic]
  Sub VGModule_PermissionLoading(ByVal sender As
              Object, ByVal e As
                      VGPermissionsLoadingEventArgs) If e.Roles.Length > 1
                              Then
        Dim selectedRoles(1) As Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.VGGrantedRole
        For Each role As Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.VGGrantedRole
                In e.Roles
                If role.Name = "Administrator" Then
                    selectedRoles(0) = role
                    Exit For
                Else If
                     role.Name = "Member" Then
                     selectedRoles(0) = role
                     Exit For
                End If
        End
                If Next If
                        selectedRoles(0)
                        Is
        Nothing Then e.Status = Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.VGAuthorizationStatus.ProcessCanceled
                Else
                  e.Roles= selectedRoles
                End If
        End If
  End Sub

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void VGModule_PermissionLoading(object sender, VGPermissionsLoadingEventArgs args)
{
  if (e.Roles.Length > 1)
  {
    Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.VGGrantedRole[] selectedRoles = new Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.VGGrantedRole[1];
    foreach (Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.VGGrantedRole role in e.Roles)
    {
      if (role.Name == "Administrator")
      {
        selectedRoles[0] = role;
        break;
      }
      else if (role.Name == "Member")
      {
        selectedRoles[0] = role;
        break;
      }
    }
    if (selectedRoles[0] == null)
    {
      e.Status = Novalys.VisualGuard.Security.VGAuthorizationStatus.ProcessCanceled;
    }
    else
    {
      e.Roles = selectedRoles;
    }
  }
}

Creating a repository and declaring the application

Once Visual Guard is integrated in your application, you can create the repository containing the information about the security of your application (users, roles, permissions ...). You must launch the Visual Guard console, right-click the root node in the treeview then select the option "Add repository".

After creating the repository, you must declare your application in the repository. Right-click the node corresponding to your repository then select the option "Connect ...". After the connection, right-click on the repository node then select the option "Add application". At the end of the wizard, the console will generate 2 configuration files in the "bin" directory of your application.

Note
If you want to test the connection to this repository from your application, you will need to create a role for your application in the Visual Guard console and grant this role to a user. A user defined in the repository can access your application only when a role of the application is granted to this user.

Granting Read/Write permission to the Repository

Visual Guard needs to have Read/Write permissions to access the repository. For example, for a file based repository you must grant "Modify" permission to the directory containing the repository for ASP.NET user accounts. For a repository stored in a database, the user used to access the Visual Guard repository database must be a member of "vg_BasicAccess" role.

In most cases, you must grant this permission to "MACHINE\ASPNET" user account. If you use IIS 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 the user account is "NT Authority\Network Service". If you use impersonation, you must grant permission to "MACHINE\IUSR_<MACHINE>" for Form authentication mode and "Domain\UserName" for Windows integrated authentication mode.

To change permission to a directory, you must:

Open the Explorer.
Right click the directory containing the repository data then select the menu "Properties".
In the "Security" tab, click on the "Add" button and select the user for which you want to grant the permission (i.e. MACHINE\ASPNET) then click ok.
In the list of permissions, click the option "Modify" then click on the "OK" button.

Other Resources

Debugging Visual Guard Security Actions

How to apply security in your application

How Visual Guard secures an application

How to generate or edit the Visual Guard configuration files

How to integrate Visual Guard in WinForm applications

How to integrate Visual Guard in WPF applications

How to integrate Visual Guard in WCF applications

How to integrate Visual Guard in WCF/Silverlight services