Umbraco Api - Authorization

How to secure your Umbraco Api controllers

This section will describe how to secure your Umbraco Api controllers based on a users membership

Authorizing for the backoffice

Inheriting from UmbracoAuthorizedApiController

Probably the easiest way to ensure your controller is secured for only backoffice users is to inherit from Umbraco.Cms.Web.BackOffice.Controllers.UmbracoAuthorizedApiController. This is essentially the same as applying [Authorize(Policy = AuthorizationPolicies.BackOfficeAccess)] to your controller (see below).

The UmbracoAuthorizedApiController is automatically routed. Check out the routing documentation for more information on this topic.

Using the Authorize attribute

To secure your controller based on backoffice membership use the attribute: Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authorization.Authorize, with the policy parameter set to AuthorizationPolicies.BackOfficeAccess, like so: [Authorize(Policy = AuthorizationPolicies.BackOfficeAccess)].

This attribute will ensure that a valid backoffice user is logged in. It is important to know that this only works if the controller is routed to /umbraco/backoffice/*.

Example:

The examples below uses UmbracoApiController which is removed in Umbraco 14. The replacement for this is UmbracoManagementApiControllerBase.

This will only allow a logged in backoffice user to access the GetProductaction:

public class ProductsController : UmbracoApiController
{
    [Authorize(Policy = AuthorizationPolicies.BackOfficeAccess)]
    [Route("umbraco/backoffice/product/{id?}")]
    public string GetProduct(int? id)
    {
        if (id is not null)
        {
            return $"Monitor model {id}";
        }
        return "Base model Monitor";
    }
}

The AuthorizationPolicies has a series of other options you can set. An example is UserBelongsToUserGroupInRequest. By using this policy, you can check if the current incoming request of the user is in a specific backoffice User Group.

Example:

This will only allow a logged-in backoffice user that has access to the SensitiveData User Group to access the GetProduct action:

public class ProductsController : UmbracoApiController
{
    [Authorize(Policy = AuthorizationPolicies.UserBelongsToUserGroupInRequest, Roles = Security.SensitiveDataGroupAlias)]
    [Route("umbraco/backoffice/product/{id?}")]
    public string GetProduct(int? id)
    {
        if (id is not null)
        {
            return $"Monitor model {id}";
        }
        return "Base model Monitor";
    }
}

Adding custom policies

You can add custom policies so you can set up your own requirements. You can do this by adding a new Policy to your builder:

Example:

builder.Services.AddAuthorization(options =>
    options.AddPolicy(MyConstants.CustomPolicyName, policy => // Always good to use constants
    {
        policy.AuthenticationSchemes.Add(Constants.Security.BackOfficeAuthenticationType); // Default backoffice authentication scheme
        policy.RequireRole(Constants.Security.SensitiveDataGroupAlias); // Add the Sensitive Group as a requirement

        // Add more requirements as needed
    })
);

After configuring, you can now use the Authorize attribute with the name of your policy:

[Authorize(Policy = MyConstants.CustomPolicyName)]

Using MemberAuthorizeAttribute

To secure your controller based on front-end membership use the attribute: Umbraco.Cms.Web.Common.Filters.UmbracoMemberAuthorize.

There are 3 parameters that can be supplied to control how the authorization works:

// Comma delimited list of allowed member types
string AllowType

// Comma delimited list of allowed member groups
string AllowGroup

// Comma delimited list of allowed member Ids
string AllowMembers

To allow all members, use the attribute without supplying any parameters.

You can apply these attributes at the controller level or at the action level.

Examples:

This will only allow logged in members of type "Retailers" to access the GetAllProductsaction:

public class ProductsController : UmbracoApiController
{
    [UmbracoMemberAuthorize("Retailers", "", "")]
    public IEnumerable<string> GetAllProducts()
    {
        return new[] {"Table", "Chair", "Desk", "Computer"};
    }
}

This will only allow member's belonging to the group VIP to access any actions on the controller:

[UmbracoMemberAuthorize("", "VIP", "")]
public class ProductsController : UmbracoApiController
{
    public IEnumerable<string> GetAllProducts()
    {
        return new[] {"Table", "Chair", "Desk", "Computer"};
    }
}

This will only allow member's with Ids 1, 10 and 20 to access any actions on the controller:

[UmbracoMemberAuthorize("", "", "1,10,20")]
public class ProductsController : UmbracoApiController
{
    public IEnumerable<string> GetAllProducts()
    {
        return new[] {"Table", "Chair", "Desk", "Computer"};
    }
}