Active Directory Authentication using Client Certificate in ASP.NET MVC

Question

I am working on one project where we have to deploy two different application on server, one is Cognos website and other is .NET website.

Now, when request come to web server (IIS) it should asked for Client Certificate Selection, once you choose the client certificate it should go back and check where it is attached with any Active Directory Users or not.

basically i wanted to implement authentication using Active Directory and Client certificate using .NET.

Appreciate for any suggestion/direction.

Answer 1

This should work out of the box with no code.

First, turn off anonymous access and basic authentication for the website and turn on integrated windows authentication and certificate integration.

Then, in your asp.net application, set the auth mode to windows.

Then, turn on SSL for the website and check the option "require client certificate".

http://technet.microsoft.com/pl-pl/library/cc753983%28v=ws.10%29.aspx

From now on, when the browser supports certificate integrated authentication and the client machine has the certificate either in the user store (IE) or in the browser store (other browsers), the browser will automatically ask the user to pick up the certificate.

My advice is to start with integrated windows authentication over SSL but without certificates (do not check "Require client certificates"). Test with IE and configure the IIS until your users are automatically authenticated without any prompt for credentials.

This is the most troublesome part. If you have it working, you just turn on the requirement of client certificates.