Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Camlex has been moved to Github

Some time ago MS announced Codeplex shutdown in 2017. I personally liked Codeplex – all these years which it was used for hosting Camlex project I was quite satisfied with its services and functionality. But time goes on and MS made this decision which we have to live with. Regardless of Codeplex shutdown Camlex development will be continued and I’m glad to announce that it was migrated to Github. So the new project home is https://github.com/sadomovalex/camlex. Earlier when project was hosted on Codeplex there were 3 choices how to get ready for use .Net assembly:

  • download it from Codeplex
  • install it directly in VS from Nuget (Camlex.NET.dll package for basic server object model and Camlex.Client.dll for client object model)
  • get latest source code and compile project in VS

After migration to Github Nuget will be primary way of getting binaries and of course it will be still possible to get source code and compile it in VS (project will be remain open source with the same Ms-Pl license). Issues and discussions were migrated together with source code and documentation (discussions were migrated as closed issues to Github with “Discussion: ” prefix: Migrate issues and discussions from Codeplex to Github). So let’s continue Camlex journey with the new home and will add more value to it already on Github.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Migrate issues and discussions from Codeplex to Github

As you probably know Codeplex will be shut down soon. I used Codeplex many years for hosting Camlex project – open source library for creating dynamic CAML queries for Sharepoint by C# lambda expressions. Migration guide available on Codeplex says how to move source code to the Github, but unfortunately it doesn’t mention how to move issues and discussions. In this post I will share my experience of how to migrate issues and discussions from Codeplex to Github.

For migrating issues I used Codeplex-Issues-Importer Python script which worked quite well: it added issues with Codeplex label and closed those issues which were closed on Codeplex. But for discussions it was not so straightforward. First of all in Github there are no such thing as “discussion” as in Codeplex, so I decided to move them to Github issues with “Discussion: [Title]” prefix. In order to perform migration itself I made fork of Codeplex-Issues-Importer and modified it so it started to parse Codeplex discussions instead of issues and then save them into Github as issue. Fork can be found here: https://github.com/sadomovalex/Codeplex-Issues-Importer. Script is not perfect but probably will be enough just for keeping old discussions in migrated project. Result of migration can be checked here: https://github.com/sadomovalex/camlex/issues?page=2&q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Sliding session for Sharepoint 2013 with FBA and persistent cookies

Sliding session allows user to use site without being reauthenticated if last action was done less than configured session lifetime. In Sharepoint 2013 FBA the following parameters of security token service config are used for setting session lifetime:

  • CookieLifetime
  • FormsTokenLifeTime
  • LogonTokenCacheExpirationWindow

They are well described in the following article SharePoint 2013 authentication lifetime settings and I won’t repeat it here. The problem is that when you use persistent cookies (i.e. those which are stored on client’s side) only CookieLifetime are actually used (to be more precise, FormsTokenLifeTime is used for setting initial ValidTo value for session security token). In addition to that sliding sessions doesn’t work by default, i.e. regardless of whether user made actions on the site or not he will be logged out after cookies will be expired. Persistent cookies can be set e.g. if user checked “Remember Me” checkbox on the login page:

   1: private bool AuthenticateFormsUser(Uri context, string username, string pwd,
   2:     bool rememberMe)
   3: {
   4:     if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(username) || string.IsNullOrEmpty(pwd))
   5:     {
   6:         return false;
   7:     }
   8:  
   9:     try
  10:     {
  11:         var formsAuthOption = SPFormsAuthenticationOption.None;
  12:         var tokenType = SPSessionTokenWriteType.WriteSessionCookie;
  13:         if (rememberMe)
  14:         {
  15:             formsAuthOption = SPFormsAuthenticationOption.PersistentSignInRequest;
  16:             tokenType = SPSessionTokenWriteType.WritePersistentCookie;
  17:         }
  18:  
  19:         var authProvider = GetAuthProvider(SPContext.Current.Site);
  20:         var securityToken = SPSecurityContext.SecurityTokenForFormsAuthentication(
  21:             context,
  22:             authProvider.MembershipProvider,
  23:             authProvider.RoleProvider,
  24:             username,
  25:             pwd,
  26:             formsAuthOption);
  27:  
  28:         var fam = SPFederationAuthenticationModule.Current;
  29:         fam.SetPrincipalAndWriteSessionToken(securityToken, tokenType);
  30:         return true;
  31:     }
  32:     catch (Exception)
  33:     {
  34:         return false;
  35:     }
  36: }

Here on lines 12-16 code checks whether rememberMe parameter is true and if yes uses persistent cookies.

So is it possible to have sliding expiration sessions when persistent cookies are used? The answer is yes, but in order to do that we will need custom HTTP module which will renew token on each request:

   1: public class SlidingSessionModule : IHttpModule
   2: {
   3:     public void Init(HttpApplication context)
   4:     {
   5:         FederatedAuthentication.SessionAuthenticationModule.SessionSecurityTokenReceived +=
   6:             SessionAuthenticationModule_SessionSecurityTokenReceived;
   7:     }
   8:  
   9:     private void SessionAuthenticationModule_SessionSecurityTokenReceived(object sender,
  10:         SessionSecurityTokenReceivedEventArgs e)
  11:     {
  12:         try
  13:         {
  14:             if (e == null)
  15:             {
  16:                 return;
  17:             }
  18:             var sessionToken = e.SessionToken;
  19:             if (sessionToken == null)
  20:             {
  21:                 return;
  22:             }
  23:             if (claimsPrincipal == null)
  24:             {
  25:                 return;
  26:             }
  27:  
  28:             TimeSpan cookieLifetime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0);
  29:             SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(
  30:                 () =>
  31:                     {
  32:                         cookieLifetime = Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.
  33:                             SPSecurityTokenServiceManager.Local.CookieLifetime;
  34:                     });
  35:  
  36:             DateTime utcNow = DateTime.UtcNow;
  37:             DateTime validFrom = utcNow;
  38:             DateTime validTo = utcNow + cookieLifetime;
  39:             var sam = FederatedAuthentication.SessionAuthenticationModule;
  40:             e.SessionToken = sam.CreateSessionSecurityToken(claimsPrincipal,
  41:                 sessionToken.Context, validFrom, validTo, sessionToken.IsPersistent);
  42:             e.ReissueCookie = true;
  43:         }
  44:         catch (Exception x)
  45:         {
  46:             // log
  47:         }
  48:     }
  49:  
  50:     public void Dispose()
  51:     {
  52:     }
  53: }

In the module we subscribe on SessionAuthenticationModule.SessionSecurityTokenReceived event (lines 5-6) and in event handler we renew token with extended ValidFrom and ValidTo properties (lines 36-42) which are set from CookieLifetime property of security token service config (lines 29-34) so you may continue configure it from PowerShell.

Then we need to install this module by adding dll to the GAC and the following line to the web.config <modules> section:

   1: <modules>
   2:   ..
   3:   <add name="SlidingSessionModule"
   4:     type="SlidingSessionModule.SlidingSessionModule, SlidingSessionModule, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=..." />
   5: </modules>

After that you will have sliding sessions with persistent cookies for Sharepoint FBA.