Vault Generate Key Application Authentication

Jan 02, 2019  Introduction. This is a code walkthrough to show you how to create a.Net console application to authenticate to Azure Active Directory using OAuth2 Client Credentials flow to get an access token to Azure Key Vault. It then uses the access token to call Azure Key Vault to get a secret. Apr 17, 2017  There are two ways to authenticate a web application in KeyVault. You can store a simple client identifier and client secret in the app settings. This is a rather bad approach as it once again gives access to the KeyVault values. A better is approach is to authenticate the web application using a.

  1. Azure Key Vault Authentication
  2. Generate Key Code
  3. Azure Key Vault Aad Authentication
  4. Vault Generate Key Application Authentication Code

Please check here for scripts using the latest PowerShell cmdlets and check out the new Visual Studio Connected Service feature.

Azure Key Vault provides an easy way for managing cryptographic keys and secrets (like connection strings or passwords) in a secure and distributed manner as opposed to having them in the configuration file or a database. If you are new to Azure Key Vault check out the Getting Started with Azure Key Vault on how to setup the vault and add keys and use that from a console application.

In this post we will explore into the ways of authenticating a client application with a key vault. For an application to use the key vault it must authenticate using a token from the Azure Active Directory (AD). For this an application needs to be registered in the Azure AD and this application needs to be authorized to access key or secret in the vault using the Set-AzureKeyVaultAccessPolicy that comes as part of the key vault powershell scripts.

As of today, the keyvault will be created in the Default AD associated to the azure subscription and there is no way that it can be created in a different directory. But maybe this will be supported in future.

So for a client to access the key vault, it needs to obtain the token from the Azure AD application, which can be done using 2 ways:

  • Using ClientId and secret
  • Using ClientId and certificate

Using ClientId and Secret

Creating an application that can be authenticated using clientid and secret can be done using the management portal. In the azure management portal, we need to create to the application under the default AD. To find the default AD you can check under the settings in the portal

To add an application in the default, under Active Directory select the default AD and the applications tab and select ‘Add an application’.

From the pop-up select ‘Add an application my organization is developing’ and give a name of your choice and of type ‘Web Application AND/OR WEB API’. In the App properties window it asks for the ‘Sign-On Url’ and ‘App ID Uri’, for which you can give two unique values and is not mandatory that it should exists. On confirming these values the AD application would be created and you would be presented with the application properties. Under the ‘Configure’ tab, you can see the Client ID and below that there is an option to create the ‘keys’ which will be the secret.

In the drop-down under the keys select the duration and choose a duration of your choice and save. On saving the secret will be generated. Copy this secret and keep for reference to use in the client application.

Now that we have created the application and have the clientid and the secret we need to authorize the application to access the key vault. For this we use the Set-AzureKeyVaultAccessPolicy from the powershell and provide the client id of the application that we have just created. The PermissionToKeys parameter determines the permission that the application would have on the keys in the vault which can take multiple comma separated values (all, backup, create, decrypt, delete, encrypt, import, get, list, restore, sign, wrapkey, unwrapkey, update and verify). Similarly for access to secrets in the keyvault you need to set PermissionToSecrets which can all take multiple values (all, delete, get, list and set).

Now using the clientid and the secret we can authenticate from the client application using it as below

Using ClientId and Certificate

Creating an application that can be authenticated using the clientid and the certificate is only possible using powershell scripts, and these are again available with the key vault powershell scripts. For this we first need to create a certificate or if your organization already has provided one use that. Since this is for demo I would be creating a test certificate as explained here.

Once we have the certificate, we can create a new AD application and specify certificate authentication for the application as shown below. Make sure that you give the full path to the certificate as below (mine was located under C:cert)

Once the application is created, we need to perform the same authorization steps as above to give the application access to the key vault, after which we can use the clientid (that would be output to the powershell console) and the certificate to authenticate the application. Make sure that the certificate is installed into the store so that it can be used by the application.

You could use either ways to authenticate an application to Azure Key Vault. Using the certificate way would be more secure as you can also password protect your certificate so that it cannot be installed without having that. If using the client secret anybody having access to the configuration would be able to access the vault. Also make sure that you give the application’s only necessary permissions for accessing keys and secrets while registering the application. You could use the sample used in the Getting Started with Azure Key Vaultsample. The code in there uses clientId and secret, you could change it with the above code to use certificate authentication.

Key Vault supports Managed Service Identity which makes authenticating with it even more easier if your application is deployed in Azure. You no longer have to add any configuration related to key vault to the applications config file.

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This article has been written to help find where the keys/secrets are in the Azure portal depending on how you have set up your application. It will also provide some help in regards to extending/changing the Client Secret for an Enterprise Application in a Multi-Tenanted Scenario.

In order to access the keys for an AAD application registration, you can follow the steps highlighted below. You will essentially go to the AAD Registration Blade > App Registrations > (You’re App Name) > Settings > Keys. You will have to save the key with the name and expiration date before being able to copy and paste the key. In addition to that, you will not see the value in the Application Manifest as it’s now hidden and will be considered : Null.

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This part of the article will define how to get the keys/secrets from the app service application. This will include creating the application from scratch. You will go to the app services blade : App Services > Add > Web App > Create.

After creating the web app, I’m going to go ahead and enable the web app to have authentication/authorization to create an AAD Application registration.

After enabling the Authentication/Authorization, I turn the management mode to express and then create a new AD Application and then press okay.

This will bring you back to the App Service Authentication/Authorization page. From there you will want to press the save button and then close out of the blade all the way back to the App Services blade in order to see the application registration in the AAD App registration.

After backing out of the App Service blades and going back to the blade with all App Services, you will be able to access the App Registration once you click on the Highlighted AAD button again.

When you access the AAD Authentication/Authorization setting again, you will see a new blade and you will be able to click on the button Manage Application now.

Azure Key Vault Authentication

From here, this will open the AAD Application Registration and you can follow the same flow as the Custom AAD Application Keys/Secrets flow documented in the first section of this article.

Please go to this blog post for more information on Enterprise Applications:

Generate Key Code

Azure Key Vault Aad Authentication

Here in this article we have gone over three separate ways to find the permission/keys for your AAD registrations in both the Application Registration and the Enterprise Application. Please note that the Enterprise Application is actually a service principal for the Application Registration. More on this can be found here:https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/active-directory-application-objects

Vault Generate Key Application Authentication Code

The Service Principal described in the documentation is termed the Enterprise Application in the Azure Active Directory Portal. The managed application under the AAD App Registration also refers to the service principal. This link in the picture below highlighted will bring you to the Service Principal (Enterprise Application) of the Application Registration.

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