Auth0 in Sitecore

Today almost every website requires some form of authentication to access its content and features. With the number of web portals and services rising exponentially nowadays, a Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication is now required more than ever.

The Auth0 in Sitecore module implements an identity provider allowing to authenticate visitors of a Sitecore website through Auth0 identity management platform. The proposed solution is compatible with Sitecore versions 9 and 10, the current release is referenced to Sitecore version 10.3.

SPA test app

The “SPA test app” is a Single Page JavaScript Application for testing purposes, it is based on this code sample from Auth0’s GitHub repository.

How to configure a test SPA app locally

1. Ensure that both domain and clientId are specified correctly in auth_config.json config file, use the auth_config.example.jsonprovided by this repo as a template

{
  "domain": "{YOUR_AUTH0_DOMAIN}",
  "clientId": "{YOUR_AUTH0_CLIENTID}"
}

2. Install supporting packages from the Windows command line (CMD) by running npm install command in the application folder
3. Run the application by npm run dev command from CMD
4. View the app via http://localhost:3002; if required a port can be set to any with minimal changes in \bin\www, Dockerfile, exec.ps1 and exec.sh files

Sitecore

Sitecore federated authentication allows users to log in to a Sitecore-based website through an external provider such as Auth0.

Auth0InSitecore solution performs the integration between a Sitecore website and Auth0 using Auth0 Universal Login, and consists of two projects:

1. Foundation -> Auth0InSitecore project implements a custom Identity Provider to support the Sitecore federated authentication with Auth0 and provides some examples of the required config files;
2. Feature -> MyAccount project demonstrates the execution of a typical authentication feature in Sitecore and gives some examples of My Account components built as Controller Renderings.

Auth0 Identity Provider for Sitecore

Sitecore federated authentication expects an Identity Provider to be configured in a specific way to use Owin middleware to delegate authentication to third-party providers and then get claims back from a third-party provider.

This module comes with a ..\src\Sitecore\Foundation\Auth0InSitecore\Pipelines\IdentityProviders\Auth0IdentityProviderProcessor.cs class that implements a custom Identity Provider Processor to let visitors of a Sitecore website authenticate through Auth0. Its ProcessCore() method establishes an OpenId connection to Auth0 and executes the external authentication via Auth0 identity management.

Configuration

The module ships the following config files defined in ..\src\Sitecore\Foundation\Auth0InSitecore\App_Config\Include\Foundation\Auth0InSitecore folder:

• Foundation.Auth0InSitecore.config
  • Declares an Auth0 Identity Provider Processor and integrates it with the owin.identityProviders pipeline;
  • Assigns Auth0 Identity Provider to relevant sites that will be using it;
  • Defines some claim transformation rules;
  • Maps properties, claims and roles in line with Auth0 specific profile attributes and user roles, for example, a “name” property from Auth0 profile will be mapped to a FullName attribute in Sitecore User Profile;
• Foundation.Identity.config declares settings of an Auth0 tenant for an OpenId connection; remember to update each setting as per your Auth0 application setup, see Step 4 of the installation guide detailed further down the page;
• Sitecore.Owin.Authentication.Enabler.config enables the federated authentication in Sitecore; note, that the Sitecore federated authentication is expected to be enabled by default;

Components

Login

..\src\Sitecore\Feature\MyAccount\Controllers\LoginController.cs controller and ..\src\Sitecore\Feature\MyAccount\Views\Feature\MyAccount\Login.cshtml view implement the login functionality. Typically a login button is expected to stand out in a page layout, therefore, the Login component can be easily placed in the page header or footer.

Sitecore Packages

Sitecore packages contain:

1. Renderings
   • My Account -> Login Controller Rendering

How to install

1. Sign up for an Auth0 account;
2. Log in to the Auth0 Dashboard and get your Auth0 tenant ready for SSO integration:
   • Create a new Auth0 application under the Applications section, then fill the application properties in and specify your Sitecore URIs to be used for login, callback and logout functionality via Auth0;
   • Enable the Universal Login Experience under the User Management -> Branding -> Universal Login section; note, that this is a global setting shared across all your Auth0 applications configured with the same instance;
3. Add the Auth0InSitecore project to your Visual Studio solution to your Sitecore Foundation layer;
4. Copy the config files shipped with this module from the ..\src\Sitecore\Foundation\Auth0InSitecore\App_Config\Include\Foundation\Auth0InSitecore\ folder to an ..\App_Config\Include\ folder corresponding to your Sitecore website and ensure that all configuration settings are specified correctly:
   • Refer to your Auth0 application Domain, Client ID, Client Secret, Application Login URI, Allowed Callback/Logout URLs properties under the Settings tab and the Auth0 API prefix for the audience param expected by the Auth0 authorisation request to set the right values for config settings declared in Foundation.Identity.config;
   • Map properties, claims and roles in line with your specific profile attributes and user roles between Auth0 Users and Sitecore User Profiles in Foundation.Auth0InSitecore.config;
5. Implement your project specific Login, Logout and other My Account related components, see some examples in the attached Renderings Sitecore package; for instance, call Sitecore.Context.User.IsAuthenticated method to check whether a user is authenticated or not and Sitecore.Context.User.Profile.FullName to get a value of a Name property;
6. Add your Login/Logout components to pages that are in the authentication scope, for ease you can place them in the Page Layout;
7. All is ready and now you can try to authenticate in your Sitecore website with Auth0 accounts. Enjoy!

Contribution

Hope you found this module useful, your contributions and suggestions will be very much appreciated. Please submit a pull request.

License

The Auth0 in Sitecore module is released under the MIT license, this means that you can modify and use it how you want even for commercial use. Please give it a star if you like it and your experience was positive.