Umbraco Api - Authorization

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.Web.WebApi.UmbracoAuthorizedApiController. This is essentially the same as applying the UmbracoAuthorizeAttribute to your controller (see below). We also expose the Umbraco user property User UmbracoUser {get;} on this base controller as well.

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

Using UmbracoAuthorizeAttribute

To secure your controller based on backoffice membership use the attribute: Umbraco.Web.WebApi.UmbracoAuthorizeAttribute.

It's important to note the namespace since we have another class called UmbracoAuthorizeAttribute in a different namespace that is used for MVC.

This attribute has no parameters it ensures that a valid backoffice user is logged in.

Examples:

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

public class ProductsApiController : UmbracoApiController
{
    [Umbraco.Web.WebApi.UmbracoAuthorize]
    public IEnumerable<string> GetAllProducts()
    {
        return new[] { "Table", "Chair", "Desk", "Computer" };
    }
}

Using MemberAuthorizeAttribute

To secure your controller based on front-end membership use the attribute: Umbraco.Web.WebApi.MemberAuthorizeAttribute.

It's important to note the namespace since we have another class called MemberAuthorizeAttribute in a different namespace that is used for MVC.

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, you can use the [AllowAnonymous] attribute.

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 GetAllProducts action:

public class ProductsApiController : UmbracoApiController
{
    [Umbraco.Web.WebApi.MemberAuthorize(AllowType = "Retailers")]
    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:

[Umbraco.Web.WebApi.MemberAuthorize(AllowMembers = "1,10,20")]
public class ProductsApiController : UmbracoApiController
{
    public IEnumerable<string> GetAllProducts()
    {
        return new[] { "Table", "Chair", "Desk", "Computer"};
    }
}