It seems there are two separate mechanisms for defining applications scopes in AAD: appRoles via manifest update and oauth2Permissions via App Registrations, Exposed API tab. The first one is the only one allowing an application scope (allowedMemberType: Application) - the API permissions tab in App Registrations seems only to allow delegated user permissions. Am I interpreting this correctly? It seems rather confusing.
appRoles via manifest
We can define both User role and Application role via manifest. We can see application roles under application permissions. And application permission is used by client credential flow.
We can not find the user roles under delegated user permissions since these roles are not used here. The roles is assigned to specific user under enterprise app tab, the developer need to grant different logic code for different roles.
oauth2Permissions via App Registrations
We can only add delegated permission here. And this permission applies to all the users, not specific user. When users sign in, they will be asked to consent to the permissions.
Related
My Vue application uses Azure AD to authenticate users with msal library. Now only users with specific roles should have the possibility to log in. I saw an approach that needs to execute a request to Microsoft Graph API with directory.read.all permission to get logged in user's role and then determine if this user can proceed or not.
Is it possible to specify users' roles allowed to log in somewhere in AD and disallow other users to log in?
The way we solved this problem is by creating app specific roles (App Roles) and assign users to one or more of those roles.
Now when a user logs in, the app roles assigned to the user are available in the role claims. If we find that the user does not have any app roles assigned to them, we stop them from accessing the application.
Are Azure's RBAC tools and capabilities appropriate for delineating and enforcing app-specific user permissions?
What I've been seeing is that Azure's RBAC capabilities seem to involve managing Azure resources: BLOB services, storage accounts, app services, etc.
But what I don't see are examples of Azure RBAC being used to manage app- (or domain-) specific permissions, like "Allow the user to approve purchasing this widget" or "Allow user to categorize these items as Foo, Bar, or Baz", or "Allow the user to view financial data only from these company divisions".
Am I fundamentally misunderstanding how Azure RBAC works, or what it's used to manage? Can anyone point out examples of Azure role definitions that include permissions like the ones above, or point to documentation of how I might set those up?
I believe you are looking for application specific permissions which can be achieved, by configuring API permissions in apps, registered in AD. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.
So the difference between API Permissions and Role Assignments is as below:
API Permissions: 2 types.
Delegated permissions are appropriate for client apps that access a web API as the signed-in user, and whose access should be restricted to the permissions you select in the next step.
Delegated permissions are used when authentication is done under user's context and are returned in scope claim of the token.
Application permissions are for service or daemon-type applications that need to access a web API as themselves, without user interaction for sign-in or consent. Unless you've defined application roles for your web API, this option is disabled.
App permissions are used when authentication is done under application (service principal) context and are returned in roles claim. For example, if you have a web application, you can configure it to allow access to the user, if the scope claim contains read, otherwise deny access. Or grant write access to application only when roles claim contains write.
You should configure API Permissions when you would like to return the permissions in the Access token. When application consumes the token, it makes authorization decision on the basis of permissions present in the token.
Role Assignments:
RBAC is the authorization system you use to manage access to Azure resources. When using RBAC, an administrator grants permissions to roles, and not to individual users or groups. The administrator can then assign roles to different users and groups to control who has access to what content and functionality.
Role assignments are used to assign permission to users/service principals on Azure Resources. In this case authorization is done by Azure and not by the end application which happens in case of API permissions.
Please ref the below articles for detailed explanation with examples.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/howto-add-app-roles-in-azure-ad-apps
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/active-directory-how-applications-are-added
i was reading about AAD privilege escalation in one of the article where the author states that "if you compromise an Application Administrator account or the on-premise Sync Account you can read and modify directory settings, group memberships, user accounts, SharePoint sites and OneDrive files. This is done by assigning credentials to an existing service principal with these permissions and then impersonating these applications"
my questions are?
1.how can i find what privilege my app admin account has and how it is different from the permissions
that "application " has.
2. what does assigning credentials to a service principal means?
As mentioned in Carl's link,
The Application Administrator role allows users to create and manage all aspects of enterprise applications, application registrations, and application proxy settings. This role also grants the ability to consent to delegated permissions and application permissions, with the exception of permissions on the Microsoft Graph API.
Applications can have different privileges added to them, and a user in the Application Administrator role can add extra permissions to an application and theoretically use those credentials to impersonate the app's identity and have more privileges than originally intended.
An Azure service principal is a security identity used by user-created apps, services, and automation tools to access specific Azure resources. Just as a user is represented by a security principal called a user principal, an app is represented by a service principal. The service principal provides an identity for your app, allowing you to delegate only the necessary permissions to the app. It improves security if you only grant it the minimum permissions level needed to perform its management tasks. So if you assign credentials to a service principal you can grant or restrict the app's access to certain resources.
I need to register an application in Azure AD using PowerShell. I plan to use the New-AzADApplication cmdlet. The cmdlet documentation states the following:
Below are the permissions needed to create an application:
Azure Active Directory Graph
Application.ReadWrite.OwnedBy
Microsoft Graph
Directory.AccessAsUser.All
Directory.ReadWrite.All
I've learned that these permissions are scopes, which is a new concept to me and something I don't know how to deal with in Azure. I found this short demo, which shows these scopes can be managed as API permissions from the Azure App registration context. However, that demo shows the scopes being managed after the application has already been created. How can I establish the proper scopes before the application is created?
Or, more generally, how can I ensure that I have the appropriate permissions to execute the New-AzADApplication cmdlet?
The application that needs those permissions is Azure AD PowerShell in this case. If it didn't have a service principal in your AAD tenant yet, you would be asked for consent to those scopes on first login when using the Connect-AzureAD cmdlet.
In my experience, the service principal that it uses already exists in your tenant. So it already has the needed permissions. But what will also matter is your user permissions. Since it uses delegated permissions, it is acting on behalf of your user. In order for it to be able to create the app, it needs to have the necessary scope/delegated permission and your user must be able to create applications.
The cmdlets do also support acting as a service principal/app, in which case application permissions given to the app used to authenticate would apply, not delegated permissions. But that's another case that I don't think you are asking about.
Applications are able to note which permissions they require (both delegated and application) in the app registration portal. This allows use of the /.default scope and the Azure portal's "Grant admin consent" option.
You can follow this process:
1.Go to your application in the Azure portal – App registrations experience, or create an app if you haven't already.
2.Locate the API Permissions section, and within the API permissions
click Add a permission.
3.Select Microsoft Graph from the list of available APIs and then add
the permissions that your app requires.
4.Save the app registration.
I'm hoping someone has some insight into an issue I'm having with a newly registered app within Microsoft's Azure Portal (portal.azure.com).
My issue on login when I get the following dialog
The error code and message appears in the lower right corner;
AADSTS90094: This operation can only be performed by an administrator. Sign out and sign in as an administrator or contact one of your organization's administrators.
Configuration-wise, I believe I have this setup to not require admin consent, however there maybe something I'm missing.
My app is configured with;
Id Token, single tenant (web) application
Delegated, user consent permissions with no admin permissions
With the enterprise application, the configuration is set to;
Enabled for users to sign-in: Yes
User assignment required: Yes
Visible to users: Yes
4 users have been added with the Default Access role
Allow users to request access to this application: No (as they are assigned)
Last of all, within the azure directory itself under the Enterprise applications - User settings configuration I have set the company data user consent to Yes
When I navigate to either my application URL, or from the app within myapps.microsoft.com, both give me the above dialog requesting an admin consent.
I don't want to grant admin consent if not required, as it seems a bit like using a sledgehammer to solve the problem.
I feel like I'm either missing something big, or doing something silly - please help, and let me know if I can provide further information.
Edit 1.1:
My authentication request URL is: https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenantid>/oauth2/v2.0/authorize?client_id=<clientid>&redirect_uri=<redirecturi>&response_mode=form_post&response_type=code id_token&scope=openid email profile offline_access User.Read User.ReadBasic.All Mail.ReadWrite&state=OpenIdConnect.AuthenticationProperties=<gibberish>&nonce=<gibberish>&x-client-SKU=ID_NET461&x-client-ver=5.4.0.0
(I'm using ASP.NET MVC combined with Microsoft's OpenId Connect authentication library)
When a user consents to an application which does not require assignment (in a tenant where user consent is allowed, and for an application requesting only permissions which do not require admin consent), two things happen:
Consent grants are recorded for the app, the user and the delegated permissions being requested.
The user is assigned to the app at a "default" app role.
The second step may seem surprising, but it serves a simple role: it ensures the user sees apps they've consented to in the Azure AD Access Panel (https://myapps.microsoft.com). (The Azure AD Access Panel will show a user all apps they are assigned to.)
It would defeat the purpose of the "user assignment is required" control if users could cause themselves to be assigned by triggering user consent. So, currently, when an application is set to require user assignment, users are simply not allowed to consent to the application.
Today, you have two options:
Ask an admin to grant tenant-wide consent for the application (e.g. Enterprise apps > Permissions > Grant admin consent, or App Registrations > API Permissions > Grant admin consent).
Configure the app to not require user assignment, and update the app's code to require the user be assigned to an app role by checking the "roles" claim.