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I used visual studio 2015 created a simple web api project on my office PC which Windows logged in company Domain(AD). I changed web.config file for integration authentication - <system.web><authentication mode="Windows" />. The url http://localhost:23151/api/Model1 returns a valid xml data from database.

I changed Anonymous Authentication to Disabled and Windows Authentication to Enabled in the project property for IIS Express (Development Server) settings.

I set a break point in public IQuerybal<Model1> GetModel1() and check the value of User.Identity.Name and it returns null?

Updates: What's strange is I created a new project on another PC (still in Visual studio 2015) and I can got my Windows login from property User.Identity.Name.

Update 2: I tried to copy the project files to the new PC and it still got the same issue. So it should be some settings in the project. Very strange.

ca9163d9
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2 Answers2

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There's not a lot to work with in your question, but my best guess is that you've neglected to authorize the controller action. You need to add the [Authorize] attribute either to the actual controller class (to protect all actions within) or to the individual action you're working with here.

If you need to allow anonymous access to the same action(s), you can also add the [AllowAnonymous] attribute, but if you don't at least have [Authorize], then none of the user information is populated.

Chris Pratt
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  • The xml file returned by the url is ` Authorization has been denied for this request. ` after add authentication. The `Name` is still null when debugger stepping in the statements in the control methods (`Dispose`). – ca9163d9 Sep 02 '15 at 20:21
  • Tried to add both `[Authorize] [AllowAnonymous]` before the action and still got null for the `Name`. – ca9163d9 Sep 02 '15 at 20:25
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    Then, you're not actually being "logged in". If you're running in IIS, check that Windows Auth is actually enabled. – Chris Pratt Sep 02 '15 at 20:26
  • I'm debugging in Visual Studio 2015, which launches IIS Express automatically. I think I found the solution here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4762538/iis-express-windows-authentication – ca9163d9 Sep 02 '15 at 20:27
  • IIS Express has no settings. It's all controlled by the project in Visual Studio. Click on your project in the Solution Explorer and inpect the "Properties" pane. Make sure Windows auth is enabled there. – Chris Pratt Sep 02 '15 at 20:30
  • Hmmm. I changed `Anonymous Authentication` to Disabled and `Windows Authentication` to Enabled but still got null. – ca9163d9 Sep 02 '15 at 20:36
  • I did the changes mentioned in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19515890/authentication-issue-when-debugging-in-vs2013-iis-express but still not working.... – ca9163d9 Sep 02 '15 at 20:47
  • @ca9163d9 hello, im currently searching for a solution for this problem. do you have any solutions or suggestions? – Eren Temelli Mar 11 '22 at 14:15
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I also had the issue that User.Identity.Name is null, my environment was AspNetCore MVC. It turned out that on some configuration change, Visual Studio changed my web.config and modified forwardWindowsAuthToken to "false". It needed to be true to populate User.Identity.Name:

<aspNetCore processPath="%LAUNCHER_PATH%" arguments="%LAUNCHER_ARGS%" stdoutLogEnabled="false" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" forwardWindowsAuthToken="true" />
Froggy
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