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I have a Postman request sent by a partner/client that requires Oauth2 to hit their web service endpoint. Here is the authorization section:

enter image description here

I need to re-create this request in C#. Should be easy, just click on Code link, and grab the sample code in C# - RestSharp. Two problems:

1- When I execute this in Postman, I get The SAML2 token is not valid because its validity period has ended. So then I click the Get New Access Token button, and I get challenged for credentials:

enter image description here

(With the Client ID and Client Secret, shouldn't I be able to bypass this challenge?)

2- Ultimately I need to be able to run this request in my c# app. When I click the Code link in Postman it gives a nice C# example, but the problem with the sample code generated by Postman is that it assumes the bearer token has already been obtained, and just plops that into the source sample. But the obtaining of the bearer token is a very important piece that Postman omits. Here is my specific example, copied from Postman:

var client = new RestClient("https://myurl-here:7148/foo/ODataV4/WS3_stuff?Company='abc123'");
client.Timeout = -1;
var request = new RestRequest(Method.POST);
request.AddHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
request.AddHeader("Authorization", "Bearer ey...massive-string...Zb");
request.AddHeader("Cookie", "ApplicationGatewayAffinity=ab721.more.d6c1a341bc; ApplicationGatewayAffinityCORS=ab..more...bc");
request.AddParameter("application/json", "{a-bunch-of-json-here}",  ParameterType.RequestBody);
IRestResponse response = client.Execute(request);
Console.WriteLine(response.Content);

What are the pieces I'm missing? How can I get the C# equivalent of whatever Postman is doing to obtain the bearer and those Cookie values? And I thought there's a way for applications to achieve all the Oauth handshaking without sending the user to that MS window as in screenshot above - but how is it done?

halfer
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HerrimanCoder
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  • Delete cookies and then recapture with Postman to find out how the cookies are obtained. – jdweng Mar 24 '21 at 21:21
  • That did nothing. I deleted the cookies in postman windows app and re-ran request. Identical results as before. – HerrimanCoder Mar 24 '21 at 22:11
  • On first window in bottom left there is a button to "Add authorization data". That may be the key. – jdweng Mar 25 '21 at 00:00
  • You may want to check this post, the accepted answer should give you what you are looking for to obtain the bearer token in C#: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38494279/how-do-i-get-an-oauth-2-0-authentication-token-in-c-sharp – John Mar 25 '21 at 02:41

1 Answers1

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ClientID and ClientSecret are there to identify your application not the user. They are sent to the Authorization Server so that the server knows that it can issue access tokens to this application. User authentication is another thing. You will always have to authenticate the user in order to get an access token which allows to access that user's data.

Unless you only need to authenticate your application and want to access data which does not belong to any user. In that case you need a client credentials flow, an OAuth flow which allows your application to get an access token.

Postman is a tool for making calls to APIs, it just generates the code which enables you to make the API call. Have a look at some C# OAuth clients (or maybe something for your framework, if you're using one). Those clients will enable you to easily generate new access tokens. Still, if you need a user's access token remember that you will need your users to open a browser. If you're developing a backend app, which does not serve any pages then you can have a look at the OAuth device flow, which enables you to authenticate users on a different device than your app runs.

As for the cookies - make sure whether you really need them. If you're calling an API chances are that those cookies are not required to make the request.

Michal Trojanowski
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