Is there any JSON Web Token (JWT) example in C#?

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Usually there's always a million library and samples floating around the web for any given task. I'm trying to implement authentication with a Google "Service Account" by use of JSON Web Tokens (JWT) as described here.

However there is only client libraries in PHP, Python, and Java. Even searching for JWT examples outside of Google's authentication, there is only crickets and drafts on the JWT concept. Is this really so new and possibly a Google proprietary system?

The java sample which is the closest I could manage to interpret looks pretty intensive and intimidating. There's got to be something out there in C# that I could at least start with. Any help with this would be great!

Thanks everyone. I found a base implementation of a Json Web Token and expanded on it with the Google flavor. I still haven't gotten it completely worked out but it's 97% there. This project lost it's steam, so hopefully this will help someone else get a good head-start:

Note: Changes I made to the base implementation (Can't remember where I found it,) are:

> 1. Changed HS256 -> RS256 > 2. Swapped the JWT and alg order in the header. Not sure who got it wrong, Google or the spec, but google takes it the way It is below according to their docs.

public enum JwtHashAlgorithm
{
    RS256,
    HS384,
    HS512
}
    
public class JsonWebToken
{
    private static Dictionary<JwtHashAlgorithm, Func<byte[], byte[], byte[]>> HashAlgorithms;

    static JsonWebToken()
    {
        HashAlgorithms = new Dictionary<JwtHashAlgorithm, Func<byte[], byte[], byte[]>>
			{
				{ JwtHashAlgorithm.RS256, (key, value) => { using (var sha = new HMACSHA256(key)) { return sha.ComputeHash(value); } } },
				{ JwtHashAlgorithm.HS384, (key, value) => { using (var sha = new HMACSHA384(key)) { return sha.ComputeHash(value); } } },
				{ JwtHashAlgorithm.HS512, (key, value) => { using (var sha = new HMACSHA512(key)) { return sha.ComputeHash(value); } } }
			};
    }

    public static string Encode(object payload, string key, JwtHashAlgorithm algorithm)
    {
        return Encode(payload, Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key), algorithm);
    }

    public static string Encode(object payload, byte[] keyBytes, JwtHashAlgorithm algorithm)
    {
        var segments = new List<string>();
        var header = new { alg = algorithm.ToString(), typ = "JWT" };

        byte[] headerBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(header, Formatting.None));
        byte[] payloadBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(payload, Formatting.None));
        //byte[] payloadBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(@"{"iss":"761326798069-r5mljlln1rd4lrbhg75efgigp36m78j5@developer.gserviceaccount.com","scope":"https://www.googleapis.com/auth/prediction","aud":"https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token","exp":1328554385,"iat":1328550785}");

        segments.Add(Base64UrlEncode(headerBytes));
        segments.Add(Base64UrlEncode(payloadBytes));

        var stringToSign = string.Join(".", segments.ToArray());

        var bytesToSign = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(stringToSign);

        byte[] signature = HashAlgorithms[algorithm](keyBytes, bytesToSign);
        segments.Add(Base64UrlEncode(signature));

        return string.Join(".", segments.ToArray());
    }

    public static string Decode(string token, string key)
    {
        return Decode(token, key, true);
    }

    public static string Decode(string token, string key, bool verify)
    {
        var parts = token.Split('.');
        var header = parts[0];
        var payload = parts[1];
        byte[] crypto = Base64UrlDecode(parts[2]);

        var headerJson = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(Base64UrlDecode(header));
        var headerData = JObject.Parse(headerJson);
        var payloadJson = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(Base64UrlDecode(payload));
        var payloadData = JObject.Parse(payloadJson);

        if (verify)
        {
            var bytesToSign = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(string.Concat(header, ".", payload));
            var keyBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key);
            var algorithm = (string)headerData["alg"];

            var signature = HashAlgorithms[GetHashAlgorithm(algorithm)](keyBytes, bytesToSign);
            var decodedCrypto = Convert.ToBase64String(crypto);
            var decodedSignature = Convert.ToBase64String(signature);

            if (decodedCrypto != decodedSignature)
            {
                throw new ApplicationException(string.Format("Invalid signature. Expected {0} got {1}", decodedCrypto, decodedSignature));
            }
        }

        return payloadData.ToString();
    }

    private static JwtHashAlgorithm GetHashAlgorithm(string algorithm)
    {
        switch (algorithm)
        {
            case "RS256": return JwtHashAlgorithm.RS256;
            case "HS384": return JwtHashAlgorithm.HS384;
            case "HS512": return JwtHashAlgorithm.HS512;
            default: throw new InvalidOperationException("Algorithm not supported.");
        }
    }

    // from JWT spec
    private static string Base64UrlEncode(byte[] input)
    {
        var output = Convert.ToBase64String(input);
        output = output.Split('=')[0]; // Remove any trailing '='s
        output = output.Replace('+', '-'); // 62nd char of encoding
        output = output.Replace('/', '_'); // 63rd char of encoding
        return output;
    }

    // from JWT spec
    private static byte[] Base64UrlDecode(string input)
    {
        var output = input;
        output = output.Replace('-', '+'); // 62nd char of encoding
        output = output.Replace('_', '/'); // 63rd char of encoding
        switch (output.Length % 4) // Pad with trailing '='s
        {
            case 0: break; // No pad chars in this case
            case 2: output += "=="; break; // Two pad chars
            case 3: output += "="; break; // One pad char
            default: throw new System.Exception("Illegal base64url string!");
        }
        var converted = Convert.FromBase64String(output); // Standard base64 decoder
        return converted;
    }
}

And then my google specific JWT class:

public class GoogleJsonWebToken
{
    public static string Encode(string email, string certificateFilePath)
    {
        var utc0 = new DateTime(1970,1,1,0,0,0,0, DateTimeKind.Utc);
        var issueTime = DateTime.Now;

        var iat = (int)issueTime.Subtract(utc0).TotalSeconds;
        var exp = (int)issueTime.AddMinutes(55).Subtract(utc0).TotalSeconds; // Expiration time is up to 1 hour, but lets play on safe side

        var payload = new
        {
            iss = email,
            scope = "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gan.readonly",
            aud = "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token",
            exp = exp,
            iat = iat
        };

        var certificate = new X509Certificate2(certificateFilePath, "notasecret");

        var privateKey = certificate.Export(X509ContentType.Cert);

        return JsonWebToken.Encode(payload, privateKey, JwtHashAlgorithm.RS256);
    }
}

After all these months have passed after the original question, it's now worth pointing out that Microsoft has devised a solution of their own. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vbertocci/archive/2012/11/20/introducing-the-developer-preview-of-the-json-web-token-handler-for-the-microsoft-net-framework-4-5.aspx for details.

I've never used it but there is a JWT implementation on NuGet.

Package: https://nuget.org/packages/JWT

Source: https://github.com/johnsheehan/jwt

.NET 4.0 compatible: https://www.nuget.org/packages/jose-jwt/

You can also go here: https://jwt.io/ and click "libraries".

Here is a working example:

http://zavitax.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/logging-in-with-google-service-account-in-c-jwt/

It took quite some time to collect the pieces scattered over the web, the docs are rather incomplete...

This is my implementation of (Google) JWT Validation in .NET. It is based on other implementations on Stack Overflow and GitHub gists.

using Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Security.Claims;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace QuapiNet.Service
{
    public class JwtTokenValidation
    {
        public async Task<Dictionary<string, X509Certificate2>> FetchGoogleCertificates()
        {
            using (var http = new HttpClient())
            {
                var response = await http.GetAsync("https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs");

                var dictionary = await response.Content.ReadAsAsync<Dictionary<string, string>>();
                return dictionary.ToDictionary(x => x.Key, x => new X509Certificate2(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(x.Value)));
            }
        }

        private string CLIENT_ID = "xxx.apps.googleusercontent.com";

        public async Task<ClaimsPrincipal> ValidateToken(string idToken)
        {
            var certificates = await this.FetchGoogleCertificates();

            TokenValidationParameters tvp = new TokenValidationParameters()
            {
                ValidateActor = false, // check the profile ID

                ValidateAudience = true, // check the client ID
                ValidAudience = CLIENT_ID,

                ValidateIssuer = true, // check token came from Google
                ValidIssuers = new List<string> { "accounts.google.com", "https://accounts.google.com" },

                ValidateIssuerSigningKey = true,
                RequireSignedTokens = true,
                IssuerSigningKeys = certificates.Values.Select(x => new X509SecurityKey(x)),
                IssuerSigningKeyResolver = (token, securityToken, kid, validationParameters) =>
                {
                    return certificates
                    .Where(x => x.Key.ToUpper() == kid.ToUpper())
                    .Select(x => new X509SecurityKey(x.Value));
                },
                ValidateLifetime = true,
                RequireExpirationTime = true,
                ClockSkew = TimeSpan.FromHours(13)
            };

            JwtSecurityTokenHandler jsth = new JwtSecurityTokenHandler();
            SecurityToken validatedToken;
            ClaimsPrincipal cp = jsth.ValidateToken(idToken, tvp, out validatedToken);

            return cp;
        }
    }
}

Note that, in order to use it, you need to add a reference to the NuGet package System.Net.Http.Formatting.Extension. Without this, the compiler will not recognize the ReadAsAsync<> method.

Take a look at Google Client Library for .NET.

It would be better to use standard and famous libraries instead of writing the code from scratch.

1. JWT for encoding and decoding JWT tokens
2. Bouncy Castle supports encryption and decryption, especially RS256 get it here

Using these libraries you can generate a JWT token and sign it using RS256 as below.

public string GenerateJWTToken(string rsaPrivateKey)
{
    var rsaParams = GetRsaParameters(rsaPrivateKey);
    var encoder = GetRS256JWTEncoder(rsaParams);

    // create the payload according to the Google's doc
    var payload = new Dictionary<string, object>
    {
        { "iss", ""},
        { "sub", "" },
        // and other key-values according to the doc
    };

    // add headers. 'alg' and 'typ' key-values are added automatically.
    var header = new Dictionary<string, object>
    {
        { "kid", "{your_private_key_id}" },
    };

    var token = encoder.Encode(header,payload, new byte[0]);

    return token;
}

private static IJwtEncoder GetRS256JWTEncoder(RSAParameters rsaParams)
{
    var csp = new RSACryptoServiceProvider();
    csp.ImportParameters(rsaParams);

    var algorithm = new RS256Algorithm(csp, csp);
    var serializer = new JsonNetSerializer();
    var urlEncoder = new JwtBase64UrlEncoder();
    var encoder = new JwtEncoder(algorithm, serializer, urlEncoder);

    return encoder;
}

private static RSAParameters GetRsaParameters(string rsaPrivateKey)
{
    var byteArray = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(rsaPrivateKey);
    using (var ms = new MemoryStream(byteArray))
    {
        using (var sr = new StreamReader(ms))
        {
            // use Bouncy Castle to convert the private key to RSA parameters
            var pemReader = new PemReader(sr);
            var keyPair = pemReader.ReadObject() as AsymmetricCipherKeyPair;
            return DotNetUtilities.ToRSAParameters(keyPair.Private as RsaPrivateCrtKeyParameters);
        }
    }
}

ps: the RSA private key should have the following format:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
 {base64 formatted value}
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Here is another REST-only working example for Google Service Accounts accessing G Suite Users and Groups, authenticating through JWT. This was only possible through reflection of Google libraries, since Google documentation of these APIs are beyond terrible. Anyone used to code in MS technologies will have a hard time figuring out how everything goes together in Google services.

$iss = "<name>@<serviceaccount>.iam.gserviceaccount.com"; # The email address of the service account.
$sub = "[email protected]"; # The user to impersonate (required).
$scope = "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user.readonly https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.group.readonly";
$certPath = "D:\temp\mycertificate.p12";
$grantType = "urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:jwt-bearer";

# Auxiliary functions
function UrlSafeEncode([String] $Data) {
    return $Data.Replace("=", [String]::Empty).Replace("+", "-").Replace("/", "_");
}

function UrlSafeBase64Encode ([String] $Data) {
    return (UrlSafeEncode -Data ([Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($Data))));
}

function KeyFromCertificate([System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2] $Certificate) {
    $privateKeyBlob = $Certificate.PrivateKey.ExportCspBlob($true);
    $key = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.RSACryptoServiceProvider;
    $key.ImportCspBlob($privateKeyBlob);
    return $key;
}

function CreateSignature ([Byte[]] $Data, [System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2] $Certificate) {
    $sha256 = [System.Security.Cryptography.SHA256]::Create();
    $key = (KeyFromCertificate $Certificate);
    $assertionHash = $sha256.ComputeHash($Data);
    $sig = [Convert]::ToBase64String($key.SignHash($assertionHash, "2.16.840.1.101.3.4.2.1"));
    $sha256.Dispose();
    return $sig;
}

function CreateAssertionFromPayload ([String] $Payload, [System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2] $Certificate) {
    $header = @"
{"alg":"RS256","typ":"JWT"}
"@;
    $assertion = New-Object System.Text.StringBuilder;

    $assertion.Append((UrlSafeBase64Encode $header)).Append(".").Append((UrlSafeBase64Encode $Payload)) | Out-Null;
    $signature = (CreateSignature -Data ([System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($assertion.ToString())) -Certificate $Certificate);
    $assertion.Append(".").Append((UrlSafeEncode $signature)) | Out-Null;
    return $assertion.ToString();
}

$baseDateTime = New-Object DateTime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, [DateTimeKind]::Utc);
$timeInSeconds = [Math]::Truncate([DateTime]::UtcNow.Subtract($baseDateTime).TotalSeconds);

$jwtClaimSet = @"
{"scope":"$scope","email_verified":false,"iss":"$iss","sub":"$sub","aud":"https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token","exp":$($timeInSeconds + 3600),"iat":$timeInSeconds}
"@;


$cert = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2($certPath, "notasecret", [System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509KeyStorageFlags]::Exportable);
$jwt = CreateAssertionFromPayload -Payload $jwtClaimSet -Certificate $cert;


# Retrieve the authorization token.
$authRes = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token" -Method Post -ContentType "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" -UseBasicParsing -Body @"
assertion=$jwt&grant_type=$([Uri]::EscapeDataString($grantType))
"@;
$authInfo = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $authRes.Content;

$resUsers = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://www.googleapis.com/admin/directory/v1/users?domain=<required_domain_name_dont_trust_google_documentation_on_this>" -Method Get -Headers @{
    "Authorization" = "$($authInfo.token_type) $($authInfo.access_token)"
}

$users = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $resUsers.Content;

$users.users | ft primaryEmail, isAdmin, suspended;

Here is the list of classes and functions:

open System
open System.Collections.Generic
open System.Linq
open System.Threading.Tasks
open Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc
open Microsoft.Extensions.Logging
open Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authorization
open Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authentication
open Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authentication.JwtBearer
open Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens
open System.IdentityModel.Tokens
open System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt
open Microsoft.IdentityModel.JsonWebTokens
open System.Text
open Newtonsoft.Json
open System.Security.Claims
    let theKey = "VerySecretKeyVerySecretKeyVerySecretKey"
    let securityKey = SymmetricSecurityKey(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(theKey))
    let credentials = SigningCredentials(securityKey, SecurityAlgorithms.RsaSsaPssSha256)
    let expires = DateTime.UtcNow.AddMinutes(123.0) |> Nullable
    let token = JwtSecurityToken(
                    "lahoda-pro-issuer", 
                    "lahoda-pro-audience",
                    claims = null,
                    expires =  expires,
                    signingCredentials = credentials
        )

    let tokenString = JwtSecurityTokenHandler().WriteToken(token)