CDS.Security 2025 - Auth

• CDS.Security 2025 - Auth
  • Introduction
  • Getting started
    • Database
    • Client
    • Server
  • How to use
    • Web servers
    • Database
    • Users
  • Exercises

Introduction

This repository contains a skeleton application and a series of guides on how to manually implement authentication, session management and authorization with ASP.NET as backend and React as frontend.

The skeleton application is a simple blog with posts and comments.

In real-world systems, I recommend using ASP.NET Identity instead of implementing authentication and sessions manually. However, it is important that you know how this stuff works, and I believe in learning by coding.

Getting started

Fork the repository and clone it to your computer.

Database

There is a script named setup.sh and you simply run the script.

./setup.sh <some-password>

Replace <some-password> with what you want to use as password for the preconfigured users.

In case you forget the password, or just want to reset, simply run the script again.

Client

Before first run, you need to install dependencies with:

npm ci --prefix client

Then start development web server with:

npm run dev --prefix client

The --prefix client tells npm to behave as if you were running it from client/ folder. That way do don't have to cd around all the time.

Server

dotnet watch --project server/Api

The watch part makes it hot-reload when you change the code. Not all changes works with hot-reloading, in which case you need to manually restart it with CTRL+R.

How to use

Web servers

Sub-systems	URL
Client / frontend	http://localhost:5173/
Server / backend	http://localhost:5153/scalar/

The project uses Scalar, which is an alternative to Swagger UI.

Database

Parameter	Value
URL	jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/postgres
Username	postgres
Password	mysecret
Connection string	HOST=localhost;DB=postgres;UID=postgres;PWD=mysecret;PORT=5432;

Users

The application ships with some test data, including blog posts and a couple of users. After implementing authentication, you will be able to log-in using these credentials:

Email / Username	Role
admin@example.com	Admin
editor@example.com	Editor
othereditor@example.com	Editor
reader@example.com	Reader

Exercises

Complete these exercises in order. Since each builds on the previous. Make a commit each time you complete an exercise.

0. Authentication
1. Sessions
2. Authorization