Creating dynamic role-based authorization

Question

I have implemented Identity Role-based authorization but having to manually go to each controller/action and specify individually [Authorize(Roles = "")] very poor extensibility.

How would I be able to create a UI screen, with dynamic role-based authorization, where the "super admin" can configure which role has access to a controller/action?

Something like this:

Answer 1

Making roles dynamic has a performance side effect caused by retrieving controls or actions roles in every client's request.

Instead, The recommended way is to keep the authorization roles static (usually they mention it by permission at endpoint level) and then creating a class that can dynamically group these permissions under one label name of the object class instance (usually they called them roles). This way ensures a higher performance than your approach.

Answer 2

After a lot of trial and error and a lot of research, I found an adequate answer:(big thanks to Mohen 'mo-esmp' Esmailpour)

Create 2 class:

public class MvcControllerInfo
{
    public string Id => $"{AreaName}:{Name}";

    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string DisplayName { get; set; }
    public string AreaName { get; set; }

    public IEnumerable<MvcActionInfo> Actions { get; set; }
}

public class MvcActionInfo
{
    public string Id => $"{ControllerId}:{Name}";

    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string DisplayName { get; set; }
    public string ControllerId { get; set; }
}

Add another class MvcControllerDiscovery to Services folder to discover all controllers and actions:

public class MvcControllerDiscovery : IMvcControllerDiscovery
{
    private List<MvcControllerInfo> _mvcControllers;
    private readonly IActionDescriptorCollectionProvider _actionDescriptorCollectionProvider;

    public MvcControllerDiscovery(IActionDescriptorCollectionProvider actionDescriptorCollectionProvider)
    {
        _actionDescriptorCollectionProvider = actionDescriptorCollectionProvider;
    }

    public IEnumerable<MvcControllerInfo> GetControllers()
    {
        if (_mvcControllers != null)
            return _mvcControllers;

        _mvcControllers = new List<MvcControllerInfo>();

        var items = _actionDescriptorCollectionProvider
            .ActionDescriptors.Items
            .Where(descriptor => descriptor.GetType() == typeof(ControllerActionDescriptor))
            .Select(descriptor => (ControllerActionDescriptor)descriptor)
            .GroupBy(descriptor => descriptor.ControllerTypeInfo.FullName)
            .ToList();

        foreach (var actionDescriptors in items)
        {
            if (!actionDescriptors.Any())
                continue;

            var actionDescriptor = actionDescriptors.First();
            var controllerTypeInfo = actionDescriptor.ControllerTypeInfo;
            var currentController = new MvcControllerInfo
            {
                AreaName = controllerTypeInfo.GetCustomAttribute<AreaAttribute>()?.RouteValue,
                DisplayName = controllerTypeInfo.GetCustomAttribute<DisplayNameAttribute>()?.DisplayName,
                Name = actionDescriptor.ControllerName,
            };

            var actions = new List<MvcActionInfo>();

            foreach (var descriptor in actionDescriptors.GroupBy(a => a.ActionName).Select(g => g.First()))
            {
                var methodInfo = descriptor.MethodInfo;
                actions.Add(new MvcActionInfo
                {
                    ControllerId = currentController.Id,
                    Name = descriptor.ActionName,
                    DisplayName = methodInfo.GetCustomAttribute<DisplayNameAttribute>()?.DisplayName,
                });
            }

            currentController.Actions = actions;
            _mvcControllers.Add(currentController);
        }

        return _mvcControllers;
    }
}

IActionDescriptorCollectionProvider provides the cached collection of ActionDescriptor which each descriptor represents an action. Open Startup class and inside Configure method and register MvcControllerDiscovery dependency.

services.AddSingleton<IMvcControllerDiscovery, MvcControllerDiscovery>();

add role controller to manage roles. In Controller folder create RoleController then add Create action:

public class RoleController : Controller
{
    private readonly IMvcControllerDiscovery _mvcControllerDiscovery;

    public RoleController(IMvcControllerDiscovery mvcControllerDiscovery)
    {
        _mvcControllerDiscovery = mvcControllerDiscovery;
    }

    // GET: Role/Create
    public ActionResult Create()
    {
        ViewData["Controllers"] = _mvcControllerDiscovery.GetControllers();

        return View();
    }
}

Create class RoleViewModel in the Models directory:

public class RoleViewModel
{
    [Required]
    [StringLength(256, ErrorMessage = "The {0} must be at least {2} characters long.")]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public IEnumerable<MvcControllerInfo> SelectedControllers { get; set; }
}

And in View folder add another folder and name it Role then add Create.cshtml view. I used jQuery.bonsai for showing controller and action hierarchy.

@model RoleViewModel

@{
    ViewData["Title"] = "Create Role";
    var controllers = (IEnumerable<MvcControllerInfo>)ViewData["Controllers"];
}

@section Header {
    <link href="~/lib/jquery-bonsai/jquery.bonsai.css" rel="stylesheet" />
}

<h2>Create Role</h2>

<hr />
<div class="row">
    <div class="col-md-6">
        <form asp-action="Create" class="form-horizontal">
            <div asp-validation-summary="ModelOnly" class="text-danger"></div>
            <div class="form-group">
                <label asp-for="Name" class="control-label col-md-2"></label>
                <div class="col-md-10">
                    <input asp-for="Name" class="form-control" />
                    <span asp-validation-for="Name" class="text-danger"></span>
                </div>
            </div>
            <div class="form-group">
                <label class="col-md-3 control-label">Access List</label>
                <div class="col-md-9">
                    <ol id="tree">
                        @foreach (var controller in controllers)
                        {
                            string name;
                            {
                                name = controller.DisplayName ?? controller.Name;
                            }
                            <li class="controller" data-value="@controller.Name">
                                <input type="hidden" class="area" value="@controller.AreaName" />
                                @name
                                @if (controller.Actions.Any())
                                {
                                    <ul>
                                        @foreach (var action in controller.Actions)
                                        {
                                            {
                                                name = action.DisplayName ?? action.Name;
                                            }
                                            <li data-value="@action.Name">@name</li>
                                        }
                                    </ul>
                                }
                            </li>
                        }
                    </ol>
                </div>
            </div>
            <div class="form-group">
                <input type="submit" value="Create" class="btn btn-default" />
            </div>
        </form>
    </div>
</div>

<div>
    <a asp-action="Index">Back to List</a>
</div>

@section Scripts {
    @{await Html.RenderPartialAsync("_ValidationScriptsPartial");}
    <script src="~/lib/jquery-qubit/jquery.qubit.js"></script>
    <script src="~/lib/jquery-bonsai/jquery.bonsai.js"></script>
    <script>
        $(function () {
            $('#tree').bonsai({
                expandAll: false,
                checkboxes: true,
                createInputs: 'checkbox'
            });

            $('form').submit(function () {
                var i = 0, j = 0;
                $('.controller > input[type="checkbox"]:checked, .controller > input[type="checkbox"]:indeterminate').each(function () {
                    var controller = $(this);
                    if ($(controller).prop('indeterminate')) {
                        $(controller).prop("checked", true);
                    }
                    var controllerName = 'SelectedControllers[' + i + ']';
                    $(controller).prop('name', controllerName + '.Name');

                    var area = $(controller).next().next();
                    $(area).prop('name', controllerName + '.AreaName');

                    $('ul > li > input[type="checkbox"]:checked', $(controller).parent()).each(function () {
                        var action = $(this);
                        var actionName = controllerName + '.Actions[' + j + '].Name';
                        $(action).prop('name', actionName);
                        j++;
                    });
                    j = 0;
                    i++;
                });

                return true;
            });
        });
    </script>
}

This should get you to show each action in all controllers in the front-end to customize permission access for whichever role.

If you don't have a class inheriting from identity user you can follow the rest of the steps at the link below to show how to set a role to a specific user. Good luck!

https://github.com/mo-esmp/DynamicRoleBasedAuthorizationNETCore/blob/master/README.md

Hope this helps.