How to setup MVC requests to use Oauth 2.0 access token?

Question

I am working on an Asp.net Web API + MVC project. While creating the project, I selected 'Individual User Accounts' option for authentication. After login, the provider issues access token and I use this token in HTTP header of ajax calls and it works fine with Ajax calls. I also have MVC actions which are used to navigate to different pages. These actions are protected using [Authorize] attribute of System.web.MVC. While navigating to these actions authorization fails and I am redirected to login page. How do I configure Oauth 2.0 access token to be used in non ajax requests (MVC requests) also.

Startup.Auth.cs:

public partial class Startup
    {
        public static OAuthAuthorizationServerOptions OAuthOptions { get; private set; }

        public static string PublicClientId { get; private set; }

        // For more information on configuring authentication, please visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=301864
        public void ConfigureAuth(IAppBuilder app)
        {
            // Configure the db context and user manager to use a single instance per request
            app.CreatePerOwinContext(ApplicationDbContext.Create);
            app.CreatePerOwinContext<ApplicationUserManager>(ApplicationUserManager.Create);

            // Enable the application to use a cookie to store information for the signed in user
            // and to use a cookie to temporarily store information about a user logging in with a third party login provider
            app.UseCookieAuthentication(new CookieAuthenticationOptions { 
                AuthenticationType = DefaultAuthenticationTypes.ApplicationCookie,
                LoginPath = new PathString("/Home/Login"),
                LogoutPath = new PathString("/Account/LogOff"),
                ExpireTimeSpan = TimeSpan.FromHours(1.0),
            });
            app.UseExternalSignInCookie(DefaultAuthenticationTypes.ExternalCookie);

            // Configure the application for OAuth based flow
            PublicClientId = "self";
            OAuthOptions = new OAuthAuthorizationServerOptions
            {
                TokenEndpointPath = new PathString("/Token"),
                Provider = new ApplicationOAuthProvider(PublicClientId),
                AuthorizeEndpointPath = new PathString("/api/Account/ExternalLogin"),
                AccessTokenExpireTimeSpan = TimeSpan.FromDays(14),
                AllowInsecureHttp = true // dont use this for production,
            };

            // Enable the application to use bearer tokens to authenticate users
            app.UseOAuthBearerTokens(OAuthOptions);

        }

WebApiConfig.cs:

public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
        {
            // Web API configuration and services
            // Configure Web API to use only bearer token authentication.
            config.SuppressDefaultHostAuthentication();
            config.Filters.Add(new HostAuthenticationFilter(OAuthDefaults.AuthenticationType));

            // Web API routes
            config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();

            config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
                name: "DefaultApi",
                routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
                defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
            );
        }

ApplicationOAuthProvider.cs:

public class ApplicationOAuthProvider : OAuthAuthorizationServerProvider
    {
        private readonly string _publicClientId;

        public ApplicationOAuthProvider(string publicClientId)
        {
            if (publicClientId == null)
            {
                throw new ArgumentNullException("publicClientId");
            }

            _publicClientId = publicClientId;
        }

        public override async Task GrantResourceOwnerCredentials(OAuthGrantResourceOwnerCredentialsContext context)
        {
            var userManager = context.OwinContext.GetUserManager<ApplicationUserManager>();

            ApplicationUser user = await userManager.FindAsync(context.UserName, context.Password);

            if (user == null)
            {
                context.SetError("invalid_grant", "The user name or password is incorrect.");
                return;
            }

            ClaimsIdentity oAuthIdentity = await user.GenerateUserIdentityAsync(userManager,
               OAuthDefaults.AuthenticationType);
            ClaimsIdentity cookiesIdentity = await user.GenerateUserIdentityAsync(userManager,
                CookieAuthenticationDefaults.AuthenticationType);

            AuthenticationProperties properties = CreateProperties(user.UserName);
            AuthenticationTicket ticket = new AuthenticationTicket(oAuthIdentity, properties);
            context.Validated(ticket);
            context.Request.Context.Authentication.SignIn(cookiesIdentity);
        }

        public override Task TokenEndpoint(OAuthTokenEndpointContext context)
        {
            foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> property in context.Properties.Dictionary)
            {
                context.AdditionalResponseParameters.Add(property.Key, property.Value);
            }

            return Task.FromResult<object>(null);
        }

        public override Task ValidateClientAuthentication(OAuthValidateClientAuthenticationContext context)
        {
            // Resource owner password credentials does not provide a client ID.
            if (context.ClientId == null)
            {
                context.Validated();
            }

            return Task.FromResult<object>(null);
        }

        public override Task ValidateClientRedirectUri(OAuthValidateClientRedirectUriContext context)
        {
            if (context.ClientId == _publicClientId)
            {
                Uri expectedRootUri = new Uri(context.Request.Uri, "/");

                if (expectedRootUri.AbsoluteUri == context.RedirectUri)
                {
                    context.Validated();
                }
            }

            return Task.FromResult<object>(null);
        }

        public static AuthenticationProperties CreateProperties(string userName)
        {
            IDictionary<string, string> data = new Dictionary<string, string>
            {
                { "userName", userName }
            };
            return new AuthenticationProperties(data);
        }
    }

Answer 1

ASP.Net MVC is a server side web app technology and [Authorize] actions expect to receive a cookie rather than checking for a token.

Not sure if this is overridable and in this type of solution you often end up having to deal with an ugly mix of cookies / tokens / server side code / client side code.

A more modern / cleaner separation is to develop a single page app + REST API instead. Code tends to be simpler and it feels like a better fit for the requirements you mention.

To see what I mean, maybe have a quick browse of the UI code in this sample: https://github.com/gary-archer/oauth.websample1

The repo links to some blog posts if it's an option you're interested in.