I stumbled upon a my solution while trying to implement json token authentication within web api. It is important to note that my solution handles authentication by sending a json token through the Authentication header of the Http request (not via cookies) and not using Microsoft.Identity framework.
Anyway, I basically implemented in a cookbook fashion the solution helpfully described here by Taiseer Joudeh: http://bitoftech.net/2014/10/27/json-web-token-asp-net-web-api-2-jwt-owin-authorization-server/
The key thing to notice is the following bit of code:
//Dummy check here, you need to do your DB checks against memebrship system http://bit.ly/SPAAuthCode
if (context.UserName != context.Password)
{
context.SetError("invalid_grant", "The user name or password is incorrect");
//return;
return Task.FromResult<object>(null);
}
Naturally you would replace this bit of code above with your own method for checking your (presumably pre-existing) user database(s). Once I implemented this I realized that you don't need to use new code first identity framework that Visual Studio installs for you.
To make this work I did the following:
1) Created an an empty project and selected Change Authentication/Individual User Accounts. This installs most of the required references and files you need out of the box to use token authentication by way of cookies as well as the code-first identity framework files.
2) Edited these files following Taiseer Joudeh's lead. This requires
some new objects such as CustomOAuthProvider.cs among others. And you need to implement your own user/password check by customizing this code block:
if (context.UserName != context.Password)
{
context.SetError("invalid_grant", "The user name or password is incorrect");
//return;
return Task.FromResult<object>(null);
}
Link to Taiseer Joudeh's instructions: http://bitoftech.net/2014/10/27/json-web-token-asp-net-web-api-2-jwt-owin-authorization-server/
3) Pruned my project of extraneous files (AccountBindingModels.cs, AccountViewModels.cs, IdentityModels.cs, ApplicationOAuthProvider.cs, identityConfig.cs, AccountBindingModels.cs, AccountViewModels.cs). Basically, No more microsoft identity references.
I am sure the microsoft.identity thing is excellent, but I was annoyed with the code-first implementation of databases when I was already using some legacy databases of a different structure etc. Hope this helps. I am quite satisfied with the result (after a few days of messing around to get it to work).
