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title | author | description | ms.author | ms.custom | ms.date | uid |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Enable Cross-Origin Requests (CORS) in ASP.NET Core | tdykstra | Learn how CORS as a standard for allowing or rejecting cross-origin requests in an ASP.NET Core app. | riande | mvc | 3/16/2023 | security/cors |
Enable Cross-Origin Requests (CORS) in ASP.NET Core
:::moniker range=">= aspnetcore-8.0"
By Rick Anderson and Kirk Larkin
This article shows how to enable CORS in an ASP.NET Core app.
Browser security prevents a web page from making requests to a different domain than the one that served the web page. This restriction is called the same-origin policy. The same-origin policy prevents a malicious site from reading sensitive data from another site. Sometimes, you might want to allow other sites to make cross-origin requests to your app. For more information, see the Mozilla CORS article.
Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS):
- Is a W3C standard that allows a server to relax the same-origin policy.
- Is not a security feature, CORS relaxes security. An API is not safer by allowing CORS. For more information, see How CORS works.
- Allows a server to explicitly allow some cross-origin requests while rejecting others.
- Is safer and more flexible than earlier techniques, such as JSONP.
View or download sample code (how to download)
Same origin
Two URLs have the same origin if they have identical schemes, hosts, and ports (RFC 6454).
These two URLs have the same origin:
https://example.com/foo.html
https://example.com/bar.html
These URLs have different origins than the previous two URLs:
https://example.net
: Different domainhttps://www.example.com/foo.html
: Different subdomainhttp://example.com/foo.html
: Different schemehttps://example.com:9000/foo.html
: Different port
Enable CORS
There are three ways to enable CORS:
- In middleware using a named policy or default policy.
- Using endpoint routing.
- With the [EnableCors] attribute.
Using the [EnableCors] attribute with a named policy provides the finest control in limiting endpoints that support CORS.
[!WARNING] xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.CorsMiddlewareExtensions.UseCors%2A must be called in the correct order. For more information, see Middleware order. For example,
UseCors
must be called before xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.ResponseCachingExtensions.UseResponseCaching%2A when usingUseResponseCaching
.
Each approach is detailed in the following sections.
CORS with named policy and middleware
CORS Middleware handles cross-origin requests. The following code applies a CORS policy to all the app's endpoints with the specified origins:
The preceding code:
- Sets the policy name to
_myAllowSpecificOrigins
. The policy name is arbitrary. - Calls the xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.CorsMiddlewareExtensions.UseCors%2A extension method and specifies the
_myAllowSpecificOrigins
CORS policy.UseCors
adds the CORS middleware. The call toUseCors
must be placed afterUseRouting
, but beforeUseAuthorization
. For more information, see Middleware order. - Calls xref:Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.CorsServiceCollectionExtensions.AddCors%2A with a lambda expression. The lambda takes a xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder object. Configuration options, such as
WithOrigins
, are described later in this article. - Enables the
_myAllowSpecificOrigins
CORS policy for all controller endpoints. See endpoint routing to apply a CORS policy to specific endpoints. - When using Response Caching Middleware, call xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.CorsMiddlewareExtensions.UseCors%2A before xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.ResponseCachingExtensions.UseResponseCaching%2A.
With endpoint routing, the CORS middleware must be configured to execute between the calls to UseRouting
and UseEndpoints
.
See Test CORS for instructions on testing code similar to the preceding code.
The xref:Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.MvcCorsMvcCoreBuilderExtensions.AddCors%2A method call adds CORS services to the app's service container:
For more information, see CORS policy options in this document.
The xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder methods can be chained, as shown in the following code:
Note: The specified URL must not contain a trailing slash (/
). If the URL terminates with /
, the comparison returns false
and no header is returned.
UseCors and UseStaticFiles order
Typically, UseStaticFiles
is called before UseCors
. Apps that use JavaScript to retrieve static files cross site must call UseCors
before UseStaticFiles
.
CORS with default policy and middleware
The following highlighted code enables the default CORS policy:
The preceding code applies the default CORS policy to all controller endpoints.
Enable Cors with endpoint routing
With endpoint routing, CORS can be enabled on a per-endpoint basis using the xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.CorsEndpointConventionBuilderExtensions.RequireCors%2A set of extension methods:
In the preceding code:
app.UseCors
enables the CORS middleware. Because a default policy hasn't been configured,app.UseCors()
alone doesn't enable CORS.- The
/echo
and controller endpoints allow cross-origin requests using the specified policy. - The
/echo2
and Razor Pages endpoints do not allow cross-origin requests because no default policy was specified.
The [DisableCors] attribute does not disable CORS that has been enabled by endpoint routing with RequireCors
.
See Test CORS with [EnableCors] attribute and RequireCors method for instructions on testing code similar to the preceding.
Enable CORS with attributes
Enabling CORS with the [EnableCors] attribute and applying a named policy to only those endpoints that require CORS provides the finest control.
The [EnableCors] attribute provides an alternative to applying CORS globally. The [EnableCors]
attribute enables CORS for selected endpoints, rather than all endpoints:
[EnableCors]
specifies the default policy.[EnableCors("{Policy String}")]
specifies a named policy.
The [EnableCors]
attribute can be applied to:
- Razor Page
PageModel
- Controller
- Controller action method
Different policies can be applied to controllers, page models, or action methods with the [EnableCors]
attribute. When the [EnableCors]
attribute is applied to a controller, page model, or action method, and CORS is enabled in middleware, both policies are applied. We recommend against combining policies. Use the [EnableCors]
attribute or middleware, not both in the same app.
The following code applies a different policy to each method:
The following code creates two CORS policies:
For the finest control of limiting CORS requests:
- Use
[EnableCors("MyPolicy")]
with a named policy. - Don't define a default policy.
- Don't use endpoint routing.
The code in the next section meets the preceding list.
See Test CORS for instructions on testing code similar to the preceding code.
Disable CORS
The [DisableCors] attribute does not disable CORS that has been enabled by endpoint routing.
The following code defines the CORS policy "MyPolicy"
:
The following code disables CORS for the GetValues2
action:
The preceding code:
- Doesn't enable CORS with endpoint routing.
- Doesn't define a default CORS policy.
- Uses [EnableCors("MyPolicy")] to enable the
"MyPolicy"
CORS policy for the controller. - Disables CORS for the
GetValues2
method.
See Test CORS for instructions on testing the preceding code.
CORS policy options
This section describes the various options that can be set in a CORS policy:
- Set the allowed origins
- Set the allowed HTTP methods
- Set the allowed request headers
- Set the exposed response headers
- Credentials in cross-origin requests
- Set the preflight expiration time
xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsOptions.AddPolicy%2A is called in Program.cs
. For some options, it may be helpful to read the How CORS works section first.
Set the allowed origins
xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.AllowAnyOrigin%2A: Allows CORS requests from all origins with any scheme (http
or https
). AllowAnyOrigin
is insecure because any website can make cross-origin requests to the app.
[!NOTE] Specifying
AllowAnyOrigin
andAllowCredentials
is an insecure configuration and can result in cross-site request forgery. The CORS service returns an invalid CORS response when an app is configured with both methods.
AllowAnyOrigin
affects preflight requests and the Access-Control-Allow-Origin
header. For more information, see the Preflight requests section.
xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.SetIsOriginAllowedToAllowWildcardSubdomains%2A: Sets the xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicy.IsOriginAllowed%2A property of the policy to be a function that allows origins to match a configured wildcard domain when evaluating if the origin is allowed.
Set the allowed HTTP methods
xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.AllowAnyMethod%2A:
- Allows any HTTP method:
- Affects preflight requests and the
Access-Control-Allow-Methods
header. For more information, see the Preflight requests section.
Set the allowed request headers
To allow specific headers to be sent in a CORS request, called author request headers, call xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.WithHeaders%2A and specify the allowed headers:
To allow all author request headers, call xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.AllowAnyHeader%2A:
AllowAnyHeader
affects preflight requests and the Access-Control-Request-Headers header. For more information, see the Preflight requests section.
A CORS Middleware policy match to specific headers specified by WithHeaders
is only possible when the headers sent in Access-Control-Request-Headers
exactly match the headers stated in WithHeaders
.
For instance, consider an app configured as follows:
app.UseCors(policy => policy.WithHeaders(HeaderNames.CacheControl));
CORS Middleware declines a preflight request with the following request header because Content-Language
(HeaderNames.ContentLanguage) isn't listed in WithHeaders
:
Access-Control-Request-Headers: Cache-Control, Content-Language
The app returns a 200 OK response but doesn't send the CORS headers back. Therefore, the browser doesn't attempt the cross-origin request.
Set the exposed response headers
By default, the browser doesn't expose all of the response headers to the app. For more information, see W3C Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (Terminology): Simple Response Header.
The response headers that are available by default are:
Cache-Control
Content-Language
Content-Type
Expires
Last-Modified
Pragma
The CORS specification calls these headers simple response headers. To make other headers available to the app, call xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.WithExposedHeaders%2A:
Credentials in cross-origin requests
Credentials require special handling in a CORS request. By default, the browser doesn't send credentials with a cross-origin request. Credentials include cookies and HTTP authentication schemes. To send credentials with a cross-origin request, the client must set XMLHttpRequest.withCredentials
to true
.
Using XMLHttpRequest
directly:
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('get', 'https://www.example.com/api/test');
xhr.withCredentials = true;
Using jQuery:
$.ajax({
type: 'get',
url: 'https://www.example.com/api/test',
xhrFields: {
withCredentials: true
}
});
Using the Fetch API:
fetch('https://www.example.com/api/test', {
credentials: 'include'
});
The server must allow the credentials. To allow cross-origin credentials, call xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.AllowCredentials%2A:
The HTTP response includes an Access-Control-Allow-Credentials
header, which tells the browser that the server allows credentials for a cross-origin request.
If the browser sends credentials but the response doesn't include a valid Access-Control-Allow-Credentials
header, the browser doesn't expose the response to the app, and the cross-origin request fails.
Allowing cross-origin credentials is a security risk. A website at another domain can send a signed-in user's credentials to the app on the user's behalf without the user's knowledge.
The CORS specification also states that setting origins to "*"
(all origins) is invalid if the Access-Control-Allow-Credentials
header is present.
Preflight requests
For some CORS requests, the browser sends an additional OPTIONS request before making the actual request. This request is called a preflight request. The browser can skip the preflight request if all the following conditions are true:
- The request method is GET, HEAD, or POST.
- The app doesn't set request headers other than
Accept
,Accept-Language
,Content-Language
,Content-Type
, orLast-Event-ID
. - The
Content-Type
header, if set, has one of the following values:application/x-www-form-urlencoded
multipart/form-data
text/plain
The rule on request headers set for the client request applies to headers that the app sets by calling setRequestHeader
on the XMLHttpRequest
object. The CORS specification calls these headers author request headers. The rule doesn't apply to headers the browser can set, such as User-Agent
, Host
, or Content-Length
.
The following is an example response similar to the preflight request made from the [Put test] button in the Test CORS section of this document.
General:
Request URL: https://cors3.azurewebsites.net/api/values/5
Request Method: OPTIONS
Status Code: 204 No Content
Response Headers:
Access-Control-Allow-Methods: PUT,DELETE,GET
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: https://cors1.azurewebsites.net
Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0
Set-Cookie: ARRAffinity=8f8...8;Path=/;HttpOnly;Domain=cors1.azurewebsites.net
Vary: Origin
Request Headers:
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9
Access-Control-Request-Method: PUT
Connection: keep-alive
Host: cors3.azurewebsites.net
Origin: https://cors1.azurewebsites.net
Referer: https://cors1.azurewebsites.net/
Sec-Fetch-Dest: empty
Sec-Fetch-Mode: cors
Sec-Fetch-Site: cross-site
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0
The preflight request uses the HTTP OPTIONS method. It may include the following headers:
- Access-Control-Request-Method: The HTTP method that will be used for the actual request.
- Access-Control-Request-Headers: A list of request headers that the app sets on the actual request. As stated earlier, this doesn't include headers that the browser sets, such as
User-Agent
. - Access-Control-Allow-Methods
If the preflight request is denied, the app returns a 200 OK
response but doesn't set the CORS headers. Therefore, the browser doesn't attempt the cross-origin request. For an example of a denied preflight request, see the Test CORS section of this document.
Using the F12 tools, the console app shows an error similar to one of the following, depending on the browser:
- Firefox: Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at
https://cors1.azurewebsites.net/api/TodoItems1/MyDelete2/5
. (Reason: CORS request did not succeed). Learn More - Chromium based: Access to fetch at 'https://cors1.azurewebsites.net/api/TodoItems1/MyDelete2/5' from origin 'https://cors3.azurewebsites.net' has been blocked by CORS policy: Response to preflight request doesn't pass access control check: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. If an opaque response serves your needs, set the request's mode to 'no-cors' to fetch the resource with CORS disabled.
To allow specific headers, call xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.WithHeaders%2A:
To allow all author request headers, call xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.AllowAnyHeader%2A:
Browsers aren't consistent in how they set Access-Control-Request-Headers
. If either:
- Headers are set to anything other than
"*"
- xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicy.AllowAnyHeader%2A is called:
Include at least
Accept
,Content-Type
, andOrigin
, plus any custom headers that you want to support.
Automatic preflight request code
When the CORS policy is applied either:
- Globally by calling
app.UseCors
inProgram.cs
. - Using the
[EnableCors]
attribute.
ASP.NET Core responds to the preflight OPTIONS request.
The Test CORS section of this document demonstrates this behavior.
[HttpOptions] attribute for preflight requests
When CORS is enabled with the appropriate policy, ASP.NET Core generally responds to CORS preflight requests automatically.
The following code uses the [HttpOptions] attribute to create endpoints for OPTIONS requests:
See Test CORS with [EnableCors] attribute and RequireCors method for instructions on testing the preceding code.
Set the preflight expiration time
The Access-Control-Max-Age
header specifies how long the response to the preflight request can be cached. To set this header, call xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.SetPreflightMaxAge%2A:
Enable CORS on an endpoint
How CORS works
This section describes what happens in a CORS request at the level of the HTTP messages.
- CORS is not a security feature. CORS is a W3C standard that allows a server to relax the same-origin policy.
- For example, a malicious actor could use Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) against your site and execute a cross-site request to their CORS enabled site to steal information.
- An API isn't safer by allowing CORS.
- It's up to the client (browser) to enforce CORS. The server executes the request and returns the response, it's the client that returns an error and blocks the response. For example, any of the following tools will display the server response:
- Fiddler
- Postman
- .NET HttpClient
- A web browser by entering the URL in the address bar.
- It's up to the client (browser) to enforce CORS. The server executes the request and returns the response, it's the client that returns an error and blocks the response. For example, any of the following tools will display the server response:
- It's a way for a server to allow browsers to execute a cross-origin XHR or Fetch API request that otherwise would be forbidden.
- Browsers without CORS can't do cross-origin requests. Before CORS, JSONP was used to circumvent this restriction. JSONP doesn't use XHR, it uses the
<script>
tag to receive the response. Scripts are allowed to be loaded cross-origin.
- Browsers without CORS can't do cross-origin requests. Before CORS, JSONP was used to circumvent this restriction. JSONP doesn't use XHR, it uses the
The CORS specification introduced several new HTTP headers that enable cross-origin requests. If a browser supports CORS, it sets these headers automatically for cross-origin requests. Custom JavaScript code isn't required to enable CORS.
The PUT test button on the deployed sample
The following is an example of a cross-origin request from the Values test button to https://cors1.azurewebsites.net/api/values
. The Origin
header:
- Provides the domain of the site that's making the request.
- Is required and must be different from the host.
General headers
Request URL: https://cors1.azurewebsites.net/api/values
Request Method: GET
Status Code: 200 OK
Response headers
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0
Set-Cookie: ARRAffinity=8f...;Path=/;HttpOnly;Domain=cors1.azurewebsites.net
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Vary: Accept-Encoding
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Request headers
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9
Connection: keep-alive
Host: cors1.azurewebsites.net
Origin: https://cors3.azurewebsites.net
Referer: https://cors3.azurewebsites.net/
Sec-Fetch-Dest: empty
Sec-Fetch-Mode: cors
Sec-Fetch-Site: cross-site
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 ...
In OPTIONS
requests, the server sets the Response headers Access-Control-Allow-Origin: {allowed origin}
header in the response. For example, the deployed sample, Delete [EnableCors] button OPTIONS
request contains the following headers:
General headers
Request URL: https://cors3.azurewebsites.net/api/TodoItems2/MyDelete2/5
Request Method: OPTIONS
Status Code: 204 No Content
Response headers
Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Content-Type,x-custom-header
Access-Control-Allow-Methods: PUT,DELETE,GET,OPTIONS
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: https://cors1.azurewebsites.net
Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0
Set-Cookie: ARRAffinity=8f...;Path=/;HttpOnly;Domain=cors3.azurewebsites.net
Vary: Origin
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Request headers
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9
Access-Control-Request-Headers: content-type
Access-Control-Request-Method: DELETE
Connection: keep-alive
Host: cors3.azurewebsites.net
Origin: https://cors1.azurewebsites.net
Referer: https://cors1.azurewebsites.net/test?number=2
Sec-Fetch-Dest: empty
Sec-Fetch-Mode: cors
Sec-Fetch-Site: cross-site
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0
In the preceding Response headers, the server sets the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header in the response. The https://cors1.azurewebsites.net
value of this header matches the Origin
header from the request.
If xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsPolicyBuilder.AllowAnyOrigin%2A is called, the Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
, the wildcard value, is returned. AllowAnyOrigin
allows any origin.
If the response doesn't include the Access-Control-Allow-Origin
header, the cross-origin request fails. Specifically, the browser disallows the request. Even if the server returns a successful response, the browser doesn't make the response available to the client app.
HTTP redirection to HTTPS causes ERR_INVALID_REDIRECT on the CORS preflight request
Requests to an endpoint using HTTP that are redirected to HTTPS by xref:Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.HttpsPolicyBuilderExtensions.UseHttpsRedirection%2A fail with ERR_INVALID_REDIRECT on the CORS preflight request
.
API projects can reject HTTP requests rather than use UseHttpsRedirection
to redirect requests to HTTPS.
CORS in IIS
When deploying to IIS, CORS has to run before Windows Authentication if the server isn't configured to allow anonymous access. To support this scenario, the IIS CORS module needs to be installed and configured for the app.
Test CORS
The sample download has code to test CORS. See how to download. The sample is an API project with Razor Pages added:
[!WARNING]
WithOrigins("https://localhost:<port>");
should only be used for testing a sample app similar to the download sample code.
The following ValuesController
provides the endpoints for testing:
MyDisplayRouteInfo is provided by the Rick.Docs.Samples.RouteInfo NuGet package and displays route information.
Test the preceding sample code by using one of the following approaches:
- Use the deployed sample app at https://cors3.azurewebsites.net/. There is no need to download the sample.
- Run the sample with
dotnet run
using the default URL ofhttps://localhost:5001
. - Run the sample from Visual Studio with the port set to 44398 for a URL of
https://localhost:44398
.
Using a browser with the F12 tools:
-
Select the Values button and review the headers in the Network tab.
-
Select the PUT test button. See Display OPTIONS requests for instructions on displaying the OPTIONS request. The PUT test creates two requests, an OPTIONS preflight request and the PUT request.
-
Select the
GetValues2 [DisableCors]
button to trigger a failed CORS request. As mentioned in the document, the response returns 200 success, but the CORS request is not made. Select the Console tab to see the CORS error. Depending on the browser, an error similar to the following is displayed:Access to fetch at
'https://cors1.azurewebsites.net/api/values/GetValues2'
from origin'https://cors3.azurewebsites.net'
has been blocked by CORS policy: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. If an opaque response serves your needs, set the request's mode to 'no-cors' to fetch the resource with CORS disabled.
CORS-enabled endpoints can be tested with a tool, such as curl, Fiddler, or Postman. When using a tool, the origin of the request specified by the Origin
header must differ from the host receiving the request. If the request isn't cross-origin based on the value of the Origin
header:
- There's no need for CORS Middleware to process the request.
- CORS headers aren't returned in the response.
The following command uses curl
to issue an OPTIONS request with information:
curl -X OPTIONS https://cors3.azurewebsites.net/api/TodoItems2/5 -i
Test CORS with [EnableCors] attribute and RequireCors method
Consider the following code which uses endpoint routing to enable CORS on a per-endpoint basis using RequireCors
:
Notice that only the /echo
endpoint is using the RequireCors
to allow cross-origin requests using the specified policy. The controllers below enable CORS using [EnableCors] attribute.
The following TodoItems1Controller
provides endpoints for testing:
Test the preceding code from the test page of the deployed sample.
The Delete [EnableCors] and GET [EnableCors] buttons succeed, because the endpoints have [EnableCors]
and respond to preflight requests. The other endpoints fails. The GET button fails, because the JavaScript sends:
headers: {
"Content-Type": "x-custom-header"
},
The following TodoItems2Controller
provides similar endpoints, but includes explicit code to respond to OPTIONS requests:
Test the preceding code from the test page of the deployed sample. In the Controller drop down list, select Preflight and then Set Controller. All the CORS calls to the TodoItems2Controller
endpoints succeed.
Additional resources
:::moniker-end