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Claims challenges, claims requests and client capabilities

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A claims challenge is a response sent from an API indicating that an access token sent by a client application has insufficient claims. This can be because the token doesn't satisfy the Conditional Access policies set for that API, or the access token has been revoked.

A claims request is made by the client application to redirect the user back to the identity provider to retrieve a new token with claims that satisfy the other requirements that weren't met.

Applications that use enhanced security features like Continuous Access Evaluation (CAE) and Conditional Access authentication context must be prepared to handle claims challenges.

Your application receives claims challenges from popular services like Microsoft Graph only if it declares its client capabilities in its calls to the service.

Claims challenge header format

The claims challenge is a directive as a www-authenticate header returned by an API when an access token presented to it isn't authorized, and a new access token with the right capabilities is required instead. The claims challenge comprises multiple parts: the HTTP status code of the response and the www-authenticate header, which itself has multiple parts and must contain a claims directive.

Here's an example:

HTTP 401; Unauthorized

www-authenticate =Bearer realm="", authorization_uri="https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/authorize", error="insufficient_claims", claims="eyJhY2Nlc3NfdG9rZW4iOnsiYWNycyI6eyJlc3NlbnRpYWwiOnRydWUsInZhbHVlIjoiY3AxIn19fQ=="

HTTP Status Code: Must be 401 Unauthorized.

www-authenticate response header containing:

Parameter Required/optional Description
Authentication type Required Must be Bearer.
Realm Optional The tenant ID or tenant domain name (for example, microsoft.com) being accessed. MUST be an empty string in the case where the authentication goes through the common endpoint.
authorization_uri Required The URI of the authorize endpoint where an interactive authentication can be performed if necessary. If specified in realm, the tenant information MUST be included in the authorization_uri. If realm is an empty string, the authorization_uri MUST be against the common endpoint.
error Required Must be "insufficient_claims" when a claims challenge should be generated.
claims Required when error is "insufficient_claims". A quoted string containing a base 64 encoded claims request. The claims request should request claims for the "access_token" at the top level of the JSON object. The value (claims requested) will be context-dependent and specified later in this document. For size reasons, relying party applications SHOULD minify the JSON before base 64 encoding. The raw JSON of the example above is {"access_token":{"acrs":{"essential":true,"value":"cp1"}}}.

The 401 response may contain more than one www-authenticate header. All fields in the preceding table must be contained within the same www-authenticate header. The www-authenticate header that contains the claims challenge can contain other fields. Fields in the header are unordered. According to RFC 7235, each parameter name must occur only once per authentication scheme challenge.

Claims request

When an application receives a claims challenge, it indicates that the prior access token is no longer considered valid. In this scenario, the application should clear the token from any local cache or user session. Then, it should redirect the signed-in user back to Microsoft Entra ID to retrieve a new token by using the OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow with a claims parameter that will satisfy the other requirements that weren't met.

Here's an example:

GET https://login.microsoftonline.com/aaaabbbb-0000-cccc-1111-dddd2222eeee/oauth2/v2.0/authorize
?client_id=00001111-aaaa-2222-bbbb-3333cccc4444
&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%contoso.com%3A44321%2Fsignin-oidc
&response_type=code
&scope=openid%20profile%20offline_access%20user.read%20Sites.Read.All
&response_mode=form_post
&login_hint=kalyan%ccontoso.onmicrosoft.com
&domain_hint=organizations
&claims=%7B%22access_token%22%3A%7B%22acrs%22%3A%7B%22essential%22%3Atrue%2C%22value%22%3A%22c1%22%7D%7D%7D

The claims challenge should be passed as a part of all calls to a Microsoft Entra /authorize endpoint until a token is successfully retrieved. After the token is retrieved, it's no longer needed.

To populate the claims parameter, the developer has to:

  1. Decode the base64 string received earlier.
  2. URL-encode the string and add again to the claims parameter.

Upon completion of this flow, the application receives an access token that has the other claims that prove that the user satisfied the conditions required.

Client capabilities

Client capabilities help a resources provider like a Web API detect whether the calling client application understands the claims challenge and can then customize its response accordingly. This capability might be useful when not all API clients are capable of handling claim challenges, and some earlier versions still expect a different response.

Some popular applications like Microsoft Graph send claims challenges only if the calling client app declares that it's capable of handling them by using client capabilities.

To avoid extra traffic or impacts to user experience, Microsoft Entra ID doesn't assume that your app can handle claims challenged unless you explicitly opt in. An application won't receive claims challenges (and won't be able to use the related features such as CAE tokens) unless it declares it's ready to handle them with the "cp1" capability.

How to communicate client capabilities to Microsoft Entra ID

The following example claims parameter shows how a client application communicates its capability to Microsoft Entra ID in an OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow.

Claims: {"access_token":{"xms_cc":{"values":["cp1"]}}}

Use the following code if you use the MSAL library:

_clientApp = PublicClientApplicationBuilder.Create(App.ClientId)
 .WithDefaultRedirectUri()
 .WithAuthority(authority)
 .WithClientCapabilities(new [] {"cp1"})
 .Build();

Those using Microsoft.Identity.Web can add the following code to the configuration file:

{
  "AzureAd": {
    "Instance": "https://login.microsoftonline.com/",
    "ClientId": 'Enter_the_Application_Id_Here' 
    "ClientCapabilities": [ "cp1" ],
    // remaining settings...
},

Refer to the following snippet to see a sample request to Microsoft Entra ID:

GET https://login.microsoftonline.com/aaaabbbb-0000-cccc-1111-dddd2222eeee/oauth2/v2.0/authorize
?client_id=00001111-aaaa-2222-bbbb-3333cccc4444
&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%contoso.com%3A44321%2Fsignin-oidc
&response_type=code
&scope=openid%20profile%20offline_access%20user.read%20Sites.Read.All
&response_mode=form_post
&login_hint=kalyan%ccontoso.onmicrosoft.com
&domain_hint=organizations
&claims=%7B%22access_token%22%3A%7B%22xms_cc%22%3A%7B%22values%22%3A%5B%22cp1%22%5D%7D%7D%7D

When you already have an existing payload for claims parameter, then you would add this to the existing set.

For example, if you already have the following response from a Condition Access authentication context operation;

{"access_token":{"acrs":{"essential":true,"value":"c25"}}}

You would prepend the client capability in the existing claims payload.

{"access_token":{"xms_cc":{"values":["cp1"]},"acrs":{"essential":true,"value":"c25"}}}

Receiving xms_cc claim in an access token

To receive information about whether client applications can handle claims challenges, an API implementer must request xms_cc as an optional claim in its application manifest.

The xms_cc claim with a value of "cp1" in the access token is the authoritative way to identify a client application is capable of handling a claims challenge. xms_cc is an optional claim that won't always be issued in the access token, even if the client sends a claims request with "xms_cc". In order for an access token to contain the xms_cc claim, the resource application (that is, the API implementer) must request xms_cc as an optional claim in its application manifest. When requested as an optional claim, xms_cc is added to the access token only if the client application sends xms_cc in the claims request. The value of the xms_cc claim request is included as the value of the xms_cc claim in the access token, if it's a known value. The only currently known value is cp1.

The values aren't case-sensitive and unordered. If more than one value is specified in the xms_cc claim request, those values will be a multi-valued collection as the value of the xms_cc claim.

Take the following request as an example:

{ "access_token": { "xms_cc":{"values":["cp1","foo", "bar"] } }}

This results in a claim of the following snippet in the access token, if cp1, foo and bar are known capabilities.

"xms_cc": ["cp1", "foo", "bar"]

After the xms_cc optional claim has been requested, the app's manifest changes to look like the following:

"optionalClaims":
{
    "accessToken": [
    {
        "additionalProperties": [],
        "essential": false,
        "name": "xms_cc",
        "source": null
    }],
    "idToken": [],
    "saml2Token": []
}

The API can then customize their responses based on whether the client is capable of handling claims challenge or not.

Claim ccClaim = context.User.FindAll(clientCapabilitiesClaim).FirstOrDefault(x => x.Type == "xms_cc");
if (ccClaim != null && ccClaim.Value == "cp1")
{
    // Return formatted claims challenge as this client understands this
}
else
{
    // Throw generic exception
    throw new UnauthorizedAccessException("The caller does not meet the authentication bar to carry our this operation. The service cannot allow this operation");
}

Code samples

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