title: Help with 2-part question on ASP.NET MVC and Custom Security Design
body: <p>I'm using ASP.NET MVC and I am trying to separate a lot of my logic. Eventually, this application will be pretty big. It's basically a SaaS app that I need to allow for different kinds of clients to access. I have a two part question; the first deals with my general design and the second deals with how to utilize in ASP.NET MVC</p>
  
  <p>Primarily, there will initially be an ASP.NET MVC "client" front-end and there will be a set of web-services for third parties to interact with (perhaps mobile, etc).</p>
  
  <p>I realize I could have the ASP.NET MVC app interact just through the Web Service but I think that is unnecessary overhead.</p>
  
  <p>So, I am creating an API that will essentially be a DLL that the Web App and the Web Services will utilize. The API consists of the main set of business logic and Data Transfer Objects, etc. (So, this includes methods like CreateCustomer, EditProduct, etc for example)</p>
  
  <p>Also, my permissions requirements are a little complicated. I can't really use a straight Roles system as I need to have some fine-grained permissions (but all permissions are positive rights). So, I don't think I can really use the ASP.NET Roles/Membership system or if I can it seems like I'd be doing more work than rolling my own. I've used Membership before and for this one I think I'd rather roll my own.</p>
  
  <p>Both the Web App and Web Services will need to keep security as a concern. So, my design is kind of like this:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>Each method in the API will need to verify the security of the caller</p></li>
  <li><p>In the Web App, each "page" ("action" in MVC speak) will also check the user's permissions (So, don't present the user with the "Add Customer" button if the user does not have that right but also whenever the API receives AddCustomer(), check the security too)</p></li>
  <li><p>I think the Web Service really needs the checking in the DLL because it may not always be used in some kind of pre-authenticated context (like using Session/Cookies in a Web App); also having the security checks in the API means I don't really HAVE TO check it in other places if I'm on a mobile (say iPhone) and don't want to do all kinds of checking on the client</p></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>However, in the Web App I think there will be some duplication of work since the Web App checks the user's security before presenting the user with options, which is ok, but I was thinking of a way to avoid this duplication by allowing the Web App to tell the API not check the security; while the Web Service would always want security to be verified</p>
  
  <p>Is this a good method? If not, what's better? If so, what's a good way of implementing this. I was thinking of doing this:</p>
  
  <p>In the API, I would have two functions for each action:</p>
  
  <pre><code>// Here, "Credential" objects are just something I made up
  public void AddCustomer(string customerName, Credential credential
                             , bool checkSecurity)
  {
    if(checkSecurity)
    {
      if(Has_Rights_To_Add_Customer(credential)) // made up for clarity
      {
        AddCustomer(customerName);
      }
      else
        // throw an exception or somehow present an error
    }
    else
      AddCustomer(customerName);
  }
  
  public void AddCustomer(string customerName)
  {
    // actual logic to add the customer into the DB or whatever
  
  
  
    //  Would it be good for this method to verify that the caller is the Web App
    //  through some method? 
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So, is this a good design or should I do something differently?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>My next question is that clearly it doesn't seem like I can really use [Authorize ...] for determining if a user has the permissions to do something. In fact, one action might depend on a variety of permissions and the View might hide or show certain options depending on the permission.
  What's the best way to do this? Should I have some kind of PermissionSet object that the user carries around throughout the Web App in Session or whatever and the MVC Action method would check if that user can use that Action and then the View will have some ViewData or whatever where it checks the various permissions to do Hide/Show?</p>