include antiforgerytoken in ajax post ASP.NET MVC

Question

I am having trouble with the AntiForgeryToken with ajax. I'm using ASP.NET MVC 3. I tried the solution in jQuery Ajax calls and the Html.AntiForgeryToken(). Using that solution, the token is now being passed:

var data = { ... } // with token, key is '__RequestVerificationToken'

$.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        data: data,
        datatype: "json",
        traditional: true,
        contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
        url: myURL,
        success: function (response) {
            ...
        },
        error: function (response) {
            ...
        }
    });

When I remove the [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute just to see if the data (with the token) is being passed as parameters to the controller, I can see that they are being passed. But for some reason, the A required anti-forgery token was not supplied or was invalid. message still pops up when I put the attribute back.

Any ideas?

EDIT

The antiforgerytoken is being generated inside a form, but I'm not using a submit action to submit it. Instead, I'm just getting the token's value using jquery and then trying to ajax post that.

Here is the form that contains the token, and is located at the top master page:

<form id="__AjaxAntiForgeryForm" action="#" method="post">
    @Html.AntiForgeryToken()
</form>

Answer 1

I tried a lot of workarrounds and non of them worked for me. The exception was "The required anti-forgery form field "__RequestVerificationToken" .

What helped me out was to switch form .ajax to .post:

$.post(
    url,
    $(formId).serialize(),
    function (data) {
        $(formId).html(data);
    });

Answer 2

Another (less javascriptish) approach, that I did, goes something like this:

First, an Html helper

public static MvcHtmlString AntiForgeryTokenForAjaxPost(this HtmlHelper helper)
{
    var antiForgeryInputTag = helper.AntiForgeryToken().ToString();
    // Above gets the following: <input name="__RequestVerificationToken" type="hidden" value="PnQE7R0MIBBAzC7SqtVvwrJpGbRvPgzWHo5dSyoSaZoabRjf9pCyzjujYBU_qKDJmwIOiPRDwBV1TNVdXFVgzAvN9_l2yt9-nf4Owif0qIDz7WRAmydVPIm6_pmJAI--wvvFQO7g0VvoFArFtAR2v6Ch1wmXCZ89v0-lNOGZLZc1" />
    var removedStart = antiForgeryInputTag.Replace(@"<input name=""__RequestVerificationToken"" type=""hidden"" value=""", "");
    var tokenValue = removedStart.Replace(@""" />", "");
    if (antiForgeryInputTag == removedStart || removedStart == tokenValue)
        throw new InvalidOperationException("Oops! The Html.AntiForgeryToken() method seems to return something I did not expect.");
    return new MvcHtmlString(string.Format(@"{0}:""{1}""", "__RequestVerificationToken", tokenValue));
}

that will return a string

__RequestVerificationToken:"P5g2D8vRyE3aBn7qQKfVVVAsQc853s-naENvpUAPZLipuw0pa_ffBf9cINzFgIRPwsf7Ykjt46ttJy5ox5r3mzpqvmgNYdnKc1125jphQV0NnM5nGFtcXXqoY3RpusTH_WcHPzH4S4l1PmB8Uu7ubZBftqFdxCLC5n-xT0fHcAY1"

so we can use it like this

$(function () {
    $("#submit-list").click(function () {
        $.ajax({
            url: '@Url.Action("SortDataSourceLibraries")',
            data: { items: $(".sortable").sortable('toArray'), @Html.AntiForgeryTokenForAjaxPost() },
            type: 'post',
            traditional: true
        });
    });
});

And it seems to work!

Answer 3

In Asp.Net Core you can request the token directly, as documented:

@inject Microsoft.AspNetCore.Antiforgery.IAntiforgery Xsrf    
@functions{
    public string GetAntiXsrfRequestToken()
    {
        return Xsrf.GetAndStoreTokens(Context).RequestToken;
    }
}

And use it in javascript:

function DoSomething(id) {
    $.post("/something/todo/"+id,
               { "__RequestVerificationToken": '@GetAntiXsrfRequestToken()' });
}

You can add the recommended global filter, as documented:

services.AddMvc(options =>
{
    options.Filters.Add(new AutoValidateAntiforgeryTokenAttribute());
})

Answer 4

In Account controller:

    // POST: /Account/SendVerificationCodeSMS
    [HttpPost]
    [AllowAnonymous]
    [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
    public JsonResult SendVerificationCodeSMS(string PhoneNumber)
    {
        return Json(PhoneNumber);
    }

In View:

$.ajax(
{
    url: "/Account/SendVerificationCodeSMS",
    method: "POST",
    contentType: 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8',
    dataType: "json",
    data: {
        PhoneNumber: $('[name="PhoneNumber"]').val(),
        __RequestVerificationToken: $('[name="__RequestVerificationToken"]').val()
    },
    success: function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
        if (textStatus == "success") {
            alert(data);
            // Do something on page
        }
        else {
            // Do something on page
        }
    },
    error: function (jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown) {
        console.log(textStatus);
        console.log(jqXHR.status);
        console.log(jqXHR.statusText);
        console.log(jqXHR.responseText);
    }
});

It is important to set contentType to 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8' or just omit contentTypefrom the object ...