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AS2 app documentation

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Setting up the Azure App Registration

Create an Azure App Registration to handle authentication of the web app and permissions in relation to other Azure resources such as KeyVault.

  1. Go to the Azure portal and search for App Registrations.

  2. Create a new app registration. Select a name and set the desired account type.

  3. Leave the redirect URL empty for now and create the app registration.

  4. On the overview page, note information such as the Client Id and Tenant Id. These are needed later.

  5. Go to Expose an API and select Add a scope. Confirm the application ID URL and add a scope.

  6. Note the Application ID URI at the top. This is needed later.

Setting up KeyVault

KeyVault stores the following secrets and certificates for use by the app:

  • The public key received from the AS2 partner, needed to encrypt and verify data.

  • The certificate owned by the app, which contains the private key needed to sign and decrypt the data.

  • The Azure storage access key for storing the data.

Generate certificates and secrets

  1. Create a KeyVault resource.

  2. Go to Certificates and generate a certificate with default options, filling in the name and the subject (for example, CN=). This also creates a secret with the same name as the certificate. That secret represents the private key.

    Note

    The generated secret is hidden from the KeyVault secret list but remains accessible.

  3. Go to Secrets and generate a secret called receiverpublickey. Paste the public key from the certificate sent by the AS2 partner.

  4. Create another secret for the storage account access key called storagekey. Enter the storage account access key here.

    Note

    Setting up Azure storage is not covered on this page. See: Azure Storage Account setup.

Allow access from the app

The following steps allow the app to access the KeyVault secrets.

  1. Go to Access Policies in the KeyVault menu. Select Add Access Policy.

  2. Select the Get and List permissions under Secret Permissions.

  3. In Principal, find the app registration created earlier.

  4. Select Add.

Setting up App Configuration

The following steps create an app configuration resource with configuration values for the web app.

  1. In the Azure Portal, search for App Configurations. Create an app configuration.

  2. Go to Configuration Explorer in the App Configuration menu. This contains all configuration values.

Each configuration value is prefixed by the application ID — a logical name determined in the appsettings of the web app itself. In this case, assume that the application ID is AS2WEBAPP. Generate the following configuration, either manually or by updating the JSON file in the resources folder with values and uploading it using the import functionality in the portal App Configuration menu.

Key

Allowed Values

Required

Default Value

Description

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:CompressData

True/False

No

False

Whether data should be compressed before sending to the AS2 Partner.

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:EncryptData

True/False

No

False

Whether data should be encrypted before sending to the AS2 Partner.

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:FromPartner

Yes

Forwarded as a request header to the AS2 Partner.

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:OwnedPrivateKey

Key Vault Reference

Yes

The private key generated. Set this up as a Key Vault reference from the Azure portal, not from the JSON file.

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:PartnerPublicKey

Key Vault Reference

Yes

The partner's public key. Set this up as a Key Vault reference from the Azure portal, not from the JSON file.

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:SignAlgorithm

Valid signing algorithm (for example, SHA1)

No

SHA1

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:SignData

True/False

No

False

Whether data should be signed before sending to the AS2 Partner.

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:ToPartner

Yes

Forwarded as a request header to the AS2 Partner.

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:CertificatePassword

No

Used if the owned certificate was created outside of Azure using a password.

AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:CertificateExpiryWarningDays

No

30

If the owned certificate or the partner certificate expires within the number of days set here, a warning appears on the config page (landing page).

AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:AS2Version

(for example, 1.2)

Yes

The version sent as a request header to the AS2 Partner.

AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:ContentTransferEncoding

(for example, Binary)

No

Binary

Sent as a request header to the AS2 Partner.

AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:DispositionNotificationOptions

Yes

Sent as a request header to the AS2 Partner.

AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:DispositionNotificationTo

Yes

Sent as a request header to the AS2 Partner.

AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:Endpoint

Yes

The URL of the AS2 Partner to which data is sent.

AS2WEBAPP:Storage:Account

Yes

The storage account name.

AS2WEBAPP:Storage:Directory

Yes

The storage account directory.

AS2WEBAPP:Storage:FileExtension

(for example, xml)

Yes

The extension of the stored files in Azure Storage.

AS2WEBAPP:Storage:Key

Key Vault Reference

Yes

The access key to Azure Storage. Set this up as a Key Vault reference from the Azure portal, not from the JSON file.

AS2WEBAPP:Storage:Share

Yes

The share of the Azure Storage account.

{
    "AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:CompressData": "False",
    "AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:EncryptData": "True",
    "AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:FromPartner": "",
    "AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:OwnedPrivateKey": "",
    "AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:PartnerPublicKey": "",
    "AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:SignAlgorithm": "SHA1",
    "AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:SignData": "True",
    "AS2WEBAPP:As2Setup:ToPartner": "",
    "AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:AS2Version": "1.2",
    "AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:ContentTransferEncoding": "Binary",
    "AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:DispositionNotificationOptions": "signed-receipt-protocol=optional,pkcs7-signature;signed-receipt-micalg=optional,sha1",
    "AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:DispositionNotificationTo": "",
    "AS2WEBAPP:RequestHeaders:Endpoint": "",
    "AS2WEBAPP:Storage:Account": "",
    "AS2WEBAPP:Storage:Directory": "",
    "AS2WEBAPP:Storage:FileExtension": "xml",
    "AS2WEBAPP:Storage:Key": "",
    "AS2WEBAPP:Storage:Share": ""
}

Setting up the Azure Web App

  1. Search for App Services in the Azure Portal.

  2. Create an app service targeting .net6 and Windows.

  3. After creating the resource, go to Authentication in the app service menu.

  4. Add an identity provider by selecting the app registration created earlier.

  5. Select Allow Anonymous Access. This is needed to receive data from the partner.

  6. Go to Configuration in the app service menu.

  7. Add the following settings:

    Key

    Value

    AZURE_CLIENT_ID

    The client ID of the app registration created earlier.

    AZURE_TENANT_ID

    The tenant ID of the app registration created earlier.

    AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET

    A secret key generated in the app registration Certificates & Secrets menu.

  1. Go to the app registration created earlier and to the Authentication menu.

  2. Select Add a platform and select Web.

  3. Add a redirect URL with value https:///signin-oidc.

  4. Make sure ID Tokens is checked.

Deploying the web app

Deploy the web app directly from Visual Studio using web deploy, or via zip deploy using the KUDU portal from the app service in the Azure portal (Advanced > Go).

Before deploying, make sure the following settings exist in appsettings.json. You can override these using the Configuration section in the app service in the Azure portal.

"AzureAd": {
    "Instance": "https://login.microsoftonline.com/",
    "Domain": "",
    "TenantId": "",
    "ClientId": "",
    "CallbackPath": "/signin-oidc",
    "Scopes": "/.default",
    "AllowWebApiToBeAuthorizedByACL": true
  },
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "AppConfig": ""
  },
  "ApplicationSetup": {
    "ApplicationId": "" 
  },

Calling the Send Method

Call the send method of the web app to start sending data to the AS2 partner. Send the content as plain text or as a Base64 string.

Endpoint: /api/as2/senddata

Method: POST

ContentType: JSON

Example:

{
    "encoding": "Binary",
    "documentContent":"PHJvb3Q+dGVzdCAyPC9yb290Pg==",
    "filename": "test.xml",
    "documentContentFormat": "Base64String"
}

Content fields

Field

Required

Comments

Default Value

encoding

Yes

Parsed into Mimekit enum ContentEncoding

Binary

documentContent

Yes

The actual content

filename

Yes

Passed forward to the AS2 Partner

documentContentFormat

No

PlainText or Base64String. If the value is not plain text, the document content is first decoded, then processed.

PlainText

Headers

Headers are optional. Anywhere Mobility Solutions headers to send forward to the AS2 partner must be prefixed by AS2-. For example, header AS2-Message-ID is forwarded to the AS2 partner as Message-ID.