How to Enable Cross-Origin Requests (CORS) in ASP.NET Core

Browser security prevents a web page located on a domain to make requests to another web page which is located on a different domain. This restriction is called the same-origin policy. This security feature prevents prevents malicious sites to read data from another websites.

For example suppose I have a web page called A.html in my website. It’s URL being:

https://www.yogihosting.com/A.html

Now page A.html has an AJAX code that tries to read the HTML source code of another page B.html which is located on a different domain say “asp.net”:

http://www.asp.net/B.html

Due to B.html located in a different domain, the page A.html will not be able to make AJAX request due to the restriction called same-origin policy.

The AJAX call will return the error message:

No ‘Access-Control-Allow-Origin’ header is present on the requested resource.

Thankfully there is Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) which is a W3C standard that allows browsers to relax the same-origin policy.

So if the website asp.net implements CORS then my website’s page – “A.html” can make AJAX request to B.html and read B’s HTML source code.

How Does CORS Work?

Once a website enables CORS, new HTTP headers are introduced which enable cross-origin requests. These HTTP headers are automatically set for cross-origin requests.

One important HTTP header is called Access-Control-Allow-Origin.

So when an external page or resource, makes requests to a resource on another Server or domain, then this server responds to the value for the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header.

Many times, this value will be *, meaning that the server will share the requested resources with every domain on the Internet i.e. allow all origins. Other times, the value of this header may be set to a particular domain (or list of domains), meaning that the server will share it’s resources only with the specific domain (or list of domains).

And in this way CORS works to relax the same-origin policy.

Enable CORS in ASP.NET Core

Follow the below 2 steps to enable CORS in your ASP.NET Core app:

• 1. Install the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors Nuget package.
• 2. Register CORS in the ConfigureService() method of Startup.cs. Next, enable CORS middleware in the Configure() method of Startup.cs.

Note: in .NET 6 or later versions, we need to perform 2nd step on Program.cs class.

Install CORS NuGet Package

To install Microsoft.AspNetCore.Corspackage, run the following command in the Package Manager Console window:

PM> Install-package Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors

Alternately, you can also install it by going to NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution in your Visual Studio. Then go to the ‘Browse’ tab and search CORS in the text box.

Register CORS and Enable CORS Middleware

For .NET 5 or earlier versions: We need to Register CORS as a service in the Startup.cs file’s ConfigureServices() method as shown below:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddCors();
    services.AddControllersWithViews();
}

Next we need to enable the CORS middleware in the Configure() method. See highlighted code lines given below:

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
    if (env.IsDevelopment())
    {
        app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
    }
    else
    {
        app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
        app.UseHsts();
    }

    app.UseHttpsRedirection();
    app.UseStaticFiles();
    app.UseRouting();

    // Shows UseCors with CorsPolicyBuilder.
    app.UseCors(builder =>
    {
        builder.AllowAnyOrigin()
               .AllowAnyMethod()
               .AllowAnyHeader();
    });

    app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
    {
        endpoints.MapControllerRoute(
            name: "default",
            pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
    });
}

For .NET 6 or later versions: The above code for .NET 6 or later version is added to Program class as shown below:

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddCors();

// Add services to the container.
builder.Services.AddControllersWithViews();

var app = builder.Build();

// Configure the HTTP request pipeline.
if (!app.Environment.IsDevelopment())
{
    app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
    // The default HSTS value is 30 days. You may want to change this for production scenarios, see https://aka.ms/aspnetcore-hsts.
    app.UseHsts();
}

app.UseHttpsRedirection();
app.UseStaticFiles();

app.UseRouting();

// Shows UseCors with CorsPolicyBuilder.
app.UseCors(builder =>
{
    builder.AllowAnyOrigin()
           .AllowAnyMethod()
           .AllowAnyHeader();
});

app.UseAuthorization();

app.MapControllerRoute(
    name: "default",
    pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");

app.Run();

Notice that we added the code line with the option AllowAnyOrigin to allow every domain to make CORS request:

app.UseCors(builder =>
{
    builder
    .AllowAnyOrigin()
    .AllowAnyMethod()
    .AllowAnyHeader();
});

We have also used other method which are described below:

• 1. AllowAnyMethod() – To allow all HTTP methods.
• 2. AllowAnyHeader() – To allow all request headers.
• 3. AllowCredentials() – the server must allow the credentials.

If you want to enable CORS for request made from 1 domain only, like https://www.yogihosting.com. In this case you have to change the above code to:

app.UseCors(builder =>
{
    builder
    .WithOrigins("https://www.yogihosting.com")
    .AllowAnyMethod()
    .AllowAnyHeader()
    .AllowCredentials();
});

You can even specify more than 1 domains in the form of an array like this:

app.UseCors(builder =>
{
    builder
    .WithOrigins(new string[] { "https://www.yogihosting.com", "https://example1.com", "https://example2.com" })
    .AllowAnyMethod()
    .AllowAnyHeader()
    .AllowCredentials();
});

Apply CORS policies per action or per controller

We can define one or more CORS policies where the CORS rules are added. Then we apply the CORS policy on a controller or action method. See the following example which defines a user-defined CORS policy named as MyPolicy.

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddCors(options =>
    {
        options.AddPolicy("MyPolicy",
            builder => builder.WithOrigins("https://www.yogihosting.com"));
    });

    services.AddControllersWithViews();
}

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
    if (env.IsDevelopment())
    {
        app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
    }
    else
    {
        app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
        app.UseHsts();
    }

    app.UseHttpsRedirection();

    // Shows UseCors with named policy.
    app.UseCors("MyPolicy");

    app.UseStaticFiles();

    app.UseRouting();

    app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
    {
        endpoints.MapControllerRoute(
            name: "default",
            pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
    });
}

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// Adding CORS Policy
builder.Services.AddCors(options =>
{
    options.AddPolicy("MyPolicy",
        builder => builder.WithOrigins("https://www.yogihosting.com"));
});

// Add services to the container.
builder.Services.AddControllersWithViews();

var app = builder.Build();

// Configure the HTTP request pipeline.
if (!app.Environment.IsDevelopment())
{
    app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
    // The default HSTS value is 30 days. You may want to change this for production scenarios, see https://aka.ms/aspnetcore-hsts.
    app.UseHsts();
}

app.UseHttpsRedirection();
app.UseStaticFiles();

app.UseRouting();

// Shows UseCors with named policy.
app.UseCors("MyPolicy");

app.UseAuthorization();

app.MapControllerRoute(
    name: "default",
    pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");

app.Run();

To select the policy, pass the name to the UseCors() method:

Now apply this CORS policy per action or per controller.

Per Action

To specify a CORS policy for a specific action, add the [EnableCors] attribute of Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors namespace to the action and specify the policy name:

[EnableCors("MyPolicy")]
public IEnumerable<string> Get()
{
    return new string[] { "value1", "value2" };
}

Per controller

[EnableCors("MyPolicy")]
public class HomeController : Controller 

To disable CORS for a controller or action, use the [DisableCors] attribute:

[DisableCors]
public string Get(int id)
{
    return "value";
}

The link to download the full source code of this tutorial is given below:

Download

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