AWS SDK Version 3 for .NET
API Reference

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Container for the parameters to the InitiateAuth operation. Declares an authentication flow and initiates sign-in for a user in the Amazon Cognito user directory. Amazon Cognito might respond with an additional challenge or an AuthenticationResult that contains the outcome of a successful authentication. You can't sign in a user with a federated IdP with InitiateAuth. For more information, see Authentication.

Amazon Cognito doesn't evaluate Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies in requests for this API operation. For this operation, you can't use IAM credentials to authorize requests, and you can't grant IAM permissions in policies. For more information about authorization models in Amazon Cognito, see Using the Amazon Cognito user pools API and user pool endpoints.

This action might generate an SMS text message. Starting June 1, 2021, US telecom carriers require you to register an origination phone number before you can send SMS messages to US phone numbers. If you use SMS text messages in Amazon Cognito, you must register a phone number with Amazon Pinpoint. Amazon Cognito uses the registered number automatically. Otherwise, Amazon Cognito users who must receive SMS messages might not be able to sign up, activate their accounts, or sign in.

If you have never used SMS text messages with Amazon Cognito or any other Amazon Web Services service, Amazon Simple Notification Service might place your account in the SMS sandbox. In sandbox mode, you can send messages only to verified phone numbers. After you test your app while in the sandbox environment, you can move out of the sandbox and into production. For more information, see SMS message settings for Amazon Cognito user pools in the Amazon Cognito Developer Guide.

Inheritance Hierarchy

System.Object
  Amazon.Runtime.AmazonWebServiceRequest
    Amazon.CognitoIdentityProvider.AmazonCognitoIdentityProviderRequest
      Amazon.CognitoIdentityProvider.Model.InitiateAuthRequest

Namespace: Amazon.CognitoIdentityProvider.Model
Assembly: AWSSDK.CognitoIdentityProvider.dll
Version: 3.x.y.z

Syntax

C#
public class InitiateAuthRequest : AmazonCognitoIdentityProviderRequest
         IAmazonWebServiceRequest

The InitiateAuthRequest type exposes the following members

Constructors

NameDescription
Public Method InitiateAuthRequest()

Properties

NameTypeDescription
Public Property AnalyticsMetadata Amazon.CognitoIdentityProvider.Model.AnalyticsMetadataType

Gets and sets the property AnalyticsMetadata.

Information that supports analytics outcomes with Amazon Pinpoint, including the user's endpoint ID. The endpoint ID is a destination for Amazon Pinpoint push notifications, for example a device identifier, email address, or phone number.

Public Property AuthFlow Amazon.CognitoIdentityProvider.AuthFlowType

Gets and sets the property AuthFlow.

The authentication flow that you want to initiate. Each AuthFlow has linked AuthParameters that you must submit. The following are some example flows.

USER_AUTH

The entry point for choice-based authentication with passwords, one-time passwords, and WebAuthn authenticators. Request a preferred authentication type or review available authentication types. From the offered authentication types, select one in a challenge response and then authenticate with that method in an additional challenge response. To activate this setting, your user pool must be in the Essentials tier or higher.

USER_SRP_AUTH

Username-password authentication with the Secure Remote Password (SRP) protocol. For more information, see Use SRP password verification in custom authentication flow.

REFRESH_TOKEN_AUTH and REFRESH_TOKEN

Receive new ID and access tokens when you pass a REFRESH_TOKEN parameter with a valid refresh token as the value. For more information, see Using the refresh token.

CUSTOM_AUTH

Custom authentication with Lambda triggers. For more information, see Custom authentication challenge Lambda triggers.

USER_PASSWORD_AUTH

Client-side username-password authentication with the password sent directly in the request. For more information about client-side and server-side authentication, see SDK authorization models.

ADMIN_USER_PASSWORD_AUTH is a flow type of AdminInitiateAuth and isn't valid for InitiateAuth. ADMIN_NO_SRP_AUTH is a legacy server-side username-password flow and isn't valid for InitiateAuth.

Public Property AuthParameters System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary<System.String, System.String>

Gets and sets the property AuthParameters.

The authentication parameters. These are inputs corresponding to the AuthFlow that you're invoking.

The required values are specific to the InitiateAuthRequest$AuthFlow.

The following are some authentication flows and their parameters. Add a SECRET_HASH parameter if your app client has a client secret.

  • USER_AUTH: USERNAME (required), PREFERRED_CHALLENGE. If you don't provide a value for PREFERRED_CHALLENGE, Amazon Cognito responds with the AvailableChallenges parameter that specifies the available sign-in methods.

  • USER_SRP_AUTH: USERNAME (required), SRP_A (required), DEVICE_KEY.

  • USER_PASSWORD_AUTH: USERNAME (required), PASSWORD (required), DEVICE_KEY.

  • REFRESH_TOKEN_AUTH/REFRESH_TOKEN: REFRESH_TOKEN (required), DEVICE_KEY.

  • CUSTOM_AUTH: USERNAME (required), SECRET_HASH (if app client is configured with client secret), DEVICE_KEY. To start the authentication flow with password verification, include ChallengeName: SRP_A and SRP_A: (The SRP_A Value).

For more information about SECRET_HASH, see Computing secret hash values. For information about DEVICE_KEY, see Working with user devices in your user pool.

Public Property ClientId System.String

Gets and sets the property ClientId.

The ID of the app client that your user wants to sign in to.

Public Property ClientMetadata System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary<System.String, System.String>

Gets and sets the property ClientMetadata.

A map of custom key-value pairs that you can provide as input for certain custom workflows that this action triggers.

You create custom workflows by assigning Lambda functions to user pool triggers. When you send an InitiateAuth request, Amazon Cognito invokes the Lambda functions that are specified for various triggers. The ClientMetadata value is passed as input to the functions for only the following triggers.

  • Pre sign-up

  • Pre authentication

  • User migration

When Amazon Cognito invokes the functions for these triggers, it passes a JSON payload as input to the function. This payload contains a validationData attribute with the data that you assigned to the ClientMetadata parameter in your InitiateAuth request. In your function, validationData can contribute to operations that require data that isn't in the default payload.

InitiateAuth requests invokes the following triggers without ClientMetadata as input.

  • Post authentication

  • Custom message

  • Pre token generation

  • Create auth challenge

  • Define auth challenge

  • Custom email sender

  • Custom SMS sender

For more information, see Using Lambda triggers in the Amazon Cognito Developer Guide.

When you use the ClientMetadata parameter, note that Amazon Cognito won't do the following:

  • Store the ClientMetadata value. This data is available only to Lambda triggers that are assigned to a user pool to support custom workflows. If your user pool configuration doesn't include triggers, the ClientMetadata parameter serves no purpose.

  • Validate the ClientMetadata value.

  • Encrypt the ClientMetadata value. Don't send sensitive information in this parameter.

Public Property Session System.String

Gets and sets the property Session.

The optional session ID from a ConfirmSignUp API request. You can sign in a user directly from the sign-up process with the USER_AUTH authentication flow. When you pass the session ID to InitiateAuth, Amazon Cognito assumes the SMS or email message one-time verification password from ConfirmSignUp as the primary authentication factor. You're not required to submit this code a second time. This option is only valid for users who have confirmed their sign-up and are signing in for the first time within the authentication flow session duration of the session ID.

Public Property UserContextData Amazon.CognitoIdentityProvider.Model.UserContextDataType

Gets and sets the property UserContextData.

Contextual data about your user session like the device fingerprint, IP address, or location. Amazon Cognito threat protection evaluates the risk of an authentication event based on the context that your app generates and passes to Amazon Cognito when it makes API requests.

For more information, see Collecting data for threat protection in applications.

Examples

The following example signs in the user mytestuser with analytics data, client metadata, and user context data for advanced security.

Example username and password sign-in for a user who has TOTP MFA


var client = new AmazonCognitoIdentityProviderClient();
var response = client.InitiateAuth(new InitiateAuthRequest 
{
    AnalyticsMetadata = new AnalyticsMetadataType { AnalyticsEndpointId = "d70b2ba36a8c4dc5a04a0451a31a1e12" },
    AuthFlow = "USER_PASSWORD_AUTH",
    AuthParameters = new Dictionary<string, string> {
        { "PASSWORD", "This-is-my-test-99!" },
        { "SECRET_HASH", "oT5ZkS8ctnrhYeeGsGTvOzPhoc/Jd1cO5fueBWFVmp8=" },
        { "USERNAME", "mytestuser" }
    },
    ClientId = "1example23456789",
    ClientMetadata = new Dictionary<string, string> {
        { "MyTestKey", "MyTestValue" }
    },
    UserContextData = new UserContextDataType {
        EncodedData = "AmazonCognitoAdvancedSecurityData_object",
        IpAddress = "192.0.2.1"
    }
});

string challengeName = response.ChallengeName;
Dictionary<string, string> challengeParameters = response.ChallengeParameters;
string session = response.Session;

            

Version Information

.NET:
Supported in: 8.0 and newer, Core 3.1

.NET Standard:
Supported in: 2.0

.NET Framework:
Supported in: 4.5 and newer, 3.5