Connecting to Azure SQL using Service Principal in NodeJS, but token is rejected

Question

I am having trouble getting my NodeJS application to connect to an Azure SQL Database using the Service Principal. However, when I try to do the same thing with a C# Snippet, it works fine. What I have noticed is that the tokens returned by the auth on both languages is a bit different, and if I take the correct token from C# and hard code it into NodeJS, my SQL Connection now succeeds.

I am first using ms-rest-azure to perform my authentication, and providing my clientId, tenantId and clientSecret. This returns back a valid credential, from which I am extracting the accessToken.

Then, I am using tedious to try to connect to the Azure SQL at *.database.windows.net and providing the accessToken value in the configuration.

I just get Login failed for user '<token-identified principal>'

What am I doing wrong in the ms-rest-azure login to give me a token that is rejected by Azure SQL? One thing I saw is that the working token has an audience of database.windows.net, where-as the one from ms-rest-azure is management.core.windows.net.

I've been stuck for a few days, if anybody has any clues here that would be awesome. The documentation on ms-rest-azure seems pretty non-existent and just gives you the runaround to Azure Sales pages.

const msRestAzure = require('ms-rest-azure');
const { reject } = require('async');


let clientSecret = "xxx";
let serverName = "xxx.database.windows.net";
let databaseName = "xxx";
let clientId = "xxx";
let tenantId = "xxx";

azureCredentials = msRestAzure.loginWithServicePrincipalSecret(clientId, clientSecret, tenantId, function(err, credentials) {
    if (err) return console.log(err);
    credentials.getToken((err, results) => {
        if(err) return reject(err);
        
        let accessToken = results.accessToken;

        var Connection = require('tedious').Connection;
        var Request = require('tedious').Request;

        var config = {
            server: serverName,
            authentication: {
                type: 'azure-active-directory-access-token',
                options: {
                    token: accessToken
                }
            }
            ,options: {
                debug: {
                packet: true,
                data: true,
                payload: true,
                token: false,
                log: true
                },
                database: databaseName,
                encrypt: true
            }  
        };

        var connection = new Connection(config);

        connection.connect();

        connection.on('connect', function(err) {
            if(err) {
                console.log(err);
            }
            executeStatement();
        }
        );

        connection.on('debug', function(text) {
            console.log(text);
        }
        );

        function executeStatement() {
        request = new Request("select * from Text", function(err, rowCount) {
            if (err) {
            console.log(err);
            } else {
            console.log(rowCount + ' rows');
            }

            connection.close();
        });

        request.on('row', function(columns) {
            columns.forEach(function(column) {
            if (column.value === null) {
                console.log('NULL');
            } else {
                console.log(column.value);
            }
            });
        });

        request.on('done', function(rowCount, more) {
            console.log(rowCount + ' rows returned');
        });

        connection.execSql(request);
        }
    });   
})

Answer 1

when we use the certificates in the package ms-rest-azure to get token, In default, the token's audience is https://management.core.windows.net/, it just can be used to call Azure rest api. If we want to use Azure AD token to connect sql, the token's audience should be be https://database.windows.net/. So we should update the code used to get token as

msrestAzure.loginWithServicePrincipalSecret(
    clientId,
    clientSecret,
    tenantId,
    {
      tokenAudience: "https://database.windows.net/",
    },

For example

1. Create A service principal

az login
az ad sp create-for-rbac -n 'MyApp' --skip-assignment

2. Configure SQL Database

a. Use your Azure Sql AD admin to connect Azure SQL vai SSMS

b. Add the service principal to the database you need use

create user [<Azure_AD_principal_name>] from external provider
ALTER ROLE db_owner ADD MEMBER [<Azure_AD_principal_name>]
     

3. code

var msrestAzure = require("ms-rest-azure");
var { Connection, Request } = require("tedious");

let clientSecret = "xxx";
let serverName = "xxx.database.windows.net";
let databaseName = "xxx";
let clientId = "xxx";
let tenantId = "xxx";

async function getConnect() {
  // way for Azure Service Principal
  let databaseCredentials = await msrestAzure.loginWithServicePrincipalSecret(
    clientId,
    clientSecret,
    tenantId,
    {
      tokenAudience: "https://database.windows.net/",
    },
  );

  // getting access token
  let databaseAccessToken = await new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    databaseCredentials.getToken((err, results) => {
      if (err) return reject(err);
      resolve(results.accessToken);
    });
  });
  var config = {
    server: serverName,
    authentication: {
      type: "azure-active-directory-access-token",
      options: {
        token: databaseAccessToken,
      },
    },
    options: {
      debug: {
        packet: true,
        data: true,
        payload: true,
        token: false,
        log: true,
      },
      database: databaseName,
      encrypt: true,
    },
  };

  var connection = new Connection(config);
  connection.connect();
  connection.on("connect", function (err) {
    if (err) {
      console.log(err);
    }
    executeStatement(connection);
  });

  connection.on("debug", function (text) {
    console.log(text);
  });
}
function executeStatement(connection) {
  request = new Request("select * from CSVTest", function (err, rowCount) {
    if (err) {
      console.log(err);
    } else {
      console.log(rowCount + " rows");
    }

    connection.close();
  });

  request.on("row", function (columns) {
    columns.forEach(function (column) {
      if (column.value === null) {
        console.log("NULL");
      } else {
        console.log(column.value);
      }
    });
  });

  request.on("done", function (rowCount, more) {
    console.log(rowCount + " rows returned");
  });

  connection.execSql(request);
}

getConnect()
  .then(() => {
    console.log("run successfully");
  })
  .catch((err) => {
    console.log(err);
  });

For more details, please refer to here