Tag Archives: Authentication

Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins…

Scenario

You are trying to register an application at SharePoint site with appregnew.aspx page and you are getting an error or notification message “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to create an Azure Access Control (ACS) principal“.

Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn't allow site collection admins to create an Azure Access Control (ACS) principal. Please contact your SharePoint tenant administrator

You are trying to provide ACS-based permissions for an application to SharePoint site with appinv.aspx page and you are getting “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to update app permissions. Please contact your SharePoint administrator.”

Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn't allow site collection admins to update app permissions. Please contact your SharePoint tenant administrator

You can still view and even delete your apps permissions from /_layouts/15/appprincipals.aspx page:

Reason

This is due to a recent update to Microsoft 365 (tenant governance security measures enhancement MC660075) implemented by Microsoft in Aug/Sep 2023. According to the update, only tenant administrators can create or update ACS service principal by default.

The root cause for this is that the Microsoft is pushing developers out of that legacy ACS-based SharePoint Apps-only service principals towards Azure-registered applications with Sites.Selected API permissions as they are more secure etc.

Key differences ASC vs Sites.Selected are:

ACS-based SharePoint app/permissions	Apps registered in Azure with Sites.Selected API permissions
support authentication with client secret only, secret is valid for 1 year exactly	support authentication with client secret and certificate, custom expiration time
support granular access to SharePoint at the site-level e.g. to site collection or web or a specific list	support only access to entire site collection (but Microsoft is working on granular access)
support only classic SharePoint REST API and CSOM	support both – classic SharePoint REST API and CSOM and Microsoft Graph API
app id (client id) is created via appregnew.aspx at a specific SharePoint site by site collection administrator	app id (client id) is created in Azure portal, API Sites.Selected permissions are configured via Azure portal and require tenant admin consent
permissions for the app to a site are provided at the site by site collection administrator via appinv.aspx page	permissions for the App to to a specific SharePoint site are provided by SharePoint admin with PowerShell script or Graph API calls

Solution #1 – switch to Sites.Selected

Register an application in Azure (via Azure portal GUI, PowerShell script or your company’s specific helpdesk/servicedesk request)
Update the app so both – MS Graph API Sites.Selected and SharePoint Sites.Selected permissions are configured and
API permissions must be consented – so you’d seek/request your tenant admin consent
Obtain and upload client certificate (recommended) or generate client secret
Request access for the app to a specific SharePoint site (your SharePoint service admin should be able to do that)
Validate your app has access to the target SharePoint site with PowerShell
Secure your certificate and/or secret

If you are hosting your application in Azure – consider using managed identity.

In some cases Sites.Selected permissions are not enough to get access to SharePoint (example – Azure data Factory).

Solution #2 – admin to register/update an ACS app

Notice how Microsoft explains it in MC660075 in Message Center “site collection admin will be unable to register app or update app permissions through above pages unless authorized explicitly by the SharePoint tenant admin” and “With this update site owners will not be able to register/update apps unless the tenant admin explicitly allows it.”

Based on that explanation we might think that there must be an option for tenant admin to register an app or to allow registering specific app not changing the entire default behavior back…

But there was no such option (!) in the middle of October 2023, when this feature was enabled at all tenants. Even having a SharePoint admin or tenant admin permissions – if you tried to register an app with AppRegNew.aspx – you got the same error message “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to…”.

As of today (Nov 6, 2023) it seems like Microsoft has implemented it! E.g. now SharePoint or tenant admin is able to register an app with AppRegNew.aspx or update it with AppInv.aspx at any specific site collection.

So, if ACS-based permissions are required for app here you go:

activate your SharePoint service/tenant admin role
ensure you are also target site collection administrator
navigate to “https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite/_layouts/15/appinv.aspx” and provide
- Azure registered app (client) Id for lookup
- localhost as app domain
- https://localhost as redirect url
- Permission Request XML – depending on permissions you need, e.g. for full app access to entire site collection:

<AppPermissionRequests AllowAppOnlyPolicy="true">  
   <AppPermissionRequest Scope="http://sharepoint/content/sitecollection" 
    Right="FullControl" />
</AppPermissionRequests>

Solution #3 – step back (not recommended)

Surely you can switch back this new default behavior that prevents site collection admin to register/update apps at SharePoint. This is done with PowerShell command

Set-SPOTenant -SiteOwnerManageLegacyServicePrincipalEnabled $true

To run this command – you’d need to be a SharePoint service/tenant admin.

But this will be a setback on your path to improving m365 tenant safety, as after that you’ll have a service principals out of control again. So this solution is not recommended.

In case you really need an ACS-based service principal – there is Solution number 2

Full text of Microsoft’s MC660075 message

(Updated) SharePoint admin control for App registration / update

Tag
MAJOR UPDATE ADMIN IMPACT FEATURE UPDATE

Message Summary
Updated August 30, 2023: We have updated the content below for clarity. Thank you for your patience.

This is an enhancement to the security measures for administrative governance that modifies the default procedures for SharePoint app registration via AppRegNew.aspx page and permission updates via AppInv.aspx page. Following the implementation of this change, site collection admin will be unable to register app or update app permissions through above pages unless authorized explicitly by the SharePoint tenant admin.

Upon attempting to register an application on AppRegnew.aspx page, a notification will be displayed stating “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to create an Azure Access Control (ACS) principal. Please contact your SharePoint tenant administrator.”

Similarly, upon attempting to update app permissions on AppInv.aspx page, a notification will be displayed stating “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to update app permissions. Please contact your SharePoint tenant administrator.”

Kindly note that app registration and permission update via Microsoft Azure portal are not impacted by this change.

When this will happen:

The rollout process is scheduled to commence in late August and is expected to conclude in mid-September.

How this will affect your organization:

With this update site owners will not be able to register/update apps unless the tenant admin explicitly allows it.

To modify the default behavior, the tenant administrator must execute the following shell command to explicitly establish the flag as TRUE, thereby superseding the default value of FALSE. The service principal can only be created or updated by the tenant administrator by default. However, when the flag is set to TRUE, both the SharePoint tenant admin and site collection admin will be able to create or update the service principal through SharePoint.

The shell command is: Set-SPOTenant -SiteOwnerManageLegacyServicePrincipalEnabled $true

Note: The property ‘SiteOwnerManageLegacyServicePrincipalEnabled’ becomes visible in tenant settings after SharePoint Online Management shell is updated to 16.0.23710.12000 or a later version. But before this rollout, the value will always be TRUE even explicitly set to FALSE. It will only automatically be switched to FALSE as the default value after the rollout is launched.

What you need to do to prepare:

No proactive measures are required to prepare for this change. Nevertheless, it is advisable to inform your users of this modification and update any relevant documentation as necessary.

Sites.Selected API permissions for SharePoint access

2 Replies

Sites.Selected permissions are needed for the non-interactive application to get access to a specific SharePoint site.

Steps to get access to SharePoint site with Sites.Selected:

1. Register an application in Azure (via Azure portal GUI, PowerShell script or helpdesk/servicedesk request)

2. Update the app so both – MS Graph API Sites.Selected and SharePoint Sites.Selected application API permissions are configured.

Provide or request tenant admin consent for your API permissions. So fillally your aap registration should look like:

3. Obtain and upload client certificate (recommended) or generate client secret

Notice your app client id and tenant id under Overview page:

At this moment, having tenant id, app (client) id and client secret – you should be able to authenticate against Microsoft 365 tenant with app-only authentication path.

But having Sites.Selected API permissions configured for app does not mean app has access to any SharePoint site. Access for the app to specific sites is provided by SharePoint team using PowerShell script or Graph API calls. That leads us to the next step.

4. Request access for the app to a specific SharePoint site (your SharePoint service admin should be able to do that via PowerShell script or Graph API calls )
Here is the Graph API

5. Validate your app has access to the target SharePoint site with PowerShell:
here is the code

6. Secure your certificate and/or secret

Consider using vault to keep certificate/secret. If you host your application in Azure – consider using managed identity.

ACS-based permissions are going to be deprecated soon:
Your SharePoint admin doesn’t allow site owners to create/update ACS principal ⋆ Vladilen Microsoft 365 engineer

SharePoint AppRegNew.aspx and AppInv.aspx

Connecting to SharePoint Online programmatically: Secret vs Certificate

1 Reply

Update: Sites.Selected API MS Graph permissions was introduced by Microsoft in 2021. It was a good move towards site-level development, but still developers were limited with only what MS Graph API provides for SharePoint dev.
So devs had to use AppInv.aspx at site level to provide ACS permissions to their apps to be able to use SharePoint CSOM and REST APIs.
Recently Microsoft introduced Sites.Selected SharePoint API permissions for registered Azure Apps! So now devs should be fully happy without ACS-based permissions.

Scenario

You have an application that needs access to Microsoft 365 SharePoint Online site/list/documents. Application is running without interaction with users – e.g. unattended, as daemon job.

There are two options you can authenticate to Microsoft 365 – with the secret or with the certificate. Authenticating with certificate is considered more secure.

Questions

What happens if SharePoint-Apps only principal is disabled
(i.e. ‘set-spotenant -DisableCustomAppAuthentication $true’ )?
Why I’m getting 401 error when authenticating to SPO?
Why I’m getting 403 error when authenticating to SPO with secret?
What permissions to I need to work with SPO?

Findings

Note: we will use PowerShell 7.2 and PnP.PowerShell 1.9 to illustrate it.

Disabled SharePoint-Apps only principal

If SharePoint-Apps only principal is disabled in your tenant
(i.e. ‘Get-PnPTenant | select DisableCustomAppAuthentication’ returns $true ), then the only way you work with SPO from code is:

an App registered in Azure
API permissions provided via Azure (MS Graph, SharePoint)
Certificate is used

In all other cases (even your Connect-PnPOnline command complete successfully) – you will be getting error 401 (unauthorized) when trying Get-PnPTenant or Get-PnPTenantSite or Get-PnPSite

Enabled SharePoint-Apps only principal

If SharePoint-Apps only principals are enabled in your tenant
(i.e. ‘Get-PnPTenant | select DisableCustomAppAuthentication’ returns $false ), then you have two options to work with SPO from code:

Azure App with a secret (Client Id + Client Secret) and permissions to SharePoint provided via SharePoint ( AppInv.aspx )
Azure App with a certificate (Client Id + Certificate) and permissions provided via Azure (Microsoft Graph and/or SharePoint)

Error 401 while accessing SharePoint Online with PnP

(Get-PnPTenant, Get-PnPTenantSite)

Connect to SharePoint Online and MS Graph Interactively with Client App and MSAL token

1 Reply

Scenario

You have got a Microsoft 365 subscription with SharePoint Online. You use PowerShell, PnP.PowerShell module and MS Graph API to work with SharePoint under current user’s credential. So you need to authenticate to SharePoint Online via Connect-PnPOnline and to Microsoft Graph API interactively on behalf of a user.

Problem

Unfortunately, both “Connect-PnPOnline -Interactive -Url <siteUrl>” or “Connect-PnPOnline -UseWebLogin -Url <siteUrl>” might fail with something like “Need admin approval”, “App needs permission to access resources in your organization that only an admin can grant. Please ask an admin to grant permission to this app before you can use it.” or similar

Solution

register an Azure App. Choose “single tenant”
configure authentication blade:
– add platform – “Mobile and Desktop app”
– select “https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/nativeclient”
– add custom Redirect URI: “http://localhost”
configure API permissions blade:
– add delegated permissions you need (refer to specific API you’ll use)
e.g. Microsoft Graph Sites.FullControl.All and SharePoint AllSites.FullControl
use the following code samples

PnP.PowerShell

$siteUrl = "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/teams/myTeamsSite"
$appId = "" # Client Id
Connect-PnPOnline -ClientId $appId -Url $siteUrl -Interactive
Get-PnPSite

A pop-up window will appear to authenticate interactively. If you are already authenticated with another credentials (or single-sigh-on) – an interactive window might pop up and disappear – that prevents you enter your other id.
To ensure Connect-PnPOnline prompts you for your credentials – use ” -ForceAuthentication” option.

If you are a SharePoint tenant admin – you can connect to a tenant with:

$orgName = "yourTenantPrefix" 
$adminUrl = "https://$orgName-admin.sharepoint.com" 
$appId = "" # Client Id 
$connection = Connect-PnPOnline -ClientId $appId -Url $adminUrl -Interactive -ReturnConnection # -ForceAuthentication 
$connection

Microsoft Graph API

Use MSAL.PS module to get an msal token then use token in Microsoft graph-based requests:

$tenantId = ""
$clientid = ""
$url = ""
$token = Get-MsalToken -ClientId $clientid -TenantId $tenantId -Interactive

By default token expires in ~ 1 hour. But you can refresh it silently.
This helps you in long-running PowerShell scripts that takes hours to complete.
So you can include something like this in the loop:

if ($token.ExpiresOn.LocalDateTime -lt $(get-date).AddMinutes(10)) {    
  $token = Get-MsalToken -ClientId $clientid -TenantId $tenantId -ForceRefresh -Silent    
  Write-Host "Token will expire on:" $token.ExpiresOn.LocalDateTime
}

Application permissions

Somehow using Connect-PnPOnline with AccessToken option did not work if the token was acquired with MSAL.PS interactively. But it did work when you get msal.ps token unattended (using App credentials). So…

If you can get an Application (non Delegated) permissions to your azure-registerd-app,
you can use msal token to connect to site with PnP

=========================

NB: For delegated permissions, the effective permissions of your app are the intersection of the delegated permissions the app has been granted (via consent) and the privileges of the currently signed-in user. Your app can never have more privileges than the signed-in user.

Connect-PnPOnline with a certificate stored in Azure Key Vault

Scenario

You run some PnP PowerShell code unattended e.g. daemon/service app, background job – under application permissions – with no user interaction.
Your app needs to connect to SharePoint and/or Microsoft Graph API. Your organization require authentication with a certificate (no secrets). You want certificate stored securely in Azure Key Vault.

Solution (Step-by-step process)

Obtain a certificate (create a self-signed or request trusted)
In Azure where you have Microsoft 365 SharePoint tenant
1. Create a new Registered App in Azure; save App (client) id, Directory (Tenant) Id
2. Configure App: add MS Graph and SharePoint API application (not delegated) permissions
3. Upload the certificate to the app under “Certificates & secrets”
In Azure where you have paid subscription (could be same or different)
1. Create an Azure Key Vault
2. Upload certificate to the Key Vault manually (with GUI)
While you develop/debug your custom daemon application at your local machine
1. Provide permissions to the Key Vault via Access Control and Access Policies to your personal account
2. Connect to Azure (the one where your Key Vault is) running Connect-AzAccount
  – so your app can get a Certificate to authenticate to SharePoint Online
For your application deployed to Azure (e.g. Azure Function App )
1. Turn On managed identity (Your Function App -> Identity -> Status:On) and Save; notice an Object (Principal) Id just created
2. Provide for your managed identity principal Id permissions to the Key Vault via Key Vault Access Policies, so when your daemon app is running in the cloud – it could go to the key Vault and retrieve Certificate

Here is the sample PowerShell code to get certificate from Azure Key Vault and Connect to SharePoint with PnP (Connect-PnPOnline):

# ensure you use PowerShell 7
$PSVersionTable

# connect to your Azure subscription
Connect-AzAccount -Subscription "<subscription id>" -Tenant "<tenant id>"
Get-AzSubscription | fl
Get-AzContext

# Specify Key Vault Name and Certificate Name
$VaultName = "<azure key vault name>"
$certName = "certificate name as it stored in key vault"

# Get certificate stored in KeyVault (Yes, get it as SECRET)
$secret = Get-AzKeyVaultSecret -VaultName $vaultName -Name $certName
$secretValueText = ($secret.SecretValue | ConvertFrom-SecureString -AsPlainText )

# connect to PnP
$tenant = "contoso.onmicrosoft.com" # or tenant Id
$siteUrl = "https://contoso.sharepoint.com"
$clientID = "<App (client) Id>" # Azure Registered App with the same certificate and API permissions configured
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $siteUrl -ClientId $clientID -Tenant $tenant -CertificateBase64Encoded $secretValueText

Get-PnPSite

The same PowerShell code in GitHub: Connect-PnPOnline-with-certificate.ps1

References: