I am attempting to sign a JWT with a private key and the RSASHA256 algorithm. In this post, we will discuss how we can accomplish this task in ASP.NET Core using JWT.

how to sign a JWT using RS256 with an RSA private key:

        using System;
        using System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt;
        using System.Security.Claims;
        using System.Security.Cryptography;
        using Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens;

        public class JwtHelper
        {
            public string GenerateJwtToken(string issuer, string audience, string subject, DateTime expiry, RSA privateKey)
            {
                // Create a signing key using the RSA private key
                var signingCredentials = new SigningCredentials(new RsaSecurityKey(privateKey), SecurityAlgorithms.RsaSha256);

                // Create claims for the JWT payload
                var claims = new[]
                {
                    new Claim(JwtRegisteredClaimNames.Sub, subject),
                    new Claim(JwtRegisteredClaimNames.Jti, Guid.NewGuid().ToString())
                };

                // Create the JWT token
                var token = new JwtSecurityToken(
                    issuer: issuer,
                    audience: audience,
                    claims: claims,
                    expires: expiry,
                    signingCredentials: signingCredentials
                );

                // Write the JWT token as a string
                var jwtTokenHandler = new JwtSecurityTokenHandler();
                return jwtTokenHandler.WriteToken(token);
            }
        }

        class Program
        {
            static void Main(string[] args)
            {
                // Generate RSA private key
                using (RSA privateKey = RSA.Create())
                {
                    // We should set other parameters of the RSA private key here, such as key size, etc.
                    // For simplicity, we omit these details in this example.

                    // Generate JWT token
                    JwtHelper jwtHelper = new JwtHelper();
                    string issuer = "quickpickdeal.com";
                    string audience = "quickpickdeal.com";
                    string subject = "[email protected]";
                    DateTime expiry = DateTime.UtcNow.AddHours(1); // Token expires in 1 hour

                    string jwtToken = jwtHelper.GenerateJwtToken(issuer, audience, subject, expiry, privateKey);

                    // Print the generated JWT token
                    Console.WriteLine($"Generated JWT token: {jwtToken}");
                }
            }
        }
    

So this code show you how to sign JWT tokens using RS256 with an RSA private key in C#.

  • We create a JwtHelper class with a method GenerateJwtToken to generate a JWT token and In the GenerateJwtToken method, we create a SigningCredentials object using the RSA private key and specify the signing algorithm as SecurityAlgorithms.RsaSha256.We create claims for the JWT payload, including the subject and a unique identifier (Jti).Using the claims and other parameters, we create a JwtSecurityToken.
  • Using JwtSecurityTokenHandler to write the JWT token as a string.


Create a JWT signature using a private key and the RS256 algorithm in .NET:

Here's how we can create a JWT signature using a private key and the RS256 algorithm in .NET:

        using System;
        using System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt;
        using System.Security.Claims;
        using System.Security.Cryptography;
        using Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens;

        public class JwtGenerator
        {
            public string GenerateJwtSignature(string issuer, string audience, string subject, DateTime expiry, RSA privateKey)
            {
                // Create a signing credentials object using the RSA private key and RS256 algorithm
                var signingCredentials = new SigningCredentials(new RsaSecurityKey(privateKey), SecurityAlgorithms.RsaSha256);

                // Create claims for the JWT payload
                var claims = new[]
                {
                    new Claim(JwtRegisteredClaimNames.Sub, subject),
                    new Claim(JwtRegisteredClaimNames.Jti, Guid.NewGuid().ToString())
                    // Add more claims as needed
                };

                // Create a JWT token
                var token = new JwtSecurityToken(
                    issuer: issuer,
                    audience: audience,
                    claims: claims,
                    expires: expiry,
                    signingCredentials: signingCredentials
                );

                // Write the JWT token as a string
                var jwtTokenHandler = new JwtSecurityTokenHandler();
                return jwtTokenHandler.WriteToken(token);
            }
        }

        class Program
        {
            static void Main(string[] args)
            {
                // Generate an RSA private key
                using (RSA privateKey = RSA.Create())
                {
                    // Generate a JWT token using the private key
                    JwtGenerator jwtGenerator = new JwtGenerator();
                    string issuer = "example.com";
                    string audience = "example.com";
                    string subject = "[email protected]";
                    DateTime expiry = DateTime.UtcNow.AddHours(1); // Token expires in 1 hour

                    string jwtSignature = jwtGenerator.GenerateJwtSignature(issuer, audience, subject, expiry, privateKey);

                    // Print the generated JWT signature
                    Console.WriteLine($"Generated JWT signature: {jwtSignature}");
                }
            }
        }
    

Create a JWT signature using a private key and the RS256 algorithm in .NET.