B2C Custom Policy error with client certificates

Question

I am using B2C custom policies to federate to the external Azure AD Identity Provider. I was successful before when federating with client secrets, but trying to switch to certificates now, and getting an error "No url encoding for asymmetric keys". Here is what I did as a Proof Of Concept:

1. Generated a new self-signed certificate in Azure keyvault
2. Exported it into the .pfx and .cer files.
3. In B2C created a Policy key and uploaded the .pfx certificate there
4. In custom policy referenced that policy key

<CryptographicKeys>
       <Key Id="client_secret" StorageReferenceId="B2C_1A_MyB2CPolicy" />
</CryptographicKeys>

5. In Azure AD app registration under Certificates and Secrets uploaded the .cer file (with public key)
6. Tried to connect using MSAL.js
7. Received a "server error" with correlation id, which in appinsights shows up as

     {
       "Key": "SendErrorTechnicalProfile",
       "Value": "OpenIdConnectProtocolProvider"
     },
     {
        "Key": "Exception",
        "Value": {
          "Kind": "Handled",
          "HResult": "80131500",
          "Message": "An invalid OAuth response was received: \"{0}\".",
          "Data": {
            "IsPolicySpecificError": false
          },
          "Exception": {
            "Kind": "Handled",
            "HResult": "80131515",
            "Message": "No url encoding for asymmetric keys",
            "Data": {}
          }
        }
      }

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to convert the certificates to another format before uploading? Perhaps .pem? The problem is, there is no documentation I could find on this anywhere.

Answer 1

Azure AD B2C can use client certificate to redeem authorization codes at the /token endpoint of a federated IdP.

See the reference for the OpenId Connect Technical profile on all supported options.

Based on Azure AD doc for certificate credential here and Metadata options available, in the OIDC Technical profile, use the following options:

• token_endpoint_auth_method: private_key_jwt
• token_signing_algorithm: RS256

In the cryptographic keys section, reference your certifcate that you uploaded into B2C Policy Keys:

• assertion_signing_key: B2C_1A_MyB2CPolicy

Remove the client_secret reference.