Article ID: 311495 - Last Review: April 19, 2007 - Revision: 3.9

How To Implement Role-Based Security with Forms-Based Authentication in Your ASP.NET Application by Using Visual C# .NET

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This article was previously published under Q311495

SUMMARY

This article describes how to implement role-based security in an ASP.NET application that implements forms-based authentication using Visual C# .NET

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Requirements

This article assumes that you have already implemented forms-based authentication on an ASP.NET application.

301240 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301240/EN-US/ ) How To Implement Forms-Based Authentication in Your ASP.NET Application Using C# .NET

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Assign the Roles to the Authenticating User

Because forms users usually are not Microsoft Windows users, they do not have any roles associated with them by default. Thus, you must attach the roles of the authenticating user to that user's identity so that you can implement the role-based security inside your code.

Use the sample code in this section to implement role-based security in your application. This sample code assigns pre-specified roles to the authenticating user. Depending how you store your user data, you can implement your own method to retrieve the roles for that authenticated user and attach those roles to the authenticating user's identity, which is illustrated in the sample code to follow.

Copy the following code in the Global.asax file in your existing application to assign the roles to the authenticating user in the Application_AuthenticateRequest event handler:

public void Application_AuthenticateRequest( Object src , EventArgs e )
{
   if (!(HttpContext.Current.User == null))
   {
      if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.AuthenticationType == "Forms" )
      {
      System.Web.Security.FormsIdentity id;
      id = (System.Web.Security.FormsIdentity)HttpContext.Current.User.Identity;
      String[] myRoles = new String[2];
      myRoles[0] = "Manager";
      myRoles[1] = "Admin";
      HttpContext.Current.User = new System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal(id,myRoles);
      }
   }
}

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Check the User Roles and Implement the Program Logic in Your .ASPX Pages

The following steps demonstrate how to implement and control the program logic based on the roles to which the authenticating user belongs.

Create a .aspx new page named Sample.aspx, and paste the following code:

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Web" %>

  <script runat=server>
    public void Page_Load() {
	if (User.IsInRole("Admin")){
		Response.Write ("You are an Administrator");}
	else {
		Response.Write ("You do not have any role assigned");}
    }

  </script>

Save Sample.aspx in your existing application. Browse to the page to test it.

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REFERENCES

For additional information about ASP.NET security features, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

306590 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306590/EN-US/ ) INFO: ASP.NET Security Overview

For more information about role-based security, refer to the following .NET Framework Software Development Kit (SDK) documentation:

Role-Based Security
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/52kd59t0(vs.71).aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/52kd59t0(vs.71).aspx)

The documentation and source code at the following MSDN Web site also contains information about role-based security:

IBuySpy Developer Solutions
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms978480.aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms978480.aspx)

Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information.

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