Example of ASP.NET Identity using SQL Server

Question

I still only use the FormsAuthentication but I searched and did not find an example, even if minimal, in portuguese to talk about ASP.NET Identity for MVC.

I’m using ASP.NET MVC 5 and Entityframework 6.1, I’d like to learn about ASP.NET Identity but I’m having trouble understanding the MVC template with Individual User Account.

Could someone give an example basic (not to be wide and not to escape the scope of Sopt), from the MVC web template without authentication (No Authentication)?

Answer 1

This answer is the basics of having an ASP.NET MVC5 application using ASP.NET Identity with Individual User Accounts, as requested by the question. Therefore, I do not intend to add to the answer by talking about everything that ASP.NET Identity does. I will be able to talk more about this in a more specific question.

The most basic of applications

Initially the idea is to create a self-sufficient application with the minimum that an ASP.NET MVC5 application needs to have.

First Step: Create a Project in Visual Studio 2013

• In groups of templates, choose Web, then ASP.NET Web Application;
• On the project types screen, choose MVC. No other options are required:
• Visual Studio will create the project.

Second Step: Upgrade Solution Packages

Possibly Visual Studio will start a project with outdated packages, which are prone to bugs.

• Go to View > Other Windows > Package Manager Console:
• Typo Update-Package and Enter:
• Visual Studio will update all packages. You may need to restart Visual Studio.

Step Three: Testing

• Execute your solution by pressing F5;
• When the first screen appears, click on Register;
• Choose a username, password, and click Register;
• If a user is registered to you without errors, the application is working with Individual User Accounts:

Conclusions

Note that so far no database, connection or anything related to configuration has been mentioned. It is possible to repeat these steps in five minutes depending on the speed of your computer. Some observations are important here.

1. There is actually a database

The database is a file .mdf local, created to host the ASP.NET Identity data described above.

To see it, do the following:

• In the window Solution Explorer, click on the button Show All Files:

• Note that a directory called App_Data, with a hidden file inside. Running double click on it, another window will appear detailing the file:

• Expand the item DefaultConnection that appeared in the new window. Also expand item Tables. You can see all the tables that ASP.NET Identity creates for the project.

2. It is possible to migrate the database to SQL Server Express

Before performing this step, make sure that SQL Server 2012 Express is installed on your machine.

First, note that the ConnectionString of your file web.config points to that already mentioned local file. For example:

<connectionStrings>
    <add name="DefaultConnection" connectionString="Data Source=(LocalDb)\v11.0;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\aspnet-TesteMaroto-20140518034350.mdf;Initial Catalog=aspnet-TesteMaroto-20140518034350;Integrated Security=True" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

So it doesn’t make much sense to create a migration this way. So first we need to point to DefaultConnection for the installed SQL Server Express database.

My suggestion:

<connectionStrings>
    <!-- add name="DefaultConnection" connectionString="Data Source=(LocalDb)\v11.0;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\aspnet-TesteMaroto-20140518034350.mdf;Initial Catalog=aspnet-TesteMaroto-20140518034350;Integrated Security=True" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" / -->
    <add name="DefaultConnection" connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=TesteMaroto.Models.TesteMarotoContext;Integrated Security=True" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

Now we need to create a Migration for the bank. This can be done again by Package Manager Console, typing the following:

PM> Enable-Migrations

But when I typed that, I got the following message:

Migrations have already been enabled in project 'Testemaroto'. To overwrite the existing Migrations Configuration, use the -Force Parameter.

I mean, we already have Migrations activated. For those who know well Migrations, just use the following command:

PM> Add-Migration Inicial

Visual Studio will create a file, exactly with the tables we saw in the local file. To effect the changes in SQL Server Express, simply run the command:

PM> Update-Database

And that’s it! Try running your website again, and then check the data in your SQL Server Express.

Answer 2

I will post what I got and as it is, I will increase.

Authentication by ASP.NET

A long time ago, the ASP.NET supports two basic types of authentication: authentication Windows and authentication of forms.
Form authentication is an approach that has been widely adopted. For each access to a protected resource, the app ensures that the request includes a valid authentication cookie. It’s simple and works.

The Ombudsman for Association (Membershipprovider)

In 2005, with the launch of ASP.NET 2.0, to Microsoft introduced directly into the structure an architecture based on the provider and the membership provider. Instead of recreating the authentication scheme every time, you could simply generate the internal system association and replace only the functions you want to change.

The ASP.NET presents a standard association provider that relies on a particular database schema. However, you can easily write your own membership provider to basically target a different database, usually an existing user database.

Over time, several people who repeatedly attempted to create a custom membership provider began to complain about the detailing of the interface. In fact, the association provider presents itself in the form of a hereditary base class, Membershipprovider, which includes more than 30 members marked as abstract. This means that for any new membership provider you wished to create, there were at least 30 members to be replaced. Which is even worse, you didn’t really need a lot of them most of the time. There was need for a simpler architecture of association.

The Simple Association Ombudsman (Simple Membership Provider), with class Extendedmembershipprovider

To Microsoft presented another option with the Visual Studio 2010 SP1: to API simple association. Originally available on Webmatrix and on Web Pages, the simple membership API has become a very popular way to manage authentication, especially on ASP.NET MVC.

Simple association allows you to work with any data repository you have and requires only that you indicate which columns in the table have the user name and user ID function.
The main difference from the classical association API is a significantly shorter list of parameters for any methods. In addition, you gain much more freedom with regard to association storage scheme.

The ASP.NET Identity

It came with Visual Studio 2013 and ASP.NET 5.
The ASP.NET Identity, is based on two main blocks: the authentication manager and the storage manager. In the ASP.NET Identity, authentication manager uses the class form Usermanager. This class basically provides a front for users to log in and out. The storage manager is an instance of the class Userstore.

I will follow with an example based on a project ASP.NET Web Application with the template MVC authentication-free (No Authentication). That is, I will follow from scratch in the implementation of ASP.NET Identity in the application.

First I needed to add install the package Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.Entityframework to the project (for example I will not implement the layers in projects Class Libraries separate), which in turn installed other packages such as itself Entityframework and the Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.Core.

With this I have been able to create my class that will represent the user:

using Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework;

namespace ASPNETIdentity.Example.Models
{
    public class Usuario : IdentityUser { }
}

The user class can surely be extended.

Basically, the database context of ASP.NET Identity deals with the persistence of a certain type of user. The user type should implement the Iuser interface or just inherit from Identityuser.

The user type should implement the interface IUser or just inherit from IdentityUser.
Nothing at first needs to be implemented because the class IdentityUser already possesses much of the properties and methods required.

public class IdentityUser : IUser
{
    public IdentityUser();
    public IdentityUser(string userName);

    public virtual ICollection<IdentityUserClaim> Claims { get; }
    public virtual string Id { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<IdentityUserLogin> Logins { get; }
    public virtual string PasswordHash { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<IdentityUserRole> Roles { get; }
    public virtual string SecurityStamp { get; set; }
    public virtual string UserName { get; set; }
}

This example was copied from the web, probably a version before the Entityframewor 6.1. I’m using the Entityframework 6.1 and in it the class IdentityUser is like this:

public class IdentityUser<TKey, TLogin, TRole, TClaim> : IUser<TKey>
    where TLogin : Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework.IdentityUserLogin<TKey>
    where TRole : Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework.IdentityUserRole<TKey>
    where TClaim : Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework.IdentityUserClaim<TKey>
{
    public IdentityUser();
    public virtual int AccessFailedCount { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<TClaim> Claims { get; }
    public virtual string Email { get; set; }
    public virtual bool EmailConfirmed { get; set; }
    public virtual TKey Id { get; set; }
    public virtual bool LockoutEnabled { get; set; }
    public virtual DateTime? LockoutEndDateUtc { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<TLogin> Logins { get; }
    public virtual string PasswordHash { get; set; }
    public virtual string PhoneNumber { get; set; }
    public virtual bool PhoneNumberConfirmed { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<TRole> Roles { get; }
    public virtual string SecurityStamp { get; set; }
    public virtual bool TwoFactorEnabled { get; set; }
    public virtual string UserName { get; set; }
}

With my template/domain ready, which is just the class Usuario, I can already create my database context.

using Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework;

namespace ASPNETIdentity.Example.Repository
{
    public class AuthenticationContext : IdentityDbContext<Models.Usuario>
    {
        public AuthenticationContext() :
            base("Data Source=(local); Initial Catalog=IdExample; Integrated Security=True")
        { }
    }
}

After that I enabled the Migrations and it was already possible to create the database and data.

Then I created my class Controller for Usuario.

using Microsoft.AspNet.Identity;
using Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace ASPNETIdentity.Example.Controllers
{
    public class UsuarioController : Controller
    {
        public UserManager<Models.Usuario> UserManager { get; private set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// Constructor
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="manager">The UserManager</param>
        public UsuarioController(UserManager<Models.Usuario> manager)
        {
            UserManager = manager;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Constructor
        /// </summary>
        public UsuarioController()
            : this(new UserManager<Models.Usuario>(
                new UserStore<Models.Usuario>(new Repository.AuthenticationContext())
                )) { }
    }
}

I’m starting to read about Desing Patterns now, but this one looks a little bit like the pattern Estrategy.

I’m gonna stick around!
Maybe I’ll come back later implementing a little more, now on how to work with the Usuariocontroller.
But still the example of usage can be found in the template MVC with the Individual User Account. The verification of access permissions can be done in the rest of the application with the AuthorizeAttribute.

Corrections and improvements are welcome.
Better answers even more!!

Source: MSDN