Developing Custom ASP.NET Providers For Membership And Role Manager Stefan Schackow PRS404 Program Manager – Web Platform and Tools Microsoft Corporation

Agenda Provider Model Extensibility scenarios with code demos Projecting Membership via web services Role caching with SQL Server 2005 Virtualizing applications Integrating Membership with custom data

Provider Model Enable new functionality in a transparent fashion Enable extensibility for Web services Browser based “Atlas” clients Smart clients Application services as pluggable building blocks Decoupled via configuration Use structural classes for your own features

Provider Model Feature Lifecycle Feature config. Static feature class Provider instances

public class QuotationsConfiguration : ConfigurationSection { [ConfigurationProperty("providers")] [ConfigurationProperty("providers")] public ProviderSettingsCollection Providers public ProviderSettingsCollection Providers { get; get; } [ConfigurationProperty("defaultProvider", [ConfigurationProperty("defaultProvider", DefaultValue = "StaticQuotationProvider")] DefaultValue = "StaticQuotationProvider")] public string DefaultProvider public string DefaultProvider { get; get; set; set; }} Provider Model Feature Configuration

Provider Model Creating Provider Instances //Start with empty provider collection providerCollection = new QuotationsProviderCollection(); //Helper class converts configuration information into //concrete providers ProvidersHelper.InstantiateProviders( qc.Providers, //a ProviderSettingsCollection qc.Providers, //a ProviderSettingsCollection providerCollection, providerCollection, typeof(QuotationsProvider)); typeof(QuotationsProvider)); //Lock the provider collection providerCollection.SetReadOnly();

Writing A Provider-Based Feature

Projecting Membership Physical 3-tier deployments May not allow web server to connect directly to Sql tier “Atlas” and smart clients Clients can only communicate over Http Need app services to work across the Internet

Projecting Membership Design Issues Authenticating to the web service Not all methods should be public Serialization of MembershipUser Read-only properties don’t serialize WebMethod parameter constraints Collection types and [out] parameters Selecting from multiple providers Choosing a non-default provider

Projecting Membership 3-Tier Flow Web server Webservice provider Webservice server.asmx Membership wrapper SQL provider Application code

Projecting Membership Authenticated Flow Internet client Applicatio n Webservice server.asmx Membership wrapper SQL provider.asmx Formsuth wrapper “login” Returns forms ticket pass ticket w/ each request Validate ticket and roles

Projecting Membership With Web Services

Caching Role Data Role Manager can cache user roles: Cookie caching (not enabled by default) Per-request in RolePrincipal RolePrincipal caching Results in at least one call to GetRolesForUser Stored internally with HybridDictionary Cookie caching limited to 4K of data Option for persistent cookie

Caching Role Data Cache role data using SQL Server 2005 query notifications Data is cached until SQL notifies you Good for clients that cannot use cookies Can handle apps with hundreds of roles

Caching Role Data Query Notification Specifics Need to change “SET QUOTED IDENTIFIER” in ASP.NET SQL scripts to “ON” Then recompile stored procedures Custom provider must query ASP.NET tables directly Cannot create notifications against SQL views

Role Caching With SQL Server 2005

Virtualized Applications One physical ASP.NET application Multiple “virtual” applications Portal style applications DotNetNuke portal provisioning Self-registered forums and portals Sharepoint However providers are “Application-centric” Statically defined in configuration

Virtualized Applications Override ApplicationName property Determine virtual application context dynamically (e.g. IHttpModule) Retrieve it in the override Cautionary Notes! Prevent auth ticket re-use across apps Don’t accidentally map roles in one virtual app to a user in a different virtual app Turn off cookie caching for roles

Setting Application Context Dynamically

Integrating Custom Data Need to integrate existing data Don’t want to write a provider from scratch May need to link to your own data What can “safely” be referenced? How do you handle transactions? How do you pass extra data along?

Integrating Custom Data Custom Provider Design Issues Referential Integrity Foreign key to aspnet_Users table Use SQL views to lookup UserID Transactional Integrity Use the new ADO.NET 2.0 TransactionScope Custom Data Pass via HttpContext to CreateUser Extend MembershipUser for other cases

Integrating Membership w/ Custom Data

Summary Rewrite or enhance features Plug-in rich functionality independently from the presentation tier Project current features onto other platforms via web services Use the provider infrastructure for your own features

Community Resources “Atlas” application development PRS312: ASP.NET: Future Directions for Developing Rich Web Applications with Atlas (Part 1) (Wed 5pm) PRS420: ASP.NET: Future Directions for Developing Rich Web Applications with Atlas (Part 2) (Thursday 11:30AM) Ask The Experts Thursday night Drop by the PRS track lounge!

Community Resources Provider Links on the Web Access providers from Beta 1 Installs as a Visual Studio 2005 VSI template Includes full source for Membership, Role Manager, Profile and Web Parts Personalization providers Provider Toolkit Extensive 120 page whitepaper Sample providers for all provider based features Both will be available at

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.

Provider Model Appendix Patterns Strategy Provider base classes Factory Method System.Web.Configuration.ProvidersHelper Singleton Pattern Only one provider instance is instantiated Façade Feature classes like Membership, Roles, etc…

Provider Model Appendix Provider Class Definition What is the pluggable aspect for the feature? Configuration Feature configuration Provider-specific configuration Common entry point class Triggers feature initialization