Starting ASP.NET Forms Authentication

Question

I'm starting to learn ASP.NET Forms Authentication, and I'm looking for a good article to help me start.

I've heard before that ASP.NET Forms Authentication uses a load of database tables preceeded with aspnet_, however any examples I've found don't show this.

For example I think theres an aspnet_users table?

How can I generate these tables, and is this what I'm supposed to be doing?

Any tutorials I find just tell me about adding the authentication tag into the web.config.

Answer 1

aspnet_ tables are part of SQL membership Provider implementation. Forms authentication works on top of Membership Provider.

Here are some articles

• Use Forms Authentication with SQL Server in ASP.NET 2.
• Membership, Roles, and Profile

You can even roll out your own Membership Provider which uses your existing table.

The Examining ASP.NET's Membership, Roles, and Profile series is a good starting point. It covers all the security part of ASP>NET.

Answer 2

I would like to recommend the msdn articles :

• Forms Authentication Provider http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff647070.aspx
• Explained: Forms Authentication in ASP.NET 2.0 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9wff0kyh.aspx

here is the schema used :