Integration with ASP.NET Membership Providers

Our software uses Forms Authentication, so it is very easy to achieve Single-Sign-On between your site and the forum.

There are 3 possible scenarios for user integration through the ASP.NET Membership Provider model:

1. You want APG vNext to connect to an existing membership provider
2. You want APG vNext to connect to your existing membership database (non-membership provider based).
3. You want to use the forum's membership database for managing members for your ASP.NET web site.

 

Scenario 1: You already have your own membership database + membership provider, and wish to integrate it with APG vNext.

Our software has built-in support for external (your own) ASP.NET Membership Provider. All you have to do is configure the APG vNext's web.config to connect with your membership provider.
 
With this option, you don't have to manually import existing users into APG vNext's database. APG vNext's built-in support for membership provider takes care of importing and authenticating through your membership provider automatically without you having to modify your existing code.
 
This is the most seamless way to integrate APG vNext with your own user database. Your users can change passwords and emails through APG vNext too.

Example:

If you're already using the SqlMembershipProvider provided by ASP.NET, you can plug it right into our software without any code change. Simply configure APG vNext's config files as follows:

1. Put your membership provider information into APG vNext's web.config file (both the membership);
   
2. In APG vNext's ~/config/sqlconnections.config file, add the connectionString for your membership provider;
3. In APG vNext's ~/config/appSettings.config file, set the EnableMembershipIntegration key under appSettings to true;
   

Once it's set up correctly, refer to this SSO guide.
 
Note: if your own membership provider doesn't store the user name in the forms authentication cookie (e.g. storing email instead), you will need an alternative method for SSO. See this custom forms authentication technique for info.
 

 

Scenario 2: You already have a membership database, but you don't have a membership provider built.

In this case, you need an alternative method to synchronize users between your own membership store and APG vNext membership table.
 
As you'll see under Scenario 3 (the next section), we have our own membership provider built for APG vNext's database. You can use our membership provider in your own registration page to import users into APG vNext's membership db.

For example, with our membership provider installed, you can use the standard provider method, Membership.CreateUser(), in your registration routine to insert new users directly into our forum db, OR you can call this method in a loop to import all existing users into APG vNext.

You can also call the MembershipUser.ChangePassword() method on your password changing form to submit the new password to our forum database (this may not be necessary because you can use Forms Authentication cookie to achieve single sign on).

Please refer to the scenario 3 below for more info on our own membership provider.
 
Alternatively, you can import users to APG vNext using the Fast Member Import feature available in the Admin control panel. You just supply a list of users (name, email, password) and the software will batch import users for you.
 

Scenario 3: You don't have a membership database yet and wish to use APG vNext's database for managing membership for your entire site.

In this case, you can use the JSON Membership / Role Provider we provide with the software. In other words, you can

1. Build a login page on your site so that when a user is logged in, he is logged into the forum as well - achieving Single Sign On
2. Build a registration page for your site and store users in vNext's database.
3. In addition, you can
   1. Delete users from your site
   2. Allows Users to change / reset password
   3. Update Users' Email
   4. Approve users / Unlock (un-ban) users
   5. Build member list
   6. Look for users using email / login with wildcard character (%) support
   7. Get number of online users

A sample application is provided to show you the above functions, so you won't have any issue using this provider. This JSON based membership provider doesn't have any dependency on vNext's code, making it very easy to install on your site.

NOTE: this JSON membership provider doesn't support Password Retrieval and Password Q & A because vNext doesn't provide such functionalities. In addition, passwords are stored in salted-hash format only.