This article aims to discuss some of the web-based user login systems that are available to .NET developers, and aims to provide some clarity. In my view there are three approaches that can be followed to developing a web-based user login system for .NET:
- Write a custom solution
- Use existing ASP.NET Membership and Roles
- Use OpenID
Writing a custom solution
I think its easy thinking I can write my own custom login system, right? I mean what are the things I must consider for writing my own custom login system. I must consider that users will each have an unique login and that users will be grouped into roles. Thats as far as basic structure goes. But how do you maintain a user’s login session for example, or when do you consider the session over? I have also seen systems that store user passwords in clear text, which means your system MUST use some sort of hashing or encrypting of passwords. There is a lot involved in writing a custom user login system, a lot more than meets the eye.
Use existing ASP.NET Membership and Roles
The ASP.NET Membership and Roles ships with .NET 2.0, and is implemented as an API in code.
Use OpenID
Stackoverflow uses it!
