Question

I have a website: “https://blahblah.com”

To authenticate to it, I do this (which works fine):

NetworkCredential credentials = new NetworkCredential();
            credentials.UserName = AppVars.Username;
            credentials.Password = AppVars.Password;

            HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
            request.Credentials = credentials;
            //.....

But how do I go about just validating the username and password if I want to add a login functionality?

UPDATED CODE:

private void btnLogIn_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Properties.Settings.Default.Username = txtUserName.Text;
            Properties.Settings.Default.Password = txtPassword.Text;

            using (PrincipalContext pc = new PrincipalContext( ContextType.Domain,  AppVars.ixLibraryConnectionTestURL))
            {
                try
                {
                    bool isValid = false;
                    isValid = pc.ValidateCredentials(AppVars.Username, AppVars.Password);
                    if (isValid == true)
                    {
                        //just testing
                        MessageBox.Show("is valid");
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        //just testing
                        MessageBox.Show("is not valid");
                    }
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
                } 
            }    
        }

the domain name looks something like this: https://xxxxxx-services.zzz999.org/pqg_4/lib/api/sdo/rest/v1

Answer 1

Use: System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement namespace

// create a "principal context" - e.g. your domain (could be machine, too) 

using(PrincipalContext pc = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "YOURDOMAIN")) 
{     

// validate the credentials    
 bool isValid = pc.ValidateCredentials("myuser", "mypassword"); 
} 

You can read more about it here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.directoryservices.accountmanagement.aspx