Question

I was reading on session state, application state, cookies, profiles.. and i wondered way would i adapt to my site.

I am building a forum, and i need to check whether the user is logged in or not. If he is not logged in, he wont have the choices a logged user has (e.g. pressing the reply/start thread/submit messages buttons). Basically, i thought to plant a cookie onto the users pc..but some browsers dont allow cookies, then i thought i would follow with a session state for users who dont allow cookies. I looked at the modes of the session configuration that session state has got, and there was one that i liked.. it was mode=”sqlServer”, but then i read that it has a disadvantage of being slow, and that i need to install a few more components to make it work.. in other words it looks cumbersome. I also looked at profile option, and i think it is a solution.. as soon as the user logs in, i can set his name. Something along those lines:

  protected void updateProfileButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
  {
    Profile.Name = nameTextBox.Text;
    Profile.Age = Int16.Parse(ageTextBox.Text);
  }

Whats the best option that i have got,? i am thinking of using cookies in a combination with profiling!!

Answer 1

If you just need to have a mechanism to allow a user to access additional functionality when they are logged in then have a look at ASP.NET Forms Authentication:

ASP.NET Forms Authentication Overview

Update:

In answer to the two questions in the comment below:

should i set this user identity to the
cookie? User.Identity.Name;

No, once you’ve authenticated the user ASP.NET’s Forms Authentication provider configures the cookie for you.

will it add an automatic password to
the web.config?

No it won’t, you need to write your own mechanism to store a user’s details which would typically be captured from a user registration page (e.g. username, password, name, age, etc) For example you can use a SQL or Access database or you could use the ASP.NET Membership provider:

Introduction to Membership