Question

I’m trying to authenticate users onto a MVC3 application using Active Directory (without login page), in addition to managing access to parts of the application based on the users groups. I’ve searched far and wide with no end to end example. I was hoping someone could assist. My Active Directory settings are: CN=Test User,OU=NETDOM,DC=NETLAB,DC=COM.

Thanks

Answer 1

Under your appSettings you should add

<add key="enableSimpleMembership" value="false" />
<add key="autoFormsAuthentication" value="false" />

and then under

<system.web>
<authentication mode="Windows" />
</system.web>

the first items under appSettings turns off the automatic redriection to the /account/login route. while the authenication node turns on Windows Auth in IIS.

so long as they are on the domain the server is on then this should work without having to implement any authentication

Edit
if you want to use the membership provider then add under the system.web node.

<membership defaultProvider="MyADMembershipProvider">
            <providers>
                <add name="MyADMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" connectionStringName="ConnectionStringFromConnectionSettings" attributeMapUsername="sAMAccountName" />
            </providers>
        </membership>

then all you would have to do is in the Global.asax add an event handler for

PostAuthenticateRequest

to check against AD.
be careful here as this event is fired for ALL requests on the server and could effect performance.