Question

I’m using asp.net and trying to assign roles for a user with forms authentication like this:

    public ActionResult AdminLogin(string password, string username)
    {
        User _user = _us.GetUsers(username, password).FirstOrDefault();

        if (_user != null)
        {
            string _username = _user.Username;

            FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(_username, false);

            string[] _roles = _us.GetUserRoles(_username);


            HttpContext.User = new GenericPrincipal(HttpContext.User.Identity, _roles);


            return RedirectToAction("Index", "Admin");

When I debug HttpContext.User.Identity always is null, but _username and _roles contains the proper data. Howto fix this?

/M

Answer 1

Your action is setting the User IPrincipal for the current context. As soon as you redirect to your other action (and all subsequent requests) a new HttpContext is created with a null User IPrincipal.

What you could do is persist the information in the authentication cookie and then extract that data in the Application_AuthenticateRequest method in your Global.asax file and set the User property of the HttpContext there.

This answer contains more details and example code