Book Image

Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server

Book Image

Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server

Overview of this book

Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 is a dynamic web publishing system with which you can build websites quickly and cost-efficiently. MCMS provides the administration, authoring, and data management functionality, and you provide the website interface, logic, and workflow. Once your website is up and running, your content contributors can add and edit content on their own, without the need to work with developers or the IT department. First time developers of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 face a relatively steep learning curve. Not only are they expected to be conversant in the Microsoft .NET Framework, they are also required to be familiar with the concepts of MCMS 2002. Many beginners to MCMS start out by looking at the example site that ships with the product; tweaking it, dissecting it and turning it inside out using the obscure code comments as markers. However, when it comes to starting their own website from scratch, many are baffled ? where do they begin? This book exists to answer that question; teaching the essential concepts of MCMS 2002 in a clear, straightforward and practical manner. Containing answers to some of the most asked questions in developer newsgroups, this book is a treasure trove of tricks and tips for solving the problems faced by MCMS developers. This is a unique resource focused exclusively on the needs of developers using MCMS. It doesn?t waste time and pages on user or administrator level information that is well covered in other documentation. It?s a distillation of practical experience that developers need to get results, fast. The authors carefully structured example project complements and extends the knowledge gained from an initial look at the examples that ship with MCMS.
Table of Contents (28 chapters)
Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server
Credits
About the Authors
Introduction

Chapter 18. Implementing Forms Authentication

Windows authentication is perfect in intranet environments where everyone signs on to the website with the same credentials used to log into Windows. For sites meant for public viewing on the Internet, Windows authentication will not usually be appropriate. Visitors will be prompted for their user name and password and when they do not have an account in the specified domain (e.g. guest users), they won't be able to access content.

The good news is that there are other ways to authenticate a user. ASP.NET supports at least two alternatives. The first uses Microsoft Passport, which users may already use to authenticate against other websites. In order to implement Passport, you have to subscribe to its services, which can be too costly for a small website.

Another alternative is to use Forms authentication, which is the topic of this chapter. Users enter credentials into a form. The web application uses this information to decide whether or not...