Specifying password field to SimpleMembershipProvider

Question

I'm implementing SimpleMembershipProvider in a small MVC4 project, and I can already initialize the database connection using a customer-provided DB with the user and role tables already specified (those are called sp_person and sp_role).

The problem is, when I try to log in, the MVC app rejects my password with the typical "incorrect password" error message though I already know that it's the correct password. I suspect the problem is that SimpleMembershipProvider does not know where do I store the password (it's in the sp_person table, in the "ecampus_password" field) and that's why authentication fails.

How can I tell SimpleMembershipProvider where to look for the stored password?

Thanks in advance,

Léster

SimpleMembership comes with a default set of tables, did you changed them? — Guillermo Oramas R., Nov 20 '13 at 16:15
I haven't changed anything else, am I supposed to? Google gives me nothing. — Léster, Nov 20 '13 at 18:56
As far as I know SimpleMembership works with a few tables, but the main ones are UserProfile (you can edit this one, by default it has UserId and userName) and _Membership (it has the UserId and all the login related info about the user). Maybe what is happening is that your logon feature is going against _Membership, rather the one you think is supposed to go. I suggest to use this _Membership table to store the passwords and login related info. Let me know — Guillermo Oramas R., Nov 20 '13 at 19:22
Actually, one of the requirements is that I can not alter the database structure in any way. I can't add new tables or change the way it stores data. I'm forced to use those two tables for authentication. — Léster, Nov 20 '13 at 21:16

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 21 '13 at 10:59

Nevermind, I found that SimpleMembershipProvider is not the solution. In this case, I'm supposed to implement a custom provider.

Steps as follows:

Add an Entity Data Model to the project that consumes only the tables related to the auth scheme (in my case, importing only sp_person and sp_role).
Add System.Web.ApplicationServices as a reference to the project.
Add a new class to the project, point to System.Web.Security in a using statement and make the class inherit from MembershipProvider. MembershipProvider is an abstract class, so implement it when asked.
Add an object to the class of the type Entity Framework created for you when you added the data model (it's usually called <CONNECTION_NAME>Entities, you can change that when creating the model). Something like this:
```
public class MyMembershipProvider : MembershipProvider
{
    private MYCONNECTIONEntities db = new MYCONNECTIONEntities ();
}
```
Strictly, you might have to implement every property and method in the class, but for auth, you must implement ValidateUser(). Simply using a LINQ query to retrieve the user from your data model will do. Here's mine:
```
var list = from u in db.st_person
           where u.ecampus_login == username
           && u.person_password == password
           select u;
return list.Count() > 0;
```

In web.config, under the <authentication> element, add the new provider like this:

<membership defaultProvider="MyMembershipProvider">
  <providers>
    <clear />
    <add name="MyMembershipProvider" type="PROJECT_NAME.MyMembershipProvider"/>
  </providers>
</membership>

Compile and test.

Specifying password field to SimpleMembershipProvider

1 Answers1