I am working on a tradtional (ASMX) web service which is currently used via a private newtwork. So there is no authentication / authorization performed by this web service. We intend to put it on a public network. What is the best way of performing the authetication check on clients accessing it. I thought of a couple of options:
Creates a web service call which checks for the following: 1) Restricting by IP range 2) Use username and password 3) Use either of them based of user preference.
Once they pass the authentication then give the user a token which an be used in subsequent calls. And also host the service on SSL certificate.
I also read about WS-Security on MSDN how does it differ from what I am doing and is that going to be easier option for both server side changes and for clients to make appropriate changes?