Recognising user by their Network login

15 Dec 2006 10:04 AM

Ant

Hi,

I am looking at developing web form application that is accessed through a
windows Network (win2k3 server).

I want the application to a) be able to login from the application or b) be
recognised as their login if they got to the web form by a link on the
intranet. Either way, the web form needs to know who the user is to be able
to customse their experience.

Is their an object which holds this information (User name & password) which
I can use to authenitcate or identify the user?

I have never done this before so excuse my ignorance...

Thanks very much for any ideas in advance

Ant

15 Dec 2006 6:05 PM

Andy

Windows authentication schemes don't expose the login ID or the
password to anybody. Instead, they depend on the user to prove their
identity (by supplying correct credentials) and respond by creating a
token that represents an authenticated user.

A server such as IIS (rather than your code) uses the presence of the
token to figure out whether to load, run, and give access to a
particular program. If your code has a call to an external secured
service (ie webservice or website), it has to supply the credentials
(either as default - the windows login, or hard coded - loginID and
password) for it to be granted access by the server that runs it. This
can be done by:

someservice.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials

Active Directory also holds "user properties" for its accounts which I
believe could be accessed via the token. But, you will need to have
active directory installed for this.

Andy

16 Dec 2006 1:20 AM

Ant

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the information. I think I can work with that. I can use
WindowsIdentity for part of the solution but for the rest I will probably
have to familiarise myself with what you've suggested here.

Thanks very much.

Show quoteHide quote

"Andy" wrote:

> Windows authentication schemes don't expose the login ID or the
> password to anybody. Instead, they depend on the user to prove their
> identity (by supplying correct credentials) and respond by creating a
> token that represents an authenticated user.
>
> A server such as IIS (rather than your code) uses the presence of the
> token to figure out whether to load, run, and give access to a
> particular program. If your code has a call to an external secured
> service (ie webservice or website), it has to supply the credentials
> (either as default - the windows login, or hard coded - loginID and
> password) for it to be granted access by the server that runs it. This
> can be done by:
>
> someservice.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials
>
>
> Active Directory also holds "user properties" for its accounts which I
> believe could be accessed via the token. But, you will need to have
> active directory installed for this.
>
> Andy
>
>

17 Dec 2006 6:10 PM

Dominick Baier

you can get the name of the current authenticated user from Page or Context.User.Identity.Name

-----
Dominick Baier (http://www.leastprivilege.com)

Show quoteHide quote

> Hi,
>
> I am looking at developing web form application that is accessed
> through a windows Network (win2k3 server).
>
> I want the application to a) be able to login from the application or
> b) be recognised as their login if they got to the web form by a link
> on the intranet. Either way, the web form needs to know who the user
> is to be able to customse their experience.
>
> Is their an object which holds this information (User name & password)
> which I can use to authenitcate or identify the user?
>
> I have never done this before so excuse my ignorance...
>
> Thanks very much for any ideas in advance
>
> Ant
>