Using ASP .NET Membership and Profile with MVC, how can I create a user and set it to HttpContext.Current.User?

Question

I implemented a custom Profile object in code as described by Joel here:

How to assign Profile values?

I can't get it to work when I'm creating a new user, however. When I do this:

Membership.CreateUser(userName, password);
Roles.AddUserToRole(userName, "MyRole");

the user is created and added to a role in the database, but HttpContext.Current.User is still empty, and Membership.GetUser() returns null, so this (from Joel's code) doesn't work:

static public AccountProfile CurrentUser
{
    get { return (AccountProfile)
                     (ProfileBase.Create(Membership.GetUser().UserName)); }
}

AccountProfile.CurrentUser.FullName = "Snoopy";

I've tried calling Membership.GetUser(userName) and setting Profile properties that way, but the set properties remain empty, and calling AccountProfile.CurrentUser(userName).Save() doesn't put anything in the database. I've also tried indicating that the user is valid & logged in, by calling Membership.ValidateUser, FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie, etc., but the current user is still null or anonymous (depending on the state of my browser cookies).

SOLVED (EDITED FURTHER, SEE BELOW): Based on Franci Penov's explanation and some more experimentation, I figured out the issue. Joel's code and the variations I tried will only work with an existing Profile. If no Profile exists, ProfileBase.Create(userName) will return a new empty object every time it's called; you can set properties, but they won't "stick" because a new instance is returned every time you access it. Setting HttpContext.Current.User to a new GenericPrincipal will give you a User object, but not a Profile object, and ProfileBase.Create(userName) and HttpContext.Current.Profile will still point to new, empty objects.

If you want to create a Profile for a newly-created User in the same request, you need to call HttpContext.Current.Profile.Initialize(userName, true). You can then populate the initialized profile and save it, and it will be accessible on future requests by name, so Joel's code will work. I am only using HttpContext.Current.Profile internally, when I need to create/access the Profile immediately upon creation. On any other requests, I use ProfileBase.Create(userName), and I've exposed only that version as public.

Note that Franci is correct: If you are willing to create the User (and Roles) and set it as Authenticated on the first round-trip, and ask the user to then log in, you will be able to access the Profile much more simply via Joel's code on the subsequent request. What threw me is that Roles is immediately accessible upon user creation without any initialization, but Profile is not.

My new AccountProfile code:

public static AccountProfile CurrentUser
{
    get
    {
        if (Membership.GetUser() != null)
            return ProfileBase.Create(Membership.GetUser().UserName) as AccountProfile;
        else
            return null;
    }
}

internal static AccountProfile NewUser
{
    get { return System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Profile as AccountProfile; }
}

New user creation:

MembershipUser user = Membership.CreateUser(userName, password);
Roles.AddUserToRole(userName, "MyBasicUserRole");
AccountProfile.NewUser.Initialize(userName, true);
AccountProfile.NewUser.FullName = "Snoopy";
AccountProfile.NewUser.Save();

Subsequent access:

if (Membership.ValidateUser(userName, password))
{
    string name = AccountProfile.CurrentUser.FullName;
}

Further thanks to Franci for explaining the Authentication life cycle - I'm calling FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie in my validation function, but I'm returning a bool to indicate success, because User.Identity.IsAuthenticated will not be true until the subsequent request.

REVISED: I'm an idiot. The above explanation works in the narrow case, but doesn't resolve the core problem: Calling CurrentUser returns a new instance of the object each time, whether it's an existing Profile or not. Because it's defined as a property, I wasn't thinking about this, and wrote:

AccountProfile.CurrentUser.FullName = "Snoopy";
AccountProfile.CurrentUser.OtherProperty = "ABC";
AccountProfile.CurrentUser.Save();

which (of course) doesn't work. It should be:

AccountProfile currentProfile = AccountProfile.CurrentUser;
currentProfile.FullName = "Snoopy";
currentProfile.OtherProperty = "ABC";
currentProfile.Save();

It's my own fault for completely overlooking this basic point, but I do think declaring CurrentUser as a property implies that it's an object that can be manipulated. Instead, it should be declared as GetCurrentUser().

Jezabelle

Answer 1

Creating a user just adds it to the list of users. However, this does not authenticate or authorize the new user for the current request. You also need to authenticate the user in the current request context or for subsequent requests.

Membership.ValidateUser will only validate the credentials, but it's not authenticating the user for the current or subsequent requests. FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie will set the authentication ticket in the response stream, so the next request will be authenticated, but it does not affect the state of the current request.

The easiest way to authenticate the user would be to call FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage (assuming you are using forms authentication in your app). However, this one would actually cause a new HTTP request, which will authenticate the user.

Alternatively, if you need to continue your logic for processing the current request, but want the user to be authenticated, you can create a GenericPrincipal, assign it the identity of the new user and set the HttpContext.User to that principal.

Autoroute

Impersonation usually implies Windows authentication, which requires a WindowsPrincipal. Impersonation can be done from security token for the impersonated user or from credentials. Given that the current context is not authenticated, chances are there's no way to get a security token for the user. Thus, the only choices is impersonating with credentials. It might be possible to construct a WindowsPrincipal with the proper identity by calling LogonUser (provided the code knows the credentials for the windows user). However, I have not tried this, so I can't vouch it'll necessarily work. – Autoroute

That's an incredibly helpful explanation, thank you. Creating a GenericPrincipal (from my FormsAuthenticationTicket) did allow me to set HttpContext.Current.User. However, I still can't set Profile values. If I use ProfileBase.Create(Membership.GetUser().UserName).SetPropertyValue, nothing happens - it doesn't throw an exception anymore, but the property remains empty. If I use HttpContext.Current.Profile.SetPropertyValue, it says that I cannot set properties on an anonymous profile, implying that these are different Profile objects that I somehow need to merge. – Jezabelle

Answer 2

You are going to run into problems with this approach if you enable anonymousIdentification. Rather than Membership.GetUser().UserName, I would suggest using HttpContext.Profile.UserName.

Like this...

private UserProfile _profile;
private UserProfile Profile
{
    get { return _profile ?? (_profile = (UserProfile)ProfileBase.Create(HttpContext.Profile.UserName)); }
}

Hat tip: SqlProfileProvider - can you use Profile.GetProfile() in a project?

Ruyter

Answer 3

First of all, thanks @Jeremy for sharing your findings. You helped me get going in the right direction. Secondly, sorry for bumping this old post. Hopefully this will help someone connect the dots.

The way I finally got this working was to use the following static method inside my profile class:

internal static void InitializeNewMerchant(string username, Merchant merchant)
{
    var profile = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Profile as MerchantProfile;
    profile.Initialize(username, true);
    profile.MerchantId = merchant.MerchantId;
    profile.Save();
}

Logue