Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET

Types of Authentication

ASP.NET enables three different authentication schemes: Windows, Passport, and Cookie authentication.

Windows Authentication

Windows authentication works in tandem with IIS authentication. The authentication is performed by IIS in one of three ways, called Basic, Digest, and Integrated Windows Authentication. The authenticated identity is then passed to the .NET Framework and used by ASP.NET. Windows authentication is the default authentication scheme used by ASP.NET. Listing 15.2 shows the security section of the web.config file to enable Windows authentication.

Listing 15.2. Using Windows Authentication

01: <authentication mode="Windows" /> 02: 03: <authorization> 04: <deny users="?" /> 05: </authorization> 06: 07: ...