Create Identity In Simple Ways Using ASP.NET MVC 5

Create a Controller in the View page and enable Identity using an attribute with the help of OWIN middleware.

After adding the Controller, we will be adding the following code in the “Test” Controller.

Code before enabling the Identity.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace NewIdentity.Controllers
{
    public class TestController : Controller
    {
        // GET: Test
        public ActionResult Identity()
        {
            return Content("We are using Identity");
        }
        
        public ActionResult NonIdentity()
        {
            return Content("We are not using Identity");
        }
    }
}

It will not ask for any credentials while running the application using the following URL.

http://localhost:51868/Test/Identity

Because it does not use any attribute for enabling Identity, if you enable the Identity using an attribute, each time it will ask for the credentials. URL might differ for you based on your project Controller, View, and port number.

Code after enabling the Identity.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace NewIdentity.Controllers
{
    public class TestController : Controller
    {
        // GET: Test
        /// <summary>
        /// Identity In Action Result Level
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        [Authorize]
        public ActionResult Identity()
        {
            return Content("We are using Identity");
        }
        
        public ActionResult NonIdentiy()
        {
            return Content("We are not using Identity");
        }
    }
}

Using the “Authorize” attribute, one can enable the Identity. The above code explains how to enable Identity that enables Controller level or Action method level.

Identity in Controller Level

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace NewIdentity.Controllers
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Identity in Controller Level
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns></returns>
    [Authorize]
    public class TestController : Controller
    {
        // GET: Test
        public ActionResult Identity()
        {
            return Content("We are using Identity");
        }
        public ActionResult NonIdentiy()
        {
            return Content("We are not using Identity");
        }
    }
}

If you run the application, it will directly redirect to the login page because we have enabled the Identity. Now, run it using the “http://localhost:51868/Test/Identity” URL.

After entering your credentials, it will redirect to your corresponding View and you can see the final page.

If you do not need an identity for a particular Action method, we can disable it using the “AllowAnonymous” attribute. Now, run “http://localhost:51868/Test/NonIdentiy” URL does not redirect to the login page. It directly runs the given URL because we use the AllowAnonymous attribute.

Code For Anonymous

namespace NewIdentity.Controllers
{   
    [Authorize]
    public class TestController : Controller
    {
        // GET: Test
        public ActionResult Identity()
        {
            return Content("We are using Identity");
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Disable identity to particular action result
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        [AllowAnonymous]
        public ActionResult NonIdentity()
        {
            return Content("We are not using Identity");
        }
    }
} 

Database in Identity

When we create Identity in ASP.NET MVC, the database connection is created automatically and stores your credentials. We can see the database connection in “Web. config” at the connectionString tag.

Our db created a “.mdf” file in the App_Data folder. When we see the App_Data folder, we see no file. Go to Solution Explorer on the top of the right side, and click all files icon. After clicking the all files icon, we can see the “.mdf” file in App_Data.

See the screenshots below.

We can see all tables in the database after expanding the database folder. Go to the menu bar, select View, and click Server Explorer.

In Server Explorer, under the table folder, we can see all tables as well as View, Store Procedures, and other needed folders. The “AspNetUsers” table is the main table that stores our credentials.

Right-click on the AspNetUser table and click New Query, like the below screen.

Now, write a select query and run it in the query window. Here, we can see all the credentials.

Database Connection

View pages connected to the database using Entity framework. ”IdentityConfig.cs” is mainly for identity, it is located inside of “App_Start” in Solution Explorer. All database coding is placed in IdentityConfig.cs. It is an auto-generated code. Inside of a marked line, the code is for connecting to the entity framework.

Right-click on the ApplicationUser class and go to definition. Now, we can see the Web. config connection string name placed inside the ApplicationDbContext class. Here, we connect the database using the Web. config connection string.

Conclusion

This article helps to learn the basics of Identity in ASP.NET MVC.. The next part of the article will explain the role of Identity with users. I hope this article helps many developers.