Build Your Own ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site Using C# & VB, Second Edition

At this point, if you experimented with the auto-generated ASPNETDB database,

you can delete the two database files, aspnetdb.mdf and aspnetdb_log.ldf,

from your application’s App_Data folder.

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If you’re curious, open the Dorknozzle database using the tool of your choice to

see the new tables that have been created—they’re shown in Figure 13.9. You’ll

notice your database now has 11 new tables whose names start with aspnet.

Figure 13.9. Membership tables in Dorknozzle

Using the ASP.NET Web Site Configuration Tool

After making the configuration changes we mentioned earlier, run the ASP.NET

Web Site Configuration Tool and click the Security tab again. If you look into

the App_Data folder, you’ll notice that the tool did not create the ASPNETDB

database. Instead, it’s using the Dorknozzle database.

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It’s interesting to note that if your application isn’t using the ASPNETDB database, you’re free to

simply delete its files. This is possible because, as explained earlier, ASPNETDB is a User Instance

database, the files of which are opened and read only when needed.

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Chapter 13: Security and User Authentication

Before you start to add users and roles, it’s worth taking a look around. While

you’re viewing the Security tab, click the Select authentication type link. You’ll see

two options:

From the Internet

You would normally have to select this option to enable forms authentication,

but since you have already selected that type of authentication by editing

your application’s Web.config file, you’ll find this option is already selected.

However, in future, you might want to use this tool to set your preferred

authentication type, instead of editing the file manually.

From a local network

Had we not specified forms authentication in the Web.config file, this option,

which selects Windows authentication—ASP.NET’s default—would have

been selected instead. If you were to re-select this option at this stage, the

tool would remove the <authentication> tag from your Web.config file,

restoring the default setting.

Leave the From the Internet option selected, and click Done to return to the Security

tab.

The Provider tab allows you to change the data provider that’s used to store the

security data. Currently, you can only choose AspNetSqlProvider, which uses

SQL Server to store the membership data.

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The Application tab shown in Figure 13.10 lets you create and manage application

settings in the form of name-value pairs that will be stored in the Web.config

file. For example, you might want to add a setting named AdminEmail that con-

tained an email address that could be used by your application to send important

administration messages.

We’ve already learned to use Web.config to store connection strings within a

dedicated <connectionStrings> tag. Similarly, ASP.NET supports an <appSet-

tings> tag in the same file for the purpose of storing general application settings.

If you click Save, the administration tool will store the setting in your application’s

Web.config file:

<configuration

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">

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Pre-release versions of ASP.NET 2.0 also supported the use of Access databases, but that feature

was later replaced with support for the ASPNETDB disconnected database.

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Using the ASP.NET Web Site Configuration Tool