New to CSLA, trying to implement custom identity

DJMikeAZ posted on Thursday, June 07, 2007

Hey all,

If you didn't figure it out from the subject, I am relatively new to CSLA. I am involved in a project using CSLA and I am currently implementing login/authentication control. As per the book and instructions I have read, I have already constructed custom identity and custom principal objects. We are using the .NET login control and configured web.config to authenticate via a custom app_code MembershipProvider class. Long story short, the login works fine...it's using my custom principal login as desired however, the Csla.ApplicationContext.User is not getting set properly or doesn't reflect my custom identity- which contains properties I need such as first name, last name, user type, email etc.

In other words, once the login is successfull, I would like the Csla.ApplicationContext.User to contain all the properties I defined in my custom identity. Currently, this user object seems to just be a System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal. How do I accomplish this? I can provide existing code I have if necessary.

Thanks,

Mike

dcleven replied on Friday, June 08, 2007

Hi Mike,

In your login you should set the ApplicationContext.User to your Principal object. Here is a snippet from my IMSPrincipal static Login method.

IMSIdentity identity = IMSIdentity.GetIdentity(user);   // fetch the user roles from the db

if (identity.IsAuthenticated)   // make sure user is ok

   IMSPrincipal principal = new IMSPrincipal(identity); // create the new Principal with user

   Csla.ApplicationContext.User = principal;   

}

Hope this helps.

Doug

DJMikeAZ replied on Friday, June 08, 2007

This is the current contents of my BTPrincipal Login method:

public static bool Login(string userName, string password)
{           
   BTIdentity identity = BTIdentity.GetIdentity(userName, password);

   if (identity.IsAuthenticated)
   {                
      BTPrincipal principal = new BTPrincipal(identity);
      Csla.ApplicationContext.User = principal;
   }

   return identity.IsAuthenticated;
}

It is clear that I am setting the ApplicationContext.User to the principal however, Csla.ApplicationContext.User (referenced elsewhere) does not contain the properties I have exposed in my BTPrincipal object...I have custom things like First Name, Last Name, User Type, etc.

Where am I going wrong? Do I need to modify any files in the framework to accomplish this? I simply want to validate a user logging in (which works) and have access to that user's information.

dcleven replied on Friday, June 08, 2007

When you access it you will need to cast it to your BTPrincipal object.

BTPrincipal myPrincipal = (BTPrincipal)Csla.ApplicationContext.User;

--Doug

DJMikeAZ replied on Friday, June 08, 2007

When I do that, I get the following error:

Unable to cast object of type 'System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal' to type 'Csla.Security.BTPrincipal'.

Being new to the framework, I'm not sure what to do with this.

Brian Criswell replied on Friday, June 08, 2007

1. Are you using IIS or Cassini for development?
2. Are you doing hat the book says under the Reloading the Principal section of chapter 10?
3. If you breakpoint the setting of ApplicationContext.User, after that line runs, what is its value?
   

DJMikeAZ replied on Saturday, June 09, 2007

1. using IIS
2. have read chapter 10 and seem to be complying with it
3. in my BTPrincipal.cs Login method, Csla.ApplicationContext.User is type Csla.Security.BTPrincipal

This is what it should be however, if I reference Csla.ApplicationContext.User on any of my aspx pages, it is back to type System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal.

RockfordLhotka replied on Saturday, June 09, 2007

DJMikeAZ replied on Sunday, June 10, 2007

Here is what's in my global.asax, I think it's right but maybe it's not.

protected void Application_AcquireRequestState(
            object sender, EventArgs e)   
    {
        System.Security.Principal.IPrincipal principal;
        try
        {
            principal = (System.Security.Principal.IPrincipal)HttpContext.Current.Session["CslaPrincipal"];           
        }
        catch
        {
            principal = null;           
        }

        if (principal == null)
        {
            // didn't get a principal from Session, so
            // set it to an unauthenticated BTPrincipal
            Csla.Security.BTPrincipal.Logout();
        }
        else
        {
            // use the principal from Session
            Csla.ApplicationContext.User = principal;
        }
    }

As I mentioned before, The intellisense in VS2005 for my Csla.ApplicationContext.User does not contain any of the properties in my BTPrincipal. I'm sure there's one little thing that I missed. Generally I find that the more time I spend on a problem, the simpler the solution ends up being.

RockfordLhotka replied on Sunday, June 10, 2007