ASP.NET Identity

5 min

ASP.NET Identity is a flexible authentication module for managing users and roles in CMS 13. Control who accesses the CMS editing and admin UIs, and integrate with custom user stores or third-party identity providers.

Add the EPiServer.CMS.UI.AspNetIdentity NuGet package and call AddCmsAspNetIdentity in the Startup class:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services) {
  ...
  services.AddCmsAspNetIdentity<ApplicationUser>();
  ...
}

The EPiServer.CMS.UI.AspNetIdentity NuGet package implements the following services needed by the Optimizely UI: UIUserManager, UIRoleProvider, SecurityEntityProvider, IQueryableNotificationUsers, and SignInManager. Manage users, roles, and access rights from the admin view. EPiServer.Cms.Shell.UI includes login and logout views by default.

Custom user model

Define a custom user model to extend the default identity with additional properties. Two approaches are available:

Inherit from EPiServer.Cms.UI.AspNetIdentity.ApplicationUser:

public class CustomUser : ApplicationUser
{
// Your custom properties
}

Inherit from Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity.IdentityUser and the EPiServer.Shell.Security.IUIUser interface:

public class CustomUser: IdentityUser, IUIUser {
  public string Comment {
    get;
    set;
  }
  public bool IsApproved {
    get;
    set;
  }
  public bool IsLockedOut {
    get;
    set;
  }

  [Column(TypeName = "datetime2")]
  public DateTime CreationDate {
    get;
    set;
  }

  [Column(TypeName = "datetime2")]
  public DateTime ? LastLockoutDate {
    get;
    set;
  }

  [Column(TypeName = "datetime2")]
  public DateTime ? LastLoginDate {
    get;
    set;
  }

  public string PasswordQuestion {
    get;
  }

  public string ProviderName {
    get {
      return "MyProviderName";
    }
  }

  [NotMapped]
  public string Username {
    get {
      return base.UserName;
    }
    set {
      base.UserName = value;
    }
  }
}

After defining a custom user model, configure it in the Startup class:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services) {
  ...
  services.AddCmsAspNetIdentity<CustomUser>();
  ...
}

Migration

Entity Framework (EF) Core migrations version-control the identity database schema as a custom user model evolves.

By default, EPiServer.CMS.UI.AspNetIdentity provides a built-in ApplicationDbContext class to work with identity entities like users and roles. Configure the migration assembly when calling AddCmsAspNetIdentity():

services.AddCmsAspNetIdentity<ApplicationUser>(configureSqlServerOptions: o => o.MigrationsAssembly("Your.Assembly"));

Create a migration for ApplicationDbContext with EF Core Tools:

dotnet ef migrations add InitialCreate

See the EF Core Migration guide.