How can I integrate updating lastactivitytime into the .NET FormsAuthentication process?

Question

Hi, Basically, I'm trying to add support for tracking online users to a project I've inherited, which has a custom MembershipProvider and RoleProvider and uses FormsAuthentication. I've pretty figured out everything except the means by which I'm going to keep updating the lastactivitytime. The way I'd like to do this would be to just have lastactivitytime updated each time .NET checks whether the User is allowed to access whichever page they are trying to load (based on Roles, defined in Web.config), but I can't quite figure out where exactly I'd insert this bit.

I'm aware that MembershipProvider.GetUser() has an option to update lastactivitytime, and I've already tried inserting my little updating routine in there, but it doesn't seem to get called at all. I'm pretty new to .NET and digging for over an hour in the documentation hasn't provided me with any answers, so I'd be grateful if anybody could provide me with an answer on how exactly .NET checks whether a user is authenticated.

Answer 1

May be it is not elegant way, but we allocated for registered users on the master page small ajax widget, that 'pings' server once per minute. It is useful for displaying user statistic or show icon about new message arrived. So this service updates activity time in Membership provider