How do I change the logged in user to another?

Question

I would like to change the logged in user to another user temporarily to do some process.

For example, say I am logged in as "Joe". In my method, I want to make the logged in user from "Joe" to "SuperUser", do some process, then change the logged in user back to "Joe". Can someone help with this?

Answer 1

Although I fail to understand why a user becomes a superuser in a real world application, I think you could look at asp.net impersonation technique...

hth.

Answer 2

I think you want ASP.NET impersonation for that. Check out what it is and how to use it. Something like this (from the second link):

System.Security.Principal.WindowsImpersonationContext impersonationContext;
impersonationContext = ((System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity)User.Identity).Impersonate();

//Insert your code that runs under the security context of the authenticating user here.

impersonationContext.Undo();

EDIT: For ASP.NET Membership, see this SO question and this answer.

Answer 3

From the answer to this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/133379/elevating-process-privilege-programatically

You can indicate the new process should be started with elevated permissions by setting the Verb property of your startInfo object to 'runas', as follows:

startInfo.Verb = "runas";

This is changing your Windows user. If you want to change the ASP.NET user who logged in to your page, then this is not what you are looking for.