Our code relies on checking the Context.User.Identity value in the Global.asax Application_AuthenticateRequest(...) method to retrieve some information about the logged in user. This works fine in classic mode but when I flip IIS to use the Integrated Pipeline "Context.User" comes back as null, but only intermittently. Any ideas why?
I have < authentication mode="Windows"> and only Windows Auth enabled in the Virtual Directory.
Integrated mode means that the pipeline events of ASP.NET run at the same time as the IIS pipeline, what it means is that: 1) In Classic Mode - AuthenticateRequest in ASP.NET runs way after IIS already did the authentication (using Windows auth maybe or basic, etc) and so you will get the User Identity set to it. 2) In IntegratedMode - AuthenticateRequest will run at the "same time" in both which will cause it to have a null there. You should consider using PostAuthenticateRequest if you want to reliably get a User Identity (of course provided you have an authentication module enabled)