Running MVC .net 4.0 application in the same domain as an existing forms 3.5 application

Question

Our company is currently running a asp.net Webforms 3.5 website as the default website on a Server.

I would like to add a new asp.net MVC application (using .net 4.0), but be able to use Single Sign-On authentication from the forms app to the MVC app. How can I do this?

I tried added the MVC app to the default website, but the MVC app fails since it is trying to read the web.config of the WebForms application.

I would imagine this has been done by someone out there, what is a good way to do this? Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

You can't.

Your basically trying to use a 4.0 and 3.5 app pool at the same time. Just won't work.

I'd downgrade your MVC site to 3.5.

Answer 2

CLR version is set in IIS per application pool => if you want to have two applications running two different CLR versions (2.0 and 4.0) you need to create two application pools. Once you create a second application pool you add a virtual directory and assign it to this application pool.

As for the SSO if you are using FormsAuthentication all that's necessary is to use the same <authentication mode="Forms"> section in both applications web.config. In order for an authentication cookie created by the first application to be decrypted by the second same machine keys need to be used => check out this article.