.NET User Management Customization

Question

I was wondering if anyone could point me to some resources concerning customization of the user management system that is built in .NET. What I am talking about is: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998347.aspx

I would like to know, how can I extend the user fields to store more than just common password, username? I want to store for example: birthday, and other result sets.

Answer 1

You are looking for Profile APIs http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163724.aspx

Answer 2

See:

• ASP.NET Profile Properties Overview
• Defining ASP.NET Profile Properties
• Examining ASP.NET 2.0's Membership, Roles, and Profile - Part 1

Answer 3

This tutorial is very detailed on extending Membership API :

Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Membership API Extended

Answer 4

In my opinion, you should not extend the membership tables at all. You should, instead, create your own tables and reference the membership data. One technique I use is to use the Membership GUID ID as a foriegn key to my own "users" table which contains my extended data.

This works out for the best because then if Microsoft decides to extend the Membership table in the future, your code doesn't break.