How to setup authentication in Silverlight-Enabled WCF Web Service?

Question

What is the best way to set up username and password authentication in a Silverlight-Enabled WCF web service?

Answer 1

The best way for me has been forms authenication...using ASP.NET application services.

Basically you expose 3 *.svc files in your WCF service that handle authenication, roles, and profiles. There is no code behind because it's built into the .net assemblies. You will have to do some configuration in the .config (see link) to enable them.

Details here: http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2008/05/03/accessing-the-asp-net-authentication-profile-and-role-service-in-silverlight.aspx

Side Note on ASPNETDB.MDF

Normally all the user accounts and profiles will be in ASPNETDB.MDF which is located on a local file in the APP_Data folder but I find this clumsy especially with permissions so I kept it in my primary WCF database but you can choose another if you have the connection string. To initialize it I ran "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\a spnet_regsql -C *Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=MYDB;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=;Password=**;" * -A all" to include the ASP.NET membership tables and sprocs into the db of my choice. If you do you this..ensure you override the default LocalSQLServer connectionstring or it won't find the db like this in web.config of your asp.net website

<connectionStrings> <clear/> <add name="LocalSQLServer" connectionString="Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=MYDB;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=;Password=**;" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

To actually add user accounts and roles

1) from Visual Studio 2) Click on your ASP.NET website 3) There should be a menu above called Website that shows up...select ASP.NET Configuration and your browser will start with the configuration website that will edit your config and update the configured database with accounts and roles

I hope this helps