SharePoint Groups\Roles using FBA

Question

Hi All, I'm running an FBA web app, having 2 Site collections. Currently I have a SharePoint group in one site collection, and I would like to assign permission to that group in the other site collection. Since SharePoint groups are site scoped, I thought using FBA roles..

Any words on how to do this, or if this it the recommended way?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Even if you use FBA, the groups will still be site scoped. You will need to create the groups you want to use on both site collections and deal with the permissions on each site collection unfortunately.

Answer 2

I am a fan of AD groups or FBA roles inside of SharePoint groups regardless of the number of site collections or authentication method. It is just cleaner and cuts down the amount of maintenance for the site going forward.

Once you have an FBA MembershipProvider working (whether AspNetSqlMembershipProvider or custom), the hard part is done. Adding role support is easy by contrast.

There are many examples of getting roles to work: here, here, here, here, and here.

The point I would emphasize is in addition to registering your RoleProvider in the web.config under configuration/system.web/roleManager/providers, be sure to also add it to configuration/SharePoint/PeoplePickerWildcards:

<PeoplePickerWildcards>
  <clear />
  <add key="MyMembershipProvider" value="%" />
  <add key="MyRoleProvider" value="%" />
</PeoplePickerWildcards>

The entries in this section are what SharePoint will use to verify the FBA role when you add it into a SharePoint group.