This Wrox Blox will give you a high-level overview of the core Membership Provider and its default implementation, (ASP.NET Membership), and demonstrate how to build and configure your own custom provider. The Provider Model is a design pattern introduced in .NET to provide a simple way to extend API functionality. DotNetNuke uses this architecture to allow some of its core functionality to be replaced without modifying core code. 

While this Wrox Blox describes how to develop a custom DotNetNuke Membership Provider, it also provides some general information about the .NET Framework’s (2.0 and above) Provider Model, the ASP.NET Membership Provider included in the System.Web.Security namespace, and how they relate to DotNetNuke’s core framework. It also discusses reasons to consider writing a custom provider and gives some guidance as to when doing so is recommended and when it may not be a good choice. 

Because this is an advanced DotNetNuke development topic, readers should already know how to install the source code version of DotNetNuke on your development environment. Therefore, this Wrox Blox does not provide a step-by-step guide on how to do that. If readers need help in setting up a DotNetNuke development environment, visit www.dotnetnuke.com and click on the documentation or forum areas. 

All code samples accompanying this Wrox Blox are written in VB.NET, although a C# translation of the same code will yield the same functional results.

Table of Contents

The Provider Model 1

ASP.NET Membership Provider and DotNetNuke 2

Why Build a Custom Membership Provider? 5

Building the Custom Membership Provider 6

Setting Up DotNetNuke 6

Setting Up the Sample CRM Database 7

Putting It All Together 13

Wrapping Up 21

About Antonio Chagoury 22