Oct 8

The Membership class provides facilities for:

Creating new users.

Storing membership information (user names, passwords, e-mail addresses, and supporting data) in Microsoft SQL Server or in an alternative data store.

Authenticating users who visit your site. You can authenticate users programmatically, or you can use the Login control to create a complete authentication system that requires little or no code.

Managing passwords, which includes creating, changing, retrieving, and resetting them, and so on. You can optionally configure ASP.NET membership to require a password question and answer to authenticate password reset or retrieval requests for users that have forgotten their password.

The Membership class relies on membership providers to communicate with a data source. The .NET Framework includes a SqlMembershipProvider, which stores user information in a Microsoft SQL Server database, and an ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider, which enables you to store user information on an Active Directory or Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) server. You can also implement a custom membership provider to communicate with an alternative data source that can be used by the Membership class. Custom membership providers inherit the MembershipProvider abstract class. For more information, see Implementing a Membership Provider.