Any ASP.NET site we develop will always have an authentication module unless and until there is nothing private on the site or something we explicitly know as being unnecessary. For instance, a simple public content site will not require an authentication module. Depending on the nature of the application we can decide on the type of authentication we are going to provide for our site. Meaning, if it is going to be an intranet web application, we can very well utilize the windows authentication by making use of the availability of user information in the AD, thus preventing a separate user information storage private to our application. Still, role mapping to the users has to be stored privately for the application. If our application is an internet application then the best choice is to use Forms Authentication. This article will explore the implementation forms authentication with roles in ASP.NET 2.0.

From 1.x days, the implementation of forms authentication in ASP.NET is not that complicated. But the actual drawbacks are in those days ASP.NET itself does not have that many controls that aid in implementing forms authentication easily. Also, if we have role based forms authentication then we should go for our custom code for validating a resource access. With the introduction of 2.0 we have a handful of controls that help in implementing role based forms authentication very easily with the primary support of Providers in ASP.NET 2.0.