Back in the ASP.NET 1.0 and 1.1 days, if you application requires you to have a user login functionality, you will very likely need to create the login user interface and the database that comes along with it. Things have changed quite a bit after the release of ASP.NET 2.0. While it is true that you can still do it the old fashion way with a lot more flexibility, you might want to consider using the ASP.NET provided user controls.
ASP.NET 2.0 user controls is very useful when it comes to implementing basic user login user interface. If you do not already have a database, it will happily create a SQL Server 2005 Express database named ASPNETDB.mdf on your App_Data folder of your web application, which will then be deployed together with your website onto IIS. What happens when you have your own database then? Fear not, you simply have to do a few steps to have that pointed to it. There are a few steps which you should do.
Applying the schema to your existing database
First you will need to create the schema that is used by the User-Login controls onto your database first. The common practise is that you should create a separate database to sit on your database installation instance, or you can create them into your application database.
Go to %WINDOWS%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 and run aspnet_regsql.exe. This will fire up the ASP.Net Sql Server Setup Wizard. This will be the chap that allows you to create the schema easily into your existing database.
On the next screen, you are prompted for the server and the database which you want the schema to be created on. Simply point that to your current (or new) database, and click Next
After that you will be asked for a preview. Click Finish and the wizard will create the schema and it's accompanied store procedures into your preferred database.
Configurating the Membershop Providers to point to your existing database.
The existing providers that comes with the login controls prefer to use the SQLServer Express database. In order to have your web application point to another database, you will have to create your own provider. Modify the web.config file to include you provider and it's corresponding connectionstring and you're good to go
<connectionStrings>
<add name="MyConnectionString" connectionString="server=localhost;database=test;uid=sa;password=password;" />
</connectionStrings>
<roleManager enabled="true"
defaultProvider="CustomizedRoleProvider">
<providers>
<add name="CustomizedRoleProvider"
type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider"
connectionStringName="MyConnectionString" />
</providers>
</roleManager>
<membership defaultProvider="CustomizedMembershipProvider">
<providers>
<add name="CustomizedMembershipProvider"
type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider"
connectionStringName="MyConnectionString" />
</providers>
</membership>
Test your new database connection
Now go to your website administration and go to the "Provider" tab, choose "Select a different provider for each feature (advanced)". You will be greeted with your new provider as the default provider
Now you can create the users and define the roles in the "Security" tab
