Forms Based Authentication with custom Login page in SharePoint 2010

Step1: Create web app with Claims Based Authentication

• From Central Administration
• Application Management
• Click Manage Web Applications
• Select New
• Now we are in “Create web application” page
• Select Authentication mode to “Claims Based Authentication”
• Give the name of Web app, Port number & Path
• Chose Security configuration
• From Claims Authentication Types, enable both WA and FBA
• FBA section, give ASP.NET Membership provider name (“SQLMembershipProvider”)
• Give Role Manager Name (“SQLRoleManager”)
• Enter Sign in page URL [default], public URL and other information
• click OK
• Then, create a site collection
• Go to Manage Web application
• From the list of web applications chose “Authentication Providers”
• From the dialog box you will see the Default zone
• Set to the Claims authentication mode
• Click the Default zone link where you can see the settings
• Now the Application is ready
• Browse the application, we can see the default screen 

Step2: Create ASPNETDB to configure membership and Role providers

• Login to the server where SQL Server is installed
• Open command prompt
• navigate to location “%Sysroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727”
• Run the “aspnet_regsql.exe“ (ASP.NET SQL Server setup wizard)
• Click “Next”
• chose the option “Configure Sql server for application services”
• Click “Next”
• Give the SQL Server name and authentication information
• by default it shows <default> means the name will be ASPNETDB, but you can change the name here if you want
• Click “Next”
• Finish the wizard 

Step3: Fill some data to this DB

• Their is some tools available in Codeplex
• Go to this site and download “Membershipseeder.zip”
• Extract it and run it
• Create some of users and roles
• Now, we are ready with DB with all some data 

Step3: Modify web.config of web application we created
Note: Before making any changes to the web.config file of any app, please take the backup

• Add Connectionstring just above <System.Web> starts or just below </Sharepoint> ends

<connectionStrings>
<add name=”SQLConnectionString” connectionString=”data source=MSSQL;Integrated Security=SSPI;Initial Catalog=ASPNETDB” />
</connectionStrings>

• Add Providers for Membership and Role
• Before you add any providers find are there any membership or rolemanager tags in the web.config file and add the providers [<rolemanager> and <membership>] to the <System.Web> tag
• Make sure that you are not doing any changes to the existing providers.
• By default there are providers with name “C” and “I”. So, do not touch them and add only the providers which we are adding like “SQLRoleManager” and “SqlMembershipProvider”.
• Finally the <rolemanager> section and <membership> section as shown below:
• (new entries is in bold-italic):

<roleManager defaultProvider=”c” enabled=”true” cacheRolesInCookie=”false”>
<providers>
<add name=”c” type=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.SPClaimsAuthRoleProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” />
<add connectionStringName=”SQLConnectionString” applicationName=”/” description=”Stores and retrieves roles from SQL Server” name=”SQLRoleManager” type=”System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.3600.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a” />
</providers>
</roleManager>
<membership defaultProvider=”i”>
<providers>
<add name=”i” type=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.SPClaimsAuthMembershipProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” />
<add connectionStringName=”SQLConnectionString” passwordAttemptWindow=”5″ enablePasswordRetrieval=”false” enablePasswordReset=”false” requiresQuestionAndAnswer=”true” applicationName=”/” requiresUniqueEmail=”true” passwordFormat=”Hashed” description=”Stores and Retrieves membership data from SQL Server” name=”SQLMembershipProvider” type=”System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.3600.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a” />
</providers>
</membership>

• Save all your changes

Step4: Modify web.config of of Central Administration site
Note: Before making any changes to the web.config file of any app, please take the backup

• Add Connectionstring just above <System.Web> starts or just below </Sharepoint> ends

<connectionStrings>
<add name=”SQLConnectionString” connectionString=”data source=MSSQL;Integrated Security=SSPI;Initial Catalog= ASPNETDB ” />
</connectionStrings>

• Add Providers for Membership and Role
• Before you add any providers find are there any membership or rolemanager tags in the web.config file and add the providers [<rolemanager> and <membership>] to the <System.Web> tag
• Make sure that you are not doing any changes to the existing providers
• By default there are providers with name “C” and “I”. So, do not touch them and add only the providers which we are adding like “SQLRoleManager” and “SqlMembershipProvider”.
• Finally the <rolemanager> section and <membership> section as shown below:
• (new entries is in bold-italics):

<roleManager defaultProvider=”AspNetWindowsTokenRoleProvider” enabled=”true” cacheRolesInCookie=”false”>
<providers>
<add connectionStringName=”SQLConnectionString” applicationName=”/” description=”Stores and retrieves roles from SQL Server” name=”SQLRoleManager”type=”System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.3600.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a” />
</providers>
</roleManager>
<membership defaultProvider=”SQLMembershipProvider”>
<providers>
<add connectionStringName=”SQLConnectionString” passwordAttemptWindow=”5″ enablePasswordRetrieval=”false” enablePasswordReset=”false” requiresQuestionAndAnswer=”true” applicationName=”/” requiresUniqueEmail=”true” passwordFormat=”Hashed” description=”Stores and Retrieves membership data from SQL Server” name=”SQLMembershipProvider” type=”System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.3600.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a” />
</providers>
</membership>

• Save the web.config file 

Step5: Modify web.config of Security Token Service Application

• Open IIS
• From the list of sites available expand “SharePoint Web Services” and find SecurityTokenServiceApplication
• Right click on the application and explore, which will opens the file system file location of the application. By default it will be in “%programfiles%\common files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\WebServices\SecurityToken”
• Find the web.config of the application and modify it

Note: Before making any changes to the web.config file of any app, please take the backup

• Just above <System.Web> starts, add the connection strings tag

<connectionStrings>
<add name=”SQLConnectionString” connectionString=”data source=MSSQL;Integrated Security=SSPI;Initial Catalog=ASPNETDB” />
</connectionStrings>

• Add Providers for Membership and Role
• Before you add any providers find are there any membership or rolemanager tags in the web.config file and add the providers [<rolemanager> and <membership>] to the <System.Web> tag
• Make sure that you are not doing any changes to the existing providers
• By default there are providers with name “C” and “I”. So, do not touch them and add only the providers which we are adding like “SQLRoleManager” and “SqlMembershipProvider”.
• Finally the <rolemanager> section and <membership> section as shown below:
• (new entries is in bold-italics):

<roleManager defaultProvider=”c” enabled=”true” cacheRolesInCookie=”false”>
<providers>
<add name=”c” type=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.SPClaimsAuthRoleProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” />
<add connectionStringName=”SQLConnectionString” applicationName=”/” description=”Stores and retrieves roles from SQL Server” name=”SQLRoleManager” type=”System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.3600.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a” />
</providers>
</roleManager>
<membership defaultProvider=”i”>
<providers>
<add name=”i” type=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.SPClaimsAuthMembershipProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” />
<add connectionStringName=”SQLConnectionString” passwordAttemptWindow=”5″ enablePasswordRetrieval=”false” enablePasswordReset=”false” requiresQuestionAndAnswer=”true” applicationName=”/” requiresUniqueEmail=”true” passwordFormat=”Hashed” description=”Stores and Retrieves membership data from SQL Server” name=”SQLMembershipProvider” type=”System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.3600.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a” />
</providers>
</membership>

• Save the web.config file

If everything is OK, then from central administration site and your FBA application, we can able to find the users from ASPNETDB (using people picker), and you can successfully logged-in to the site without any issue
Step6: Create custom Login Page

• Start Visual Studio 2010
• Create a new SharePoint 2010 project using the “Empty SharePoint Project” template.
• Choose Farm Solution (We are going to deploy files to the SharePoint root, also known as the 14 hive, so we cannot use the sandbox here)
• Add a new item to the project.  Choose to use the Application Page template and name the new page Login.aspx
• Add a reference to the assembly “Microsoft.SharePoint.IdentityModel” ( It does not show up in the list of assemblies in the Add Reference dialog, you need to browse to it using the path “C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.SharePoint.IdentityModel \14.0.0.0__71e9bce111e9429c\Microsoft.SharePoint.IdentityModel.dll”
• Add the code from the following site:
•  http://tomaszrabinski.pl/wordpress/2011/06/23/sharepoint-2010-custom-login-page/
• Publish
• To configure your custom login page, Go to Central Administration
• Click on “Manage web applications”
• Click your web site,  This lights up the “Authentication Providers” ribbon button
•  Click the Authentication Providers ribbon button
• Choose the zone that you want to configure (this should be the zone that was extended for FBA, or the default zone).
• Scroll down a bit and you’ll see where to configure the Sign In Page URL

Once that is done, our new sign-in page is now available and works as expected