19.3. Getting Started with Identity

As a developer, you may find yourself wanting to add Identity in one of the two following situations:

  1. You are creating a new project and you know that you need Identity in the project.

  2. You are working with an existing project and need to add Identity to continue your work.

For this chapter, we are going to focus on the second situation and how we might add Identity to CodingEvents. The process of adding Identity to an existing code base is called scaffolding.

Note

Try and code along as you read more about Identity! This page starts off with the code in the display-tag-items branch in CodingEventsDemo. The final code for this page is in the identity-scaffolding branch in CodingEventsDemo.

19.3.1. Before You Start

Before getting started, you need to make note of the version of .NET Core SDK your project is using. Inside the project directory, run the following command:

dotnet --info

When you run this command, the output may look something like the following:

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   .NET SDK (reflecting any global.json):
      Version:   6.0.403
      Commit:    2bc18bf292

   Runtime Environment:
      OS Name:     Mac OS X
      OS Version:  12.4
      OS Platform: Darwin
      RID:         osx.12-x64
      Base Path:   /usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/6.0.403/

   global.json file:
      Not found

   Host:
      Version:      6.0.11
      Architecture: x64
      Commit:       943474ca16

If the .NET Core SDK listed on line 2 does not match the SDK specified in your csproj file, you may need to open up your global.json and edit it so that the SDK used by the project matches.

Note

If you do not have a global.json file, but the .NET Core SDK is still not matching your csproj file, you can create a new global.json file with the following command:

dotnet new globaljson --sdk-version 6.0.403

You need to install six NuGet packages before getting started with this process:

  1. Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design

  2. Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity.UI

  3. Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity.EntityFrameworkCore

  4. Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer

  5. Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design

  6. Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools

When installing these packages, make sure that the versions are the same as the .NET Core version your project is using. You can confirm this is the case by reviewing the code in your csproj file.

With these packages installed, you are ready to go!

Note

If you are a Mac user and are getting errors related to versioning with package installs because you have multiple versions of .NET on your machine, you may need to uninstall several versions of .NET. You will find a number of approaches for uninstalling .NET online, but here is one to get you started.

19.3.2. Scaffolding Identity in an Exisiting Project

In both Visual Studio for Mac and Visual Studio for Windows, you have the option to add new scaffolded items through the UI and through the terminal.

19.3.2.1. Adding Identity Through the UI

  1. Right click on the project folder at the top of the solution.

  2. Select Add > New Scaffolded Item.

  3. From the menu, select Identity.

This approach is the simpler of the two approaches. However, for some Mac users, you may not find Identity as an option when you use this approach. If that is the case, use the terminal method.

19.3.2.2. Adding Identity through the Command Line

All of these commmands should be run in the project directory inside of the solution.

  1. Use the following command to make sure you have the necessary code generator tools installed.

    dotnet tool install --global dotnet-aspnet-codegenerator --version <YOUR .NET VERSION>

    If the tool is installed, check the version before proceeding to make sure it works with your .NET version.

  2. Use the following command to add the full package necessary to generate the actual Identity code.

    dotnet add package Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design

  3. Now you are ready to add Identity to your project! You can configure Identity in any number of ways to fit the project requirements. To see all of the options use this command:

    dotnet aspnet-codegenerator identity -h

    When you use this command, you will see a menu of options in your terminal and can configure from there.

    Usage: aspnet-codegenerator [arguments] [options]

Arguments:
   generator  Name of the generator. Check available generators below.

Options:
   -p|--project             Path to .csproj file in the project.
   -n|--nuget-package-dir
   -c|--configuration       Configuration for the project (Possible values: Debug/ Release)
   -tfm|--target-framework  Target Framework to use. (Short folder name of the tfm. eg. net46)
   -b|--build-base-path
   --no-build

Selected Code Generator: identity

Generator Options:
   --dbContext|-dc       : Name of the DbContext to use, or generate (if it does not exist).
   --files|-fi           : List of semicolon separated files to scaffold. Use the --listFiles option to see the available options.
   --listFiles|-lf       : Lists the files that can be scaffolded by using the '--files' option.
   --userClass|-u        : Name of the User class to generate.
   --useSqLite|-sqlite   : Flag to specify if DbContext should use SQLite instead of SQL Server.
   --force|-f            : Use this option to overwrite existing files.
   --useDefaultUI|-udui  : Use this option to setup identity and to use Default UI.
   --layout|-l           : Specify a custom layout file to use.
   --generateLayout|-gl  : Use this option to generate a new _Layout.cshtml
   --bootstrapVersion|-b : Specify the bootstrap version. Valid values: '3', '4'. Default is 4.

  4. Configuration of Identity is dependent on you and your project requirements. In the case of CodingEvents, you would want to continue to use EventDbContext. This is how your final generation command would look:

    dotnet aspnet-codegenerator identity --dbContext EventDbContext --files "Account.Register;Account.Login;Account.Logout;Account.RegisterConfirmation"

    Note

    In the above command, we used the option for files. Identity is a Razor Class Library so it comes with Razor pages preconfigured for registration, login, etc. This option means that we want the scaffolder to generate these files and add them to the solution, making it easier for us to customize these files in the future. The option for defaultUI means that we have no need to have these files in the solution and so we won’t have the ability to customize them.

  5. Once we run this series of commands, we will have successfully scaffolded Identity code onto our existing project.

Note

If you do not see any new scaffolding, try using the command dotnet restore. This will restore our NuGet packages manually as opposed to them automatically restoring.

19.3.2.3. DbContext

If you tried to run the application right now, you would encounter some build errors. While we specified in our scaffolding commands that we wanted to use EventDbContext, we need to open up EventDbContext and make some changes.

In order to use Identity, we need to change what EventDbContext extends. Currently, it extends DbContext. Let’s change that to IdentityDbContext like so:

public class EventDbContext: IdentityDbContext<IdentityUser, IdentityRole, string>

We also need to add an additional line to OnModelCreating():

base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);

With these changes made, EventDbContext will look like the following:

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public class EventDbContext : IdentityDbContext<IdentityUser>
{
     public DbSet<Event> Events { get; set; }
     public DbSet<EventCategory> Categories { get; set; }
     public DbSet<Tag> Tags { get; set; }
     public DbSet<EventTag> EventTags { get; set; }

     public EventDbContext(DbContextOptions<EventDbContext> options)
         : base(options)
     {
     }

     protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder)
     {
         modelBuilder.Entity<EventTag>().HasKey(et => new { et.EventId, et.TagId });

         base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
     }
}

You may note that we didn’t add any DbSet for IdentityUser like we did for other models in the application. This is not an oversight! With EventDbContext properly set up, we can run a migration and the database will add the appropriate tables for our authentication data.

Add a line to ConfigureServices() in Startup.cs for the use of the Razor pages in Identity:

services.AddControllersWithViews();
services.AddRazorPages();

Note

While you are editing ConfigureServices(), you may need to also add a default identity user. We will learn more about how to configure this user in a later section. For now, you can add code to ConfigureServices() to address this:

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services.AddControllersWithViews();
services.AddRazorPages();

var serverVersion = new MySqlServerVersion(new Version(8, 0, 29));
var defaultConnection = Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection");
services.AddDbContext<EventDbContext>(options =>
options.UseMySql(defaultConnection, serverVersion));

services.AddDefaultIdentity<IdentityUser>
(options =>
{
   options.SignIn.RequireConfirmedAccount = true;
   options.Password.RequireDigit = false;
   options.Password.RequiredLength = 10;
   options.Password.RequireNonAlphanumeric = false;
   options.Password.RequireUppercase = true;
   options.Password.RequireLowercase = false;
}).AddEntityFrameworkStores<EventDbContext>();

Review Configure() in Startup.cs. Above app.UseAuthorization(), add one line of code like so:

app.UseAuthentication();
app.UseAuthorization();

Add 2 additional lines to app.UseEndpoints() inside of Configure() in Startup.cs:

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app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
   endpoints.MapControllerRoute(
      name: "default",
      pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
   endpoints.MapControllers();
   endpoints.MapRazorPages();
});

endpoints.MapRazorPages() specifies to the app that the Identity pages should follow the routing laid out in _LoginPartial.cshtml.

These initial steps were to make sure that the application is still using EventDbContext for its connection to the database now that we have added Identity. However, if you take a look inside the Areas/Identity/Data directory, you will find a file also called EventDbContext. Delete that generated file and continue to use the one we initially created for CodingEvents.

Note

If you do not immediately see Identity scaffolding, that is okay! Sometimes it takes a moment to appear.

19.3.2.4. Views

In your solution, you will find a new view inside the Views/Shared directory called _LoginPartial.cshtml. This partial view contains the logic for the links to actions that the users need, such as registration forms, login forms, sign out actions, and so on. If you peek inside the file, you will find these links live inside a conditional.

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@using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity
@using CodingEventsDemo.Areas.Identity.Data

@inject SignInManager<IdentityUser> SignInManager
@inject UserManager<IdentityUser> UserManager

<ul class="navbar-nav">
@if (SignInManager.IsSignedIn(IdentityUser))
{
   <li class="nav-item">
      <a id="manage" class="nav-link text-dark" asp-area="Identity" asp-page="/Account/Manage/Index" title="Manage">Hello @UserManager.GetUserName(IdentityUser)!</a>
   </li>
   <li class="nav-item">
      <form id="logoutForm" class="form-inline" asp-area="Identity" asp-page="/Account/Logout" asp-route-returnUrl="@Url.Action("Index", "Home", new { area = "" })">
         <button id="logout" type="submit" class="nav-link btn btn-link text-dark">Logout</button>
      </form>
   </li>
}
else
{
   <li class="nav-item">
      <a class="nav-link text-dark" id="register" asp-area="Identity" asp-page="Account/Register">Register</a>
   </li>
   <li class="nav-item">
      <a class="nav-link text-dark" id="login" asp-area="Identity" asp-page="/Account/Login">Login</a>
   </li>
}
</ul>

UserManager deals with the user information in the database. We can use the properties and methods to perform operations on user objects such as adding a new user or fetching user information. On line 11 in the code above, UserManager is used to fetch the signed-in user’s username so we greet them by name! SignInManager deals with users signing in. On line 8, SignInManager is used to check if the user is signed in. If the user is signed in, then the links that will be displayed are to manage the account or log out of the account. If the user is not signed in, then the links are to either log in or register for an account on the site.

This partial view can be placed anywhere you need it, but we recommend starting with placing it in _Layout.cshtml so that a signed-in user can easily access the necessary links from any page. To add it to the navbar, use the following syntax:

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<div class="navbar-collapse collapse d-sm-inline-flex flex-sm-row-reverse">
   <partial name="_LoginPartial" />
   <ul class="navbar-nav flex-grow-1">
      <li class="nav-item">
            <a class="nav-link text-dark" asp-area="" asp-controller="Home" asp-action="Add">Add Job</a>
      </li>
   </ul>
</div>

19.3.2.5. Final Steps

No matter which approach you took for the initial steps in scaffolding, you need to run a new migration and update your database. Once you update the database, your database will contain a number of tables related to Identity such as AspNetUsers and AspNetRoles.

To test that you are on the right track, run the application. Click on the link to register and create a new account. Query the AspNetUsers table in the database to make sure that the newly added account is there.

Now that we have successfully added Identity to our project, we are ready to start coding!