AuthenticatingEventArgs Class

You create a handler for the Authenticating event when you want to customize how the user's credentials are authenticated at run time. The AuthenticatingEventArgs class supplies values to any Authenticating event handler. By using the properties available in this class, you can retrieve the user credentials to customize authentication.

The AuthenticationService class raises the Authenticating event before validating the user credentials. The AuthenticationService class constructs an instance of the AuthenticatingEventArgs object and passes it to any Authenticating event handler.

You can use the UserName, Password and CustomCredential properties to retrieve the user credentials. The CustomCredential property can contain additional values that are required for authentication, such as an identification number.

The Authenticated property indicates whether the user credentials are valid. You set the Authenticated property to the result of your customized authentication. In addition, you set the AuthenticationIsComplete property to true if you have checked the user credentials and do not want the AuthenticationService class to check user credentials through the default membership provider.

The following example shows an event handler that passes the UserName and Password values to a custom membership provider to validate the user credentials. The event handler sets Authenticated to the return value of the ValidateUser method and sets AuthenticationIsComplete to true so that the AuthenticationService class does not validate the credentials.

void AuthenticationService_Authenticating(object sender, System.Web.ApplicationServices.AuthenticatingEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.UserName.IndexOf("@contoso.com") >= 0)
    {
        e.Authenticated = Membership.Providers["ContosoSqlProvider"].ValidateUser(e.UserName, e.Password);
    }
    else if (e.UserName.IndexOf("@fabrikam.com") >= 0)
    {
        e.Authenticated = Membership.Providers["FabrikamSqlProvider"].ValidateUser(e.UserName, e.Password);
    }
    else
    {
        e.Authenticated = Membership.Provider.ValidateUser(e.UserName, e.Password);
    }
    e.AuthenticationIsComplete = true;
}

.NET Framework

Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core supported with SP1 or later), Windows Server 2003 SP2

Reference

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