When the CacheRolesInCookie property is set to true in the Web.config file, role information for each user is stored in a cookie. When role management checks to see whether a user is in a particular role, the roles cookie is checked before the role provider is called to check the list of roles at the data source. The cookie is dynamically updated to cache the most recently validated role names.

You can improve the reliability of the role names cached in a cookie by specifying a CookieProtectionValue property when you configure ASP.NET roles. The default CookieProtectionValue is All, which encrypts role names in the cookie and validates that the cookie contents have not been altered.

Note:
Because role names can be cached apart from the data source, it is possible that changes to role management at the data source would not be reflected in the cached values. In this case, the user must close and re-open their browser to clear the cached cookie value.

The following example shows the roleManager element in the system.web section of the Web.config file for an ASP.NET application. It specifies that the application uses a SqlRoleProvider instance and sets the cacheRolesInCookie attribute to true.

<roleManager defaultProvider="SqlProvider" 
  enabled="true"
  cacheRolesInCookie="true"
  cookieName=".ASPROLES"
  cookieTimeout="30"
  cookiePath="/"
  cookieRequireSSL="false"
  cookieSlidingExpiration="true"
  cookieProtection="All" >
  <providers>
    <add
      name="SqlProvider"
      type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider"
      connectionStringName="SqlServices"
      applicationName="MyApplication" />
   </providers>
</roleManager>

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98

.NET Framework

Reference

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