Security

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

James_2JS — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 15:56:07 GMT

Pleasure Karl!!!

You might want to consider making the connection string name shorter to make everything more concise... and it might make other bits of code more readable... but that's your call!!!

Cheers,

James

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

KarlR — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 15:15:30 GMT

James, I think you nailed it this time. As you posted, the name of the connection string in the <connectionStrings> section must match the <connectionStringName> in the membership section EXACTLY. My connection string section looks like this:

<add name="Project_Management.My.MySettings.WebReportsConnectionString"

connectionString="Data Source=Karlweb;Initial Catalog=Reports;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=VBUser;Password=Password"

providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

</connectionStrings>

I originally was only specifying the connectionStringName as "WebReportsConnectionString" - but when I changed it to "Project_Management.My.MySettings.WebReportsConnectionString" [the exact name] your code worked great! As a reference, here is my membership section:

<add name="MyMembershipProvider"

type="MyMembershipProvider"

requiresQuestionAndAnswer="True"

enablePasswordRetrieval="True"

enablePasswordReset="True"

connectionStringName="Project_Management.My.MySettings.WebReportsConnectionString"/>

</providers>

I can't thank you enough for your persistence in solving my problem. Thank you!

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

James_2JS — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 14:21:53 GMT

justEnough... there's a big difference between a connectionString and a connectionStringName!! Wrong answer I'm afraid!!!

Karl,

Can you post your latest connectionstrings and membership settings please??

In the membership settings you should have <add .... connectionStringName="YourConnectionString" .... />

And in the connection strings you should have <add name="YourConnectionString" .... />

NB it doesn't matter what you call it (I've just used YourConnectionString as an example)... the important thing is that they match!!!

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

KarlR — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 14:14:12 GMT

As I step through the code, this is what happens:

connStr = config("connectionString")

...this returns "Nothing" so it goes to this line:

Dim ConnectionStringSettings As ConnectionStringSettings = _

ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings(config("connectionStringName"))

But this is where it gets interesting. If I hover my mouse over the word "config" it shows me that "AllKeys Length = 4". If I drill deeper, it shows these four values: "RequiresQuestionAndAnswer", "EnablePasswordRetrieval", "enablePasswordReset", & "connectionStringName". This shows just the names, not the actual values. However, they are the 4 properties in the exact same order as they are listed in my web.config, so I think you are on to something.

However, this line also returns "Nothing", so I get the same error raised. Any further suggestions?

Justenough: I changed this as you directed:

connStr = config("connectionStringName")

And the connStr value was "connectionStringName" - literally, not the value in the web.config.

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

justenough — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:53:38 GMT

KarIR,

I don't think you have to make the changes you have. I think your only problem was that you were referencing the wrong key. I think all you have to do is put your code back to the way it was and then just change the key name to connectionStringName.

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

justenough — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:44:41 GMT

Have you tried changing this line:

'connStr = config("connectionString")

connStr = config("connectionStringName")

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

James_2JS — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:43:41 GMT

No worries!!

OK... you're right... the 1 is ugly... and isn't generic... and needs to be replaced!! You've also moved away from allowing a connection string in the membership provider... you are insisting the a connectionStringName is supplied... while this might be great for you... it's not as good for re-use!! So here's what I would do....

' try and get the connection string setting
connStr = config("connectionString")
If String.IsNullOrEmpty(connStr) Then
    ' no connection string given... so try the connection string name
    Dim ConnectionStringSettings As ConnectionStringSettings = _
            ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings(config("connectionStringName"))
    ' make sure we've got a connection string setting that corresponds to the name
    If ConnectionStringSettings IsNot Nothing Then
        ' pull out the connection string from the settings
        connStr = ConnectionStringSettings.ConnectionString
    Else
        Throw New ProviderException("Connection string name doesn't exist.")
    End If
End If

' make sure we have got a connection string after all of that
If String.IsNullOrEmpty(connStr) Then
    ' we haven't so through an exception
    Throw New ProviderException("Connection string cannot be blank.")
End If

So that's what you should do... but you also need help working out why you've had to use "1" in the first place... this should be a simple case of matching the connectionStringName entry on the membership provider with the name in the connection strings. You can test this by evaluating

ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings(1).Name

This is what should be in the membership provider settings!

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

KarlR — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:18:08 GMT

PLEASE do not appologize! I greatly appreciate your continued perserverence (on my problem).

Thanks to your help, I got it (I think). For some reason, your above code kept returning "Nothing" for "ConnectionStringSettings" as I stepped through the code. I kept poking around in the ConfigurationManager, and got this code to work:

Public Overrides Sub Initialize(ByVal name As String, ByVal config As System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection)

'===retrives the attribute values set in

'web.config and assign to local variables===

If config("requiresQuestionAndAnswer").ToUpper = "TRUE" Then _

_requiresQuestionAndAnswer = True

connStr = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings.Item(1).ConnectionString

If connStr Is Nothing OrElse connStr = "" Then

Throw New Provider.ProviderException("Connection string cannot be blank.")

End If

MyBase.Initialize(name, config)

End Sub

I don't like having that hard-coded "1" in there, but that's where the setting resides in my site. Just for reference, this is what my web.config section looks like:

<add name="MyMembershipProvider"

type="MyMembershipProvider"

requiresQuestionAndAnswer="True"

enablePasswordRetrieval="True"

enablePasswordReset="True"

connectionStringName="WebReportsConnectionString"

</providers>

</membership>

Again, THANK YOU very much for your continued help! I will mark this as "answered", but please let me know if you see anywhere I can further optimize the above (like removing the "1").

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

James_2JS — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 12:33:19 GMT

Sorry... I've been a bit slow over the last couple of days... jetlagged I think!!!

Anyway... I can see what the problem is now... and should've picked it up sooner...

Your Initialize code is only handling having a connectionString... and doesn't deal with a connectionStringName!! So here's what you need to do... add some conditional code into your initialize method... one branch of which can pull out the connection string as you've done above... and one branch that can pull it out of the settings as follows:

Dim ConnectionStringSettings As ConnectionStringSettings = _
          ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings(config("connectionStringName"))

        If ConnectionStringSettings Is Nothing OrElse ConnectionStringSettings.ConnectionString.Trim() = "" Then
            Throw New ProviderException("Connection string cannot be blank.")
        End If

        connStr = ConnectionStringSettings.ConnectionString

Hope this helps!!

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

KarlR — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 12:15:10 GMT

You are right - I do have a class called MyMembershipProvider. When I use my original web config settings (where I call out the the duplicate connection string setting), it works great. I am just trying to have the MembershipProvider use a reference to my <connectionstrings> section. Here is what the MyMembershipProvider.vb file looks like:

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic

Imports System.Data

Imports System.Data.SqlClient

Imports Project_Management.Functions 'This was required to access the e-mail function in this class (?)

Public Class MyMembershipProvider

Inherits MembershipProvider

'---for database access use---

Private connStr As String 'Connection string (populated on Initialize)

Private _requiresQuestionAndAnswer As Boolean

Private _minRequiredPasswordLength As Integer

Public Overrides Sub Initialize(ByVal name As String, ByVal config As System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection)

'===retrives the attribute values set in

'web.config and assign to local variables===

If config("requiresQuestionAndAnswer").ToUpper = "TRUE" Then _

_requiresQuestionAndAnswer = True

connStr = config("connectionString")

MyBase.Initialize(name, config)

End Sub

James, I did try what you suggested, but I still got the same error. Could you use the examples in my earlier post to show me exactly what you mean? Thank you!

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

James_2JS — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:10:51 GMT

I would change this to be name="WebReportsConnectionString" - forget about everything else... and then use WebReportsConnectionString in you MembershipProvider definition... and ditch the ProviderName entry there too!!

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

justenough — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:41:41 GMT

I assume that because this is a custom provider, you have a class called MyMembershipProvider. Can you show me the code in that class that reads the connection string out of the config file?

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

KarlR — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:32:43 GMT

Unfortunately, I still get the same error. I tried a couple of different versions of the connectionStringName value as well, without success.

I appreciate your continued suggestions. I will keep experimenting, but please let me know if you think of anything else.

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

justenough — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:11:53 GMT

Try removing the following line from the Membership Provider section;

providerName

="System.Data.SqlClient"

Re: Unable to use connectionStringName in a Custom Membership Provider definition

KarlR — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 20:56:16 GMT

It's still the same as my original post: "connectionstring property has not been initialized". This only happens when I trigger something that uses the membership provider (like logging in, for example).

Thanks again.