where are Roles stored?

Question

I just started dabbling in to ASP.NET security. Have a few questions. 1) I used role management to restrict access to certain page. This was the section of my web.config

<profile>
    <providers>
        <clear />
        <add name="AspNetSqlProfileProvider" 
            type="System.Web.Profile.SqlProfileProvider, 
            System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, 
            PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" 
            connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" applicationName="/" />
    </providers>
</profile>
<roleManager enabled="true">
    <providers>
        <clear />
        <add connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" 
            applicationName="/" name="AspNetSqlRoleProvider" 
            type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider, System.Web, 
            Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />
        <add applicationName="/" name="AspNetWindowsTokenRoleProvider" 
            type="System.Web.Security.WindowsTokenRoleProvider, 
            System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, 
            Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />
    </providers>
</roleManager>

This works fine. But what happened was the connecitonStringName was set to "ApplicationServices" before. And it wouldn't work. I then changed it to "LocalSqlServer". It started working.

So I want to understand, why would that happen? Also, is LocalSqlServer just another arbitrary name for the connection string value? I checked the database, the roles aren't stored there. So where are the roles stored then?

These are newbie questions. I thank your patience in advance

Answer 1

Why would that happen?

Using the wrong connection string would mean the membership and role tables would not be found by your application.

Is LocalSqlServer just another arbitrary name for the connection string value?

In the web.config you'll see a connection string called LocalSqlServer

Where are the roles stored?

Have a look in the aspnet_Roles table if it's the old membership framework, or UserProfile if it's the newer SimpleMembershipProvider.

Answer 2

Because when you declare the AspNetSqlProfileProvider, you specify connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" to tell it which connection to use.

Answer 3

If you don't see Membership tables in your database, you should add them there. There is a special tool, which helps to do it:

Run the following command in VisualStudio command line: aspnet_regsql or find it here: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regsql.exe.

And just follow its instructions.