Implementing “Remember me” Functionality in ASP.NET

Question

What is the best way to implement 'remember me' functionality on an ASP.NET web site?

Should I use custom cookies or is there a simpler method?

Answer 1

Are you using the built in Authenication services provided by ASP.NET? If so, its pretty easy.

Answer 2

For me the solution was differentiating between a browser-session cookie (not to be confused with the asp.net session cookie) and a persistent one - setting a low expiration will create a persistent cookie meaning it gets remembered when the browser is closed and re-opened within the expiration time. The following works for me:

public void SetAuthenticationCookie(LoginView loginModel)
    {
      if (!loginModel.RememberMe)
      {
        FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(loginModel.Email, false);
        return;
      }
      const int timeout = 2880; // Timeout is in minutes, 525600 = 365 days; 1 day = 1440.
      var ticket = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(loginModel.Email, loginModel.RememberMe, timeout);
      //ticket.
      string encrypted = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(ticket);
      var cookie = new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encrypted)
        {
          Expires = System.DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(timeout),
          HttpOnly = true
        };
      HttpContext.Current.Response.Cookies.Add(cookie);
    }