Authentication

         Authentication is the process of obtaining identification credentials such as name and password from a user and validating those credentials against some authority. If the credentials are valid, the entity that submitted the credentials is considered an authenticated identity. Once an identity has been authenticated, the authorization process determines whether that identity has access to a given resource.

         ASP.NET implements authentication through authentication providers, the code modules that contain the code necessary to authenticate the requestor's credentials. It is implemented using Configuration Tag

         We have three types of authentication modes in asp.net

·         WindowsAuthentication

·         FormsAuthentication

·         Passport Authentication

        

      IIS supports Basic authentication, but there is a caveat: The user is authenticated against their Windows credentials. That means the user must have an account on the server’s domain. For a public-facing web site, you typically want to authenticate against an ASP.NET membership provider.

To enable Basic authentication using IIS, set the authentication mode to "Windows" in the Web.config of your ASP.NET project:

<system.web>

    <authentication mode="Windows" />

</system.web>

In this mode, IIS uses Windows credentials to authenticate. In addition, you must enable Basic authentication in IIS. In IIS Manager, go to Features View, select Authentication, and enable Basic authentication.