Register New SharePoint User with Custom Page in SharePoint 2010 FBA Authentication

By: MJ Ferdous | Comments | Related: > SharePoint Administration

Problem

Many SharePoint sites need to allow public access and/or registration. However developers face the problem of programmatically adding a new user to needed groups in order to avoid "Access Denied" errors.

Solution

This article will demonstrate how to register a new user programmatically for a SharePoint site using a custom register page and add this user into a SharePoint user group. This solution is an enhanced version of the tip on "Creating and deploying custom Login page - SharePoint 2010 FBA authentication".

Step 1:

(This first step is same as step 1 from the above referenced tip. If you already created the project from that step and would like to reuse it, you may skip to Step 2 below.)

Create a new project of type "Empty SharePoint Project" in Visual Studio 2010 as shown below.

Provide a Project name and Press "OK". You will be prompted by a Wizard to specify a SharePoint site where you want to deploy a custom login page. You can validate the site URL to ensure that your site is fine to deploy in this solution. Remember that you have to choose Deploy as Server Farm solution instead of deploying as a sandboxed solution (default selected as below). Otherwise you will get an error when you deploy the solution "The deployment type "TemplateFile" of file "CustomLogin.aspx" in Project Item "Layouts" is not compatible with a Package in a Sandboxed Solution" Because Layout is the root place to deploy in SharePoint server farm which is mapped {SharePointRoot}\Template\Layouts.

So you will select Deploy as Server Farm solution after validation of the site URL.

Then "Click to Finish" to create the project.

Step 2:

You have to add a new Application Page using a right-click on the project Solution Explorer -> New item to create a Register Page (Register.aspx) in the following way.

The form will auto-generate some code where you:

Need to remove the entry asp:Content ID="Content1" runat="server" from the Register.aspx
Need to remove DynamicMasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master" from @Page Register tag

Change Inheritance LayoutsPageBase to System.Web.UI.Page
Copy the following code to register the new user. Detailed steps are:

Create membership user
Create SharePoint user
Add SharePoint user to a desired group

string login = UserName.Text.Trim();
string password = Password.Text.Trim();
string email = Email.Text.Trim();

//1) Create membership user
MembershipUser membershipUser = Membership.CreateUser(login, password, email);
Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate
{
    //2) Create sharepoint user
    using (SPSite spSite = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site.ID))
    {
        SPWeb spWeb = spSite.OpenWeb();
        spWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
        SPUser spUser = spWeb.EnsureUser(login);

        //3) Add sharepoint user to a desired group
        SPGroup spGroup = spWeb.SiteGroups["FBA Demo Members"];
        spGroup.AddUser(spUser);
        spWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;
    }
});

Step 3:

Then deploy the solution which will create a folder inside .\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\CustomLoginPageFBA

Step 4:

Go to Central Administration
Select "Site" from "Application Management"
Click on Authentication Provider
Select the Zone and go inside it to get the following Sign In Page URL Section
Change the Custom Sign In Page URL from where you will link Register Page