Configuring SimpleMembership in MVC4

Question

I read that in MVC4 to set up simple membership I have to take this step:

In AppSettings there is a line:

<add key="enableSimpleMembership" value="true" /> 

However, when I look at the patterns generated from the templates, they only have:

  <appSettings> <add key="webpages:Version" value="2.0.0.0" /> <add key="webpages:Enabled" value="false" /> <add key="PreserveLoginUrl" value="true" /> <add key="ClientValidationEnabled" value="true" /> <add key="UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled" value="true" /> </appSettings> 

So why do I keep reading to set the enableSimpleMembership key?

Answer 1

By default, SimpleMembershipProvider activated when you create a new ASP.NET MVC 4 application. But some hosting providers can disable it by overriding this setting at a higher level of web.config.

Quote from an article about SimpleMembership :

If you see an error message indicating that the property must be an instance of ExtendedMembershipProvider, the site may not be configured to use the membership system in ASP.NET Web pages (SimpleMembership). Sometimes this can happen if the hosting provider server is configured differently than your local server. To fix this, add the following element to the site's Web.config file:

<appSettings>

  <add key="enableSimpleMembership" value="true" /> 

</appSettings>

This parameter is used by the WebMatrix.WebData.PreApplicationStartCode method, which runs automatically when your site starts and will use the value of this parameter to enable a simple membership provider.

In fact, setting up SimpleMembershipProvider explicitly I recommend you:

 <membership defaultProvider="SimpleMembershipProvider"> <providers> <clear/> <add name="SimpleMembershipProvider" type="WebMatrix.WebData.SimpleMembershipProvider, WebMatrix.WebData"/> </providers> </membership> <roleManager enabled="true" defaultProvider="SimpleRoleProvider"> <providers> <clear/> <add name="SimpleRoleProvider" type="WebMatrix.WebData.SimpleRoleProvider, WebMatrix.WebData"/> </providers> </roleManager> 

Now there is no room for confusion. Membership providers and roles are explicitly configured.