SharePoint 2016 - Forms Based Authentication - Part Two

In the previous article, SharePoint 2016: Forms Based Authentication – Part 1, of this series on implementing FBA with SharePoint, we saw the execution of steps 1 & 2 for the process.

In this article, we are going to see the execution of steps 3 & 4. For a quick review, I am putting up the process diagram again in here.

Process Diagram

Step 3 - Configure IIS

• Start IIS Manager with Admin rights.

• Select IIS Server Name on the left navigation.
• Click on the “Connection Strings”.

• Click on "Add".

• Enter the name of Connection String
• Enter SQL Server Instance Name
• Enter Database Name
• Verify the Connection String and make sure it is correctly built up

Once done with the process, we can see to the Connection String was created.

Select IIS Server Name on the left navigation and click on the “Providers”.

• Select Feature “.Net Roles” from the dropdown.
• Click "Add".

• Select Type as “SqlRoleProvider”;
• Enter an appropriate Name;
• Enter appropriate Connection String Name;
• Enter Application Name as “/”;
• Click "OK".

• Select Feature “.Net Users” from the dropdown.
• Click "Add".

• Select Type as “SqlMembershipProvider”;
• Enter appropriate name;
• Configure behavior of the Membership Provider;
• Choose Connection String name similar to that we created earlier under Data Section;
• Scroll down to configure more settings.

Enter “/” as Application Name under General section.

• Expand the Web application from the left navigation.
• Click on the “Providers” from right hand side.

Configure “Providers” (Roles & Membership Providers) as shown above. Since the steps are exactly the same, I am not repeating it.

I am putting up the screen shots here for your quick reference.

Step 4 - Modify Web.Config

In IIS, select the Web application that you want to implement with FBA.

• Click on “Explore”.

This will open the Virtual Directory for the Web application.

Edit the Web.Config file for Web application, using Visual Studio.

Now, locate “PeoplePickerWildcards” section, as shown below.

Specify the name of membership provider “SPMembership” that we have configured in the steps above.

With this, we are all done for this demo.

In this article, we have covered steps 3 & 4. We will look for step 5 in upcoming article on Configuring FBA for SharePoint. Until then, stay tuned.