During the early years of developing with DNN we only had one true authentication model to use.  This was the trusted Forms based authentication built into ASP.NET 1.0 and 1.1.  When we started to get to version 3.0 of DotNetNuke, we started to see a lot of buzz around the use of other authentication types. 

One of the first was integration with Active Directory within a corporate environment to allow users just to use their current network credentials to login.  The first version of this was an add-in module. Then with the release of 3.2 we started to see the beginnings of the provider model that we currently have with the latest releases of the product.

As you can see with the image above we have 3 authentication provider types setup on a default DNN 4.8.0 install.  This install had issues with the Active Directory provider type and a new version has been sent to testing but has stalled because of an issue with IIS 7.  But there is an AD Provider Beta available from Mike Horton's site.  We are going to walk through installing this provider to add to the three that we have currently installed.

But first lets check out the three we have. The first is the DNN core authentication provider which allows us to authenticate against the database that we have installed.  The next one is LiveID which allows us to use Microsoft's Live Passport technology to authenticate against.  The third one is OpenID, this is a new ID system that is being worked on openly on the Internet to allow more people to use it as it is not controlled by one corporation or entity in it's entirety.

All of these settings are currently enabled but can be quickly disabled by selecting the appropriate checkbox beside each option.  The other two columns basically show us the control that will be used for the settings and the control that will be used for handling the login procedure in the framework.  Under this is a link to Install New Authentication System, we are going to walk through this and install the AD Beta from previously.  I will provide the walk-through in my next post.