ASP.Net Store User Data in Auth Cookie

Question

I want to store some data like the user nickname and user ID (table primary key) in the user data section of the auth cookie. The reason I\'m doing this is to retain this da

Answer 1

I've written an in depth tutorial on how to do this here:

http://www.danharman.net/2011/07/07/storing-custom-data-in-forms-authentication-tickets/

This maintains the encryption and authentication, and uses json to serialize a class into the UserData field.

Edit:

The blog no longer exists, an archive can be found on the web archive here.

Summary from blog:

Get the existing cookie and auth ticket

HttpResponse response = HttpContext.Current.Response;
bool rememberMe = true;
var cookie = FormsAuthentication.GetAuthCookie(name, rememberMe);
var ticket = FormsAuthentication.Decrypt(cookie.Value);

Define your custom data (make sure this is serializable to json)

var userData = new YourUserClass(...);

Create a new auth ticket with your data, and existing auth ticket settings

var newTicket = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(ticket.Version, 
    ticket.Name, 
    ticket.IssueDate, 
    ticket.Expiration, 
    ticket.IsPersistent, 
    userData.ToJson(), //This is where you'd set your user data
    ticket.CookiePath);
var encTicket = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(newTicket);

Set your customized ticket into cookie and add to response

cookie.Value = encTicket;
response.Cookies.Add(cookie);