Auto login for debugging ASP.NET MVC 5

Question

I've seen

ASP.NET forms authentication - auto login with a test account while debugging?

ASP.NET site auto-login during development

but that's targeted for older version of ASP.NET MVC (see dates on posts)

I've tried adding

protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached && User == null)
    {
        FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie("user1@contoso.com", true);
    }
}

To global.aspx, but no luck. The login page still triggers. I've tried adding a check in Login, and the page never loads

public ActionResult Login(string returnUrl)
{
    if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached && User.Identity.IsAuthenticated == false)
    {
        var x = new LoginViewModel() { Email = "user1@contoso.com", Password = "Pa55w0rd!", RememberMe = false };
        Login(x, returnUrl).Wait();
        return View(x);
    }

    ViewBag.ReturnUrl = returnUrl;
    return View();
}

but when I navigate to a page with requiring authentication, the web page loads indefinitely (if I debug it hits SignInManager.PasswordSignInAsync() and never returns (autogenned code in AccountController).

Any idea what's the way to do this in ASP.NET mvc 5?

you can achieve this without making any changes in your code, Just webconfig changes and a sample app to login will be sufficient. I can share more details if this solution is feasible for you — Rajshekar Reddy, Mar 13 '16 at 07:25

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 13 '16 at 08:54

In your HomeController or wherever you'll want your default start URL to be

#if DEBUG
        public async Task AutoLogin()
        {

            if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached)
            {
                var controller = DependencyResolver.Current.GetService();
                controller.InitializeController(Request.RequestContext);
                return await controller.Login(new LoginViewModel() { Email = "user@no.com", Password = "passwordHere", RememberMe = false }, "/Home/Index");
            }

            return Content("Not debugging");
        }
#endif

and modify your AccountController to contain

using System.Web.Routing;

and

#if DEBUG
        public void InitializeController(RequestContext context)
        {
            base.Initialize(context);
        }
#endif

This code will only be included for debug builds as well.

Just tested it, should work OK. Enjoy :)

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 27 '17 at 14:02

This is what did it for me; pretty simple:

public ActionResult Login()
{
  if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached)
  {
    var controller = DependencyResolver.Current.GetService<AccountController>();
    controller.ControllerContext = new ControllerContext(this.Request.RequestContext, controller);
    return controller.Login("toddmo","abc123");
  }
  return View();
}

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 18 '16 at 11:10

This didnt work for me directly I needed to modify Adams reply to this. Im using VS2013 and MVC 5.

Change the signature of AutoLogin to this: (note the new 'ActionResult' after Task)

public async Task<ActionResult> AutoLogin()

Dependency resolver line needed changed to this:

AccountController controller = (AccountController) DependencyResolver.Current.GetService(typeof (AccountController));

I also changed the return URL to simply "Home" from "Home\Index" not sure if that made a difference though.

And finally I changed: return Content("Not debugging"); to this:

return View("Index");

Hope this helps someone. It works well for me. Cheers.Jon

Auto login for debugging ASP.NET MVC 5

3 Answers3