How to set machineKey on Azure Website

Question

I'm running an Azure Website. Whenever I deploy, everyone gets logged out because the machineKey changes.

I specified the machineKey in the web.config but this didn't solve the issue. I believe this is because Azure automatically overwrites the machineKey [1].

I've found a couple of similar questions here but the answers link to dead links.

So, what's the solution? Surely there's a way to keep users logged in regardless of deployments on Azure.

Answer 1

Try to reset the machine-key configuration section upon Application_Start:

protected void Application_Start() {     // ...      var mksType = typeof(MachineKeySection);     var mksSection = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.web/machineKey") as MachineKeySection;     var resetMethod = mksType.GetMethod("Reset", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);      var newConfig = new MachineKeySection();     newConfig.ApplicationName = mksSection.ApplicationName;     newConfig.CompatibilityMode = mksSection.CompatibilityMode;     newConfig.DataProtectorType = mksSection.DataProtectorType;     newConfig.Validation = mksSection.Validation;      newConfig.ValidationKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["MK_ValidationKey"];     newConfig.DecryptionKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["MK_DecryptionKey"];     newConfig.Decryption = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["MK_Decryption"]; // default: AES     newConfig.ValidationAlgorithm = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["MK_ValidationAlgorithm"]; // default: SHA1      resetMethod.Invoke(mksSection, new object[] { newConfig }); } 

The above assumes you set the appropriate values in the <appSettings> section:

<appSettings>   <add key="MK_ValidationKey" value="...08EB13BEC0E42B3F0F06B2C319B..." />   <add key="MK_DecryptionKey" value="...BB72FCE34A7B913DFC414E86BB5..." />   <add key="MK_Decryption" value="AES" />   <add key="MK_ValidationAlgorithm" value="SHA1" /> </appSettings> 

But you can load your actual values from any configuration source you like.