How to use Identity membership with existing database (n-tier)

Question

I've been reading various other questions about using asp.net-identity but I don't see anything concrete with regards to using it with an existing database when the project is developed in tiers. For argument's sake, say the following is true:

• Solution
  • WebUI
  • Services
    • UserService
  • Data
    • MyDbContext
  • Core
    • User

How can I specify User (from the Core project) to be the IUserStore for the new identity provider? Am I missing something, or does this all assume that the website and the membership database always reside in the same project(or there are strict references to the Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.* libraries wherever the models reside)?

Setting up a DbContext at the WebUI layer just for authentication (and tie it in to the "MyDbContext" with a service) seems hacky. Am i missing something, or was the team just planning on this being only used in simple applications?

And feedback would be appreciated.

More Information

if it's worth mentioning:

• This would be a completely new solution; I do not have old/existing aspnet_* or webpages_* tables to worry about. I'm trying to take various other custom solutions and tie them in to one solid solution, so I'm open to a lot of options. However, I would like to keep things broken out by layer (if at all possible).

Answer 1

Asp.net Identity Framework is set of components helping application to work with User Identity. Core framework blocks are in Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.Core assembly. The second Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework is the data persistence implementation for the Core framework.

Now for the n-tier application, you can define your AppUser model in any project/assembly. You need to inherit it from the Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework.IdentityUser. So based on your approach, you need to reference particular assembly.

Same is for the MyDbContext. You must inherit from the currently only available Persistence Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.EntityFramework.IdentityDbContext<TUser>. Your MyDbContext can be in other project/assembly. You need to refer to your AppUser assembly too in this project/assembly.