MVC 5 Global User Account Object

Question

I have a application with the following Layout. In the Shared Views Folder I have, _Layout.cshtml, _SideNav.cshtml and _CurrentUser.cshtml.

In the _Layout.cshtml I have:

@{ Html.RenderPartialIf("_SideNav", Request.IsAuthenticated); }

In the _SideNav.cshtml I have:

@{ Html.RenderPartial("_CurrentUser"); }

In the _CurrentUser.cshtml I have:

<div class="login-info">
    <span>
        <a href="javascript:void(0);" id="show-shortcut" data-action="toggleShortcut">
            <img src="~/content/img/avatars/sunny.png" alt="me" class="online" />
            <span>@User.Identity.Name</span>
            <i class="fa fa-angle-down"></i>
        </a>
    </span>
</div>

We use FormsAuthentication to authenticate a user. We are not using the standard Identity authentication which ships with ASP.Net MVC 5 because we are using a LDAP Server.

FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(username, isPersistent);
.....
HttpContext.Current.User = new GenericPrincipal(new GenericIdentity(username, "Forms"), roles);

We use the username in the cookie so that we can easily get information from the LDAP server.

Problem: @User.Identity.Name returns that username. But I need to display the full name of the user. I have access to the full name when we authenticate. but not sure how to use it.

How can I pass the FullName value from the AccountController to the _CurrentUser.cshtml partial view? Kind of like a Global Container like @User.Identity with more attributes that can be set.

Answer 1

You can use something like this

FormsAuthenticationTicket ticket = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(1,
                                                                viewModel.Email,
                                                                YOUR_ISSUE_DATE,
                                                                YOUR_EXPIRE_DATE,
                                                                viewModel.RememberMe,
                                                                JsonConvert.SerializeObject(user),
                                                                FormsAuthentication.FormsCookiePath);


string hash = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(ticket);
HttpCookie authcookie = new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, hash);

Response.Cookies.Add(authcookie);

Answer 2

You can try something similar to-->

public static MyAuthenticationTicket  GetIMyUserTicket()
{
    //Get custom user data object from forms auth cookie
    MyAuthenticationTicket  result= null;
    if (HttpContext.Current.User == null)
        return null;
    if (!HttpContext.Current.Request.IsAuthenticated)
        return null;
    FormsIdentity ident = (FormsIdentity)HttpContext.Current.User.Identity;
    if (ident == null)
        return null;
    FormsAuthenticationTicket ticket = ident.Ticket;
    if (ticket == null)
        return null;
    if (!FormsAuthentication.CookiesSupported)
    {               
        //If cookie is not supported for forms authentication, then the 
        //authentication ticket is stored in the Url, which is encrypted.
        //So, decrypt it
        ticket = FormsAuthentication.Decrypt(ident.Ticket.Name);

    }

    string userDataString = ticket.UserData;
    if(!String.IsNullOrEmpty(userDataString))
        result= new MyAuthenticationTicket(userDataString);

    return result;       
}