Victor Adukwu
Aug 28, 2017 · 2 min read

Implementing External Authentication for ASP.Net MVC5 — My Experience.

This post briefly captures my most recent challenging learning experience. The task was in a bid for me to keep pace with the constantly changing world of Information and Communication Technology.

My Most recent challenging learning experience was when I tried learning how to implement external authentication for an ASP.Net MVC application. The goal was to enable users log in to their account from Google, Facebook or Twitter, rather than using the conventional method of creating a new account with password.

The Motivation

A lot of online applications require one form of authentication or the other. To worsen the situation, different websites have different levels of complexities for their password requirement. The problem gets complicated because each internet user has to keep many passwords at the same time. Yet it is not advisable that users write down their passwords, as this could expose the details. If there is a way to minimize the number of passwords kept by any individual, it would be a lot of relief. This forms the bases of external authentication.

The Challenge

I had gone through an online tutorial for the implementation. After creating the project, I followed through the step-by step implementation of the external log in. However each time I run the program, the website does not even display. After trying for about two days without any serious headway, I had to call a friend for assistance. He was much more experienced in ASP.Net. Unfortunately, he was out of town and my explanation on phone could not really give him a good lead to the problem. I had to wait for his return. The good thing is that I was not really working within any time frame. It was just a self-paced learning session.

When he came back, he advised that I install the latest version of .Net framework and that actually helped me overcome that challenge. Although I had not completely achieved my aim, I was able to cross a challenge that seemed insurmountable to me.

From that experience, one very important lesson continues to resonate on my mind — the importance of asking questions cannot be over-emphasized. Asking the right person the right question might just be all the solution to that seemingly difficult situation.

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