Hi all .
I’m new to ASP and ASP 2.0 so please be patience.
I’m reading Marco Bellinaso’s book (ASP 2.0 website programming) and found something that isn’t working as I expect it to work.
I’m talking about the site map data source control – the one that shows the links to the “main” pages / nodes of the site.
From the book (and the link from MSDN - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178428.aspx ) I understand that if one specifies the roles attribute inside the siteMapNode in the site map , this roles list will determine if this node will be visible to the user according to its roles list (if the user is just a member , he can’t see the admin link in the book’s example and so on).
In my web site (where I try to follow the book) this isn’t working. Changing the example from the book result the same results (if I allow all users to the admin folder via its web config the link is visible although the roles list in the site map is limited). It looks like the visibility of the link is NOT connected to the roles attribute on the map node but to the web config of the specific folder.

What am I doing wrong?
I would like to “help” the map provider so it will not have to check the actual page to set the link visibility.
I hope I was clear enough.
If I’m asking the question is the wrong forum please let me know.

Thanks
Amit

Just keep going.

If you try to run the web site with only half of Chapter 4 completed, the role function doesn't have anything to do, so your entire site map will be shown. Once you have the Admin folder and web.config file for the folder set up, it will work as advertised.

Thanks for the prompt reply.
I know, but if the site map is looking / checking for the folder’s web config file , why do I need the roles attribute in the site map for ?
In the MSDN attached article they claim that the visibility is based on the web config file but one can “help” performance by supplying the roles attribute (save the time to go and check for each folder). That’s when I tried doing it (first on my code and then on the book’s example) to see that it doesn’t work …


Thanks again
Amit

The approach is two prong. MSDN is simply telling you that when the role is set in the site map it bypasses the check of web.config because if the menu option is not available to the user it is not going to be selected. However web.config will be read if someone tries to browse to the page.

Hi Mythical you.
That’s exactly what I don’t see working.
I open chapter 5 code (I played with the other codes so much , just to make sure it’s the original code).
I run the default page , I don’t see the admin link – as we expect.
I go to the web config of the admin folder, and on line 14 – the location tag of the default page I replace the deny users tag to <allow users="*" />. When I run the default page again (main site default) , I can see the admin link although the roles attribute in the sitemap file is intact (if I understand correctly this attribute should have “blocked” the link from the map control).
The roles attribute is not working or I don’t understand something here.

Thanks for your patience.
Amit

I seem to remember a bug about this. In one of the demos I saw, the presenter said you have to use web.config settings in subfolders to control this. But he wasn't a well known guy so he may have been wrong. He said he couldn't get group security working in the sitemap alone.

I don't use this mechanism myself. I use a third party menu tied to roles in the database.

Eric