asp.NET Password Requirements

For an asp.net website, using AspNetSqlMembershipProvider for authentication, there are several settings you can specify to handle password requirements.  Most corporate sites that want to make sure users are entering strong password have several things they look for in a password.

1. Password Length
2. Character Types
3. Password Complexity
4. Password History
5. Encryption
6. Attempts

Most of these settings are kept in the web.config.  Here is a standard setting for the membership provider:

<membership>

  <providers>

    <add 

      name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider" 

      type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, ..." 

      connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" 

      enablePasswordRetrieval="false" 

      enablePasswordReset="true" 

      requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true" 

      applicationName="/" 

      requiresUniqueEmail="false" 

      passwordFormat="Hashed" 

      maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" 

      minRequiredPasswordLength="7" 

      minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="1" 

      passwordAttemptWindow="10" 

      passwordStrengthRegularExpression="" 

    />

  </providers>

</membership>

To control the password complexity, you'll need to set the "passwordStrengthRegularExpression" under the "AspNetSqlMembershipProvider".

I'm not great with Regular Expressions, so I turned to StackOverflow for the following password requirements:

• At least 8 Characters (up to 100)
• Must have 3 of the 4 character types (Upper, Lower, Number, Symbol)

(?=^[^\s]{8,100}$)((?=.*?\d)(?=.*?[A-Z])(?=.*?[a-z])|(?=.*?\d)(?=.*?[^\w\d\s])(?=.*?[a-z])|(?=.*?[^\w\d\s])(?=.*?[A-Z])(?=.*?[a-z])|(?=.*?\d)(?=.*?[A-Z])(?=.*?[^\w\d\s]))^.*

An explanation of individual components:

• (?=^[^\s]{8,100}$) - contain between 8 and 100 non-whitespace characters

• (?=.*?\d) - contains 1 numeric

• (?=.*?[A-Z]) - contains 1 uppercase character

• (?=.*?[a-z]) - contains 1 lowercase character

• (?=.*?[^\w\d\s]) - contains 1 symbol

Notice after the length segment the double parens and later in the expression you'll see several
's. This allows for the either/or comparison of the 4 possible combinations that are allowed.

Also, check out RAD Regex Designer, for a FREE tool to test your Regular Expression!

Finding Duplicates in MS SQL Server

Here is a quick snippet on how to find duplicates:

SELECT a.[dr_id]

      ,a.[sch_type]

      ,COUNT(*) as '# records'

  FROM [LZ].[dbo].[lz_src_address1] a

  where a.sch_type = '23'

  group by a.dr_id, a.sch_type

  having COUNT(*) > 1

You only include the fields that you need to determine if its a duplicate and put them in the GROUP BY clausing.  the HAVING clause tells you if there is more than 1 record.

There are several ways to delete duplicates.  They way you choose will depend on if you have a unique key for each row.  If so, you can delete them with a single statement.  If not, you may need to use a cursor and/or temp tables.

MS SQL UPDATE with a JOIN

This describes how to UPDATE a table when you have to JOIN another table.  This is for MS SQL Server, so the syntax varies with other versions.

In this example, I am updating the [aspnet_Membership] table, but I want to join the [aspnet_Users] table so I can do it user UserName.  This script allows me to set the password of a user to my password so I can log in as that user.  This is done by updating the ASP.NET Membership table.  I would need to store the [Password] and [PasswordSalt] of this account if I wanted to change it back.

UPDATE m 

SET   m.[Password] = 'mrhLMUfIWCuTHDwOtm1s/I9ABMQsS=='

    , m.[PasswordSalt] = 'suyp+Nsd2lmMPpQ=='

FROM [dnnDB].[dbo].[aspnet_Membership] m

JOIN [dnnDB].[dbo].[aspnet_Users] u on m.UserId = u.UserId

WHERE 1=1

  AND u.UserName in 

  (

      'FirstUser'

    , 'SecondUser'

    , 'ThirdUser'

  )

View the Contents of a DataTable or DataView While Debugging

I always forget this because I use four different programming languages(3 different IDEs), so I'll put it up here in case I forget ...... again!  Also, credit to Rob Prouse (on StackOverflow).

The Visual Studio debugger comes with four standard visualizers. These are the text, HTML, and XML visualizers, all of which work on string objects, and the dataset visualizer, which works for DataSet, DataView, and DataTable objects.
To use it, break into your code, mouse over your DataSet, expand the quick watch, view the Tables, expand that, then view Table[0] (for example). You will see something like {Table1} in the quick watch, but notice that there is also a magnifying glass icon. Click on that icon and your DataTable will open up in a grid view.

ASPX Hyperlinks: Opening automatically and in New Windows

Here's a couple quick tips that took me some time to work out.

1. Opening a Hyperlink in a new window:

ASPX

<asp:HyperLink ID="jiraLink" 

runat="server">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Click here to Expand Window </asp:HyperLink>

Code-behind:

String jiraURL = "http://" + jiraServerURL +"/jira/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?sId=" + sessionGUID;

jiraLink.NavigateUrl = jiraURL;

jiraLink.Target = "_blank";

And, to automatically open a Hyperlink, put this in the Page_Load:

Response.Write("<script type='text/javascript'>window.open('" + serverURL+ "','_blank');</script>");

DotNetNuke Update Custom Profile fields

I had a good bit of trouble with this, but I was able to get it working.

You may need to make sure the custom property you have created is marked Visible, but this is the code that ended up working for me in DNN 6.1.2.

UserInfo _currentUser = DotNetNuke.Entities.Users.UserController.GetCurrentUserInfo();

// Create Token

string sessionGuid = TokenLibrary.TokenSupport.CreateToken(_currentUser).ToString();

if (sessionGuid == null || (sessionGuid.Trim().Length < 1 )

sessionGuid = "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000";

// Set User Property called "sessionGUID"

_currentUser.Profile.SetProfileProperty("sessionGUID", sessionGuid);

UserController.UpdateUser(_currentUser.PortalID, _currentUser);

Bulk File Renaming Utility

I found a great free tool and thought I'd share it here. It's called "Bulk Rename Utility" and can be downloaded from http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Command.php.

This utility is GUI based, but the link above is the command-line version. I also highly recommend you download the manual to see all the features it has.


When you download the command line version, it is called BRC64.exe ( and they have a 32bit version). I just dropped this into the Windows system directory so its available from the command line no matter what directory I am in.

If you type: BRC64.exe /? , you will get all the command line options.
The main concept is if you run the command with the options, it WILL NOT MODIFY the filenames until you add the /EXECUTE option. So, you can play around with all the options and it will show you what WOULD HAPPEN, then you add /EXECUTE to make it happen.

Examples:

-- This will insert ACME in front of all .X01 files, then remove the .X01 and add .txt as the suffix
brc64.exe /PATTERN:*.X01 /INSERT:ACME-:0 /REMOVEEXT /SUFFIX:.txt /EXECUTE


-- This will replace 2012 with 2011 in all .txt file and change .txt to .asc
brc64.exe /PATTERN:*.txt /REPLACECI:2012:2011 /REMOVEEXT /SUFFIX:.asc /EXECUTE



There are a lot more features, but you get the idea. Just remember, it WILL NOT perform the rename until you add the /EXECUTE, so you can experiment all day.