.Net framework 4.8 User Secret - Accessing ConnectionString in Membership Provider

Question

I am trying to use UserSecret in Asp.net MVC with a .Net framework 4.8. I am having issues with accessing ConnectionString via UserSecret the reason is I am also using Membership provider and Entityframework edmx file. The following code I am using to access connectionstring

<section name="configBuilders" type="System.Configuration.ConfigurationBuildersSection, System.Configuration, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" restartOnExternalChanges="false" requirePermission="false" />
  </configSections>
  <configBuilders>
    <builders>
      <add name="Secrets" mode="Greedy" userSecretsId="b503099f-e1d9-4700-9e50-cf4081a700e3" type="Microsoft.Configuration.ConfigurationBuilders.UserSecretsConfigBuilder, Microsoft.Configuration.ConfigurationBuilders.UserSecrets, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
    </builders>
  </configBuilders>

<connectionStrings configBuilders="Secrets">
    <remove name="LocalSqlServer" />
    <add name="LocalSqlServer" connectionString="" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
    <add name="HIPAADbEntities" connectionString="" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />
  </connectionStrings>

after writing above code when I run the application I am having following errors

These are the line of code written in web.config which gives me error

<membership userIsOnlineTimeWindow="120">
      <providers>
        <remove name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider" />
        <add name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" enablePasswordRetrieval="true" enablePasswordReset="false" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false" applicationName="/" requiresUniqueEmail="false" passwordFormat="Encrypted" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="25" minRequiredPasswordLength="4" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0" passwordAttemptWindow="10" passwordStrengthRegularExpression="" />
        <add name="MyMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" enablePasswordRetrieval="true" enablePasswordReset="false" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false" applicationName="/" requiresUniqueEmail="false" passwordFormat="Encrypted" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="25" minRequiredPasswordLength="4" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0" passwordAttemptWindow="10" passwordStrengthRegularExpression="" />
      </providers>
    </membership>

The UserSecret file is as follows

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root>
  <secrets ver="1.0">
    <secret name="LocalSqlServer" value="Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=TestDB;Integrated Security=True"></secret>
  </secrets>

</root>

How to access UserSecret in membership tag which have access to connectionstring? Without UserSecrets it works fine. But I need to make it work with Usersecret

Answer 1

I faced similar issue trying to get connection string in the same way as is possible for AppSettings values using User Secrets functionality. The main problem is that connection strings values don't have the same structure as AppSettings so is not possible to populate them in the exactly same way.

Regarding documentation you have three modes to get values from UserSecrets.

Strict and Greedy modes works well for AppSettings but no for connection strings.

The way I found to solve that is using Expand mode just for ConnectionStrings section. You should create two entries in builders, both pointing to the same file and the main difference will be its names and modes.

Here is an example of what I said.

Web.config file

...
<configBuilders>
<builders>
    <add name="AppSettings_Secrets" userSecretsId="STRING_UNIQUE_ID" type="Microsoft.Configuration.ConfigurationBuilders.UserSecretsConfigBuilder, Microsoft.Configuration.ConfigurationBuilders.UserSecrets, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
    <add name="ConnectionStrings_Secrets" mode="Expand" userSecretsId="STRING_UNIQUE_ID" type="Microsoft.Configuration.ConfigurationBuilders.UserSecretsConfigBuilder, Microsoft.Configuration.ConfigurationBuilders.UserSecrets, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
</builders>
</configBuilders>
<appSettings configBuilders="AppSettings_Secrets">
    <add key="MY_KEY_01" value="xxx" />
    <add key="MY_KEY_02" value="xxx" />
</appSettings>
<connectionStrings configBuilders="ConnectionStrings_Secrets">
    <add name="defaultConnection" connectionString="${CONNECTION_STRING}" />
</connectionStrings>
...

Take in mind that if you want to manage all secrets in the same file secrets.xml you must use the same value on userSecretsId="STRING_UNIQUE_ID" for both builders.

secrets.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root>
  <secrets ver="1.0">
    <secret name="MY_KEY_01" value="Key value 01" />
    <secret name="MY_KEY_02" value="Key value 02" />
    <secret name="CONNECTION_STRING" value="Connection string value" />
  </secrets>
</root>