External login providers with virtual users/members

[jbreuer]

Umbraco currently supports external login providers for users/members:
https://our.umbraco.com/documentation/reference/security/external-login-providers/

These still need to exist as users/members inside Umbraco. This can be done with the auto-linking feature:
https://our.umbraco.com/documentation/reference/security/auto-linking/

The problem with the current solution is that users/members need to exist in 2 systems. Umbraco and the external login provider. This makes it harder to use the external login provider as a source of truth for all users/members. If the external login provider has thousands of users/members you don't want them inside Umbraco as well.

So this feature request is about virtual users/members. When you authenticate users/members through external providers, Umbraco could create and authenticate a virtual user/member with proper access rights. This user/member exists only as long as the user session lasts.

[jbreuer]

Related topic: https://our.umbraco.com/forum/using-umbraco-and-getting-started//109544-external-login-providers-with-virtual-usersmembers

[jbreuer]

I managed to get virtual members working. It is an experiment though. I don't know if it is wise to use this approach on a live environment.

You can read the full blog here: https://www.jeroenbreuer.nl/blog/virtual-members-in-umbraco/

[bergmania]

Hi @jbreuer.

Thanks for the good work and blog post.

This is definitely something we want, and have talked about for some time already. So far we just didn't have had time to look into it.

I still think it make sense to support having members in two systems sometimes. This could be if you have to add information to the member, and your can't get that from the external provider. That said, there is definitely also use cases where you only need to rely on virtual members.

[jbreuer]

Hi @bergmania,

Nice to hear that you want this too. I also agree that having members in two systems could be useful if you want to add information. It would be great to have both autolink or virtual members as options in Umbraco.

[aguyfromdenmark]

Hi @bergmania,
Is there any update on the status of this wanted feature?

[bergmania]

Hi.. No we dont have capacity to work on it currently.