title: How do I manually log a user in with a MembershipProvider?
body: <p>I'm experimenting with writing my own custom <code>MembershipProvider</code> in asp.net and I want to roll my own login page.  We do some fairly special stuff at login time so we can't use the default login control so I need a way to manually log a user in.</p>
  
  <p>So far I haven't found anything on how to write your own login control so I'm here, wondering how I can manually log a user in via a <code>MembershipProvider</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I've tried</p>
  
  <pre><code>Membership.ValidateUser("user", "pass");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and while that does call <code>ValidateUser()</code> on my custom <code>MembershipProvider</code>, and it does return true, it doesn't actually log me in.</p>
  
  <p>Btw I'm fairly new to the whole <code>MembershipProvider</code> stuff so if I'm not even on the right wavelength, feel free to let me know.</p>