title: Connecting .NET Membership and Roles wth Existing Database
body: <p>I find a few topics on this, but they point to too-generic documentation or, for the link that seemed most pertinent so far, don't work.
  (I'll refer to all the built-in functionality for membership/roles in .NET as "Membership" here on out.)</p>
  
  <p>Using .NET 4.0 and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express and SQL Server 2005.</p>
  
  <p>I'm creating a website where, in order to sign up, you need to be a paying member. I've already created the database that holds all membership info, and I've already created the form where they sign up, as well as the pages where they themselves or site admins can manage their account info. I've also even created a class for authenticating them and checking for permission on pages based on level of access (roles).</p>
  
  <p>I'm hoping for a clear, concise explanation of either of these options:</p>
  
  <p>• Point "Membership" at the place where username/password are stored, disallowing it from auto-creating its own db. (I'll then go back through my site and replace my own custom authentication in the few places I have it with official .NET "Membership".)</p>
  
  <p>• Or still run my own custom authentication, but in that process, say to "Membership", "Hey! User known as "username" and of role "member" is now authenticated. Note that in your own special place, assign them that role, and know what to do with it when I ask you hereafter." Could this be "Forms Authentication API"?</p>
  
  <p>There's more to the account than just username/password/role. I know I can add more fields to accounts created using .NET but I also really don't want to use some randomly created, self-contained, disjointed database just for the sake of handling logins.</p>
  
  <p>I have not yet learned the basics of "Membership", though I'm getting darn close in my process of learning .NET; and I can't spend the time right now making progress on that for personal reasons, but I have to proceed with making this site. I would like to be able to use many of the benefits that come along with .NET security, like being able to exclude users from folders using web.config, etc.</p>
  
  <p>Mostly I'm just seeking assurance it will be possible for me to backpedal after I get some other aspects of the project shored up, but before I make it live, and without having to rewrite half of the membership forms and splitting that data into several databases and figuring out how to use "Membership" for either pieces of it or all of it when a member signs up.
  Possible?</p>