Integration with your existing ASP.NET application

If you need to integrate some existing ASP.NET application with Kentico CMS web site, there are several issues you need to consider. This chapter contains a summary of this topic, if you need more details or help with some particular issues, please contact Kentico support.

 

Location of CMS and your application

 

There three options how you can organize the CMS web project and your application web project:

 

1.Mixing both together
 
It makes sense to mix both applications into a single project if you wish to share functionality, content, security information and session or application variables between CMS and your application. The easiest way is to use Kentico CMS web project as the main project since it's already correctly configured for CMS and add your own ASPX pages and other files to this project.
 
If you need display your own ASPX pages inside the context of the web site, you can simply register them as page templates and then create new pages based on these page templates in the standard web site navigation (in the content tree). You will also need to modify your ASPX pages so that they use the master page (.master file) of the Kentico CMS web site.
 
If you wish to use a web site built using the Kentico CMS portal engine development model, please read also the chapter Combining ASPX templates and portal engine templates.
 
2.Having CMS in the root and your application in a subfolder
 
If your application can or needs to run separately from the CMS and you want the CMS to manage the main web site, you can place Kentico CMS web project in the root of the web site and your application into a subfolder. You will need to create a virtual directory for the subfolder so that your application runs correctly.
 
3.Having your application in the root and CMS in a subfolder
 
If your application can or needs to run separately from the CMS and your application is the main part of the web site and you wish to use the CMS only for some sub-section of the web site where you publish the content, you need to place the CMS into a sub-folder and create a virtual directory for it.

 

Interaction between CMS and your application

 

If you need to include your application inside the web site (front-end), you can do that either through ASPX pages (see paragraph Mixing both together above) or you need to create ASCX user controls that you place into the CMS web site.

 

If you need to build an application that will interact with the CMS system, but will mostly provide back-end user interface, you can create a custom module as described in chapter Custom modules.

 

Sharing security information between CMS and your application (single-sign-on)

 

If you wish to use single-sign-one for both your application and the CMS, you need to configure your environment as described in chapter Single sign-on. If you with to use a single system of permissions (authorization), you can leverage the permission system for custom modules as described in chapter Custom modules.