Migrating ASP.NET Identity from MVC 4 to Core 8

Migrating ASP.NET Identity from MVC 4 to Core 8

🔄 Modernizing a legacy MVC 4 project to ASP.NET Core Core 8 is no small feat—especially when Identity is involved. If you’ve been through it, you already know. If you haven’t… you're in for a surprise.

I’ve done it, and I’ll be honest: it’s messy.

I’ve worked on every version of ASP—from Classic ASP to Core Core 8.
Back in 1998, Microsoft gave me early beta access on 3½" floppies!

So yes, I’ve seen every twist in the ASP.NET journey—and I now offer a service to migrate your app cleanly from Identity 4 to Core Core 8 without the pain.

❌ Why It’s Not Plug-and-Play

Migrating Identity means rewriting assumptions baked into your user management. You’ll likely need to:

  • Drop and re-create role and user tables
  • Rebuild relationships manually
  • Align with the non-nullable, async-first architecture of Core
  • Avoid cluttering Program.cs with admin seed logic

If you’ve tried doing it with just Add-Migration and Update-Database, you already know: that’s the easy part.

✅ Two Smart Ways to Seed Identity Roles

Here’s what worked for me:

🔹 SQL Approach (Clean and Manual) 

-- Create Admin Role
INSERT INTO AspNetRoles (Id, Name, NormalizedName)
VALUES (NEWID(), 'Admin', 'ADMIN');

-- Find your UserId
SELECT Id FROM AspNetUsers WHERE Email = '[email protected]';

-- Assign Admin Role
INSERT INTO AspNetUserRoles (UserId, RoleId)
VALUES ('your-user-id', (SELECT Id FROM AspNetRoles WHERE Name = 'Admin'));

🔹 Admin Controller Approach (Reusable and Safe)

Create an AdminController to assign roles without bloating Program.cs.

[Authorize(Roles = "Admin")]
public class AdminController : Controller
{
    private readonly RoleManager<IdentityRole> _roleManager;
    private readonly UserManager<BenIdentityUser> _userManager;

    public AdminController(RoleManager<IdentityRole> roleManager, UserManager<BenIdentityUser> userManager)
    {
        _roleManager = roleManager;
        _userManager = userManager;
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public async Task<IActionResult> CreateRole(string roleName)
    {
        if (!await _roleManager.RoleExistsAsync(roleName))
            await _roleManager.CreateAsync(new IdentityRole(roleName));
        return RedirectToAction("Index");
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public async Task<IActionResult> AssignRole(string email, string roleName)
    {
        var user = await _userManager.FindByEmailAsync(email);
        if (user != null && !await _userManager.IsInRoleAsync(user, roleName))
            await _userManager.AddToRoleAsync(user, roleName);
        return RedirectToAction("Index");
    }
}

Use a basic Razor form to let you manage roles safely via browser.

🛠️ DevStack Includes Identity Built for Core Core 8

The version of Identity that ships with DevStack is already:

  • Async from the ground up
  • Integrated with a custom user model (BenIdentityUser)
  • runs on its own Db with a seperate connection for modularity
  • Designed for flexible role and claim management
  • Easily extensible with email confirmation, 2FA, external logins, and more

No surprises. Just working code.

🤝 Done-For-You Migration Services

You could spend days figuring this out yourself, like I did (seriously—this took a whole day 😩).

Or you could bring me in.

Let me handle the migration so you can focus on your users and business—not Identity plumbing.

📩 Ready to Migrate?

Let’s move you from legacy to launch-ready.

Contact me for a quick chat about your Identity upgrade.

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