Getting Started

The login page is responsible for establishing the user’s authentication session. This requires a user to present credentials and typically involves these steps:

• Provide the user with a page to allow them to enter credentials locally, use an external login provider, or use some other means of authenticating.
• Start the session by creating the authentication session cookie in your IdentityServer.
• If the login is client initiated, redirect the user back to the client.

When IdentityServer needs to show the login page, it redirects the user to a configurable LoginUrl.

Program.cs

builder.Services.AddIdentityServer(opt => {
    opt.UserInteraction.LoginUrl = "/path/to/login";
})

If no LoginUrl is set, IdentityServer will infer it from the LoginPath of your Cookie Authentication Handler. For example:

Program.cs

builder.Services.AddAuthentication()
    .AddCookie("cookie-handler-with-custom-path", options =>
    {
        options.LoginPath = "/path/to/login/from/cookie/handler";
    })

If you are using ASP.NET Identity, configure its cookie authentication handler like this:

Program.cs

builder.Services
    .AddIdentityServer()
    .AddAspNetIdentity<ApplicationUser>();

builder.Services
    .ConfigureApplicationCookie(options =>
    {
        options.LoginPath = "/path/to/login/for/aspnet_identity";
    });

User Management Options

IdentityServer needs a user store to authenticate users and issue claims. Two first-party integrations are available:

• ASP.NET Identity provides integration with the widely-used ASP.NET Core Identity system.
• Duende User Management provides a more modern alternative with built-in support for OTP, TOTP, passkeys, and profile attribute-to-claim mapping.

Both options provide an IProfileService implementation that IdentityServer uses to load claims into tokens.