How to manage passwords for database access from an asp.net website

Question

Just curious as to best practice for managing db access from an asp.net web application. We were currently putting the username and password in the web.config, but this wasn't good enough internal security (obviously), so I decided to use a windows domain user instead by modifying the web.config to use windows domain, and then adding the user to the app pool identity. This all works fine, but what happens when the domain user's password changes? Does that mean that all the webapps that use this user's identity in app pool will require the password change too? This would be an IT nightmare. Does anyone have suggestions on best approach for allowing webapp to access database without exposing password and without having to update passwords in all webapps if the password changes? Thanks

Answer 1

A better solution would be to set up a separate app pool that is set up with a service account that has full access to the database restart the web app after selecting the new app pool and use integrated security.

Use a very strong ( and lengthy ) password and set the account to password does not expire and user can not change password.

This prevents using clear text in the web.config files.

Answer 2

I would recommend using SQL Mixed-mode Authentication and using a SQL account for your app. The username and password in the web.config and encrypt that section of the config file.

Here is some information about configuration encryption.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zhhddkxy(v=vs.100).aspx