MVC with Identity 2.0+ samples lacking for managing user roles - asp.net-mvc

Question

I'm not a web developer by trade, but every couple of years I play one on TV or hang with them to look cool. The last time I raved with ASP.NET was back in the webform days. Back then, having a web-based UX to manage the users on your site was straightforward. I understand ASP.NET Identity 1.0/2.0 and Federation are designed to give developers all kinds of new glow-sticks and pacifiers to party with but it's amazingly frustrating to me to crack open VS 2013, fire up a new MVC/SPA web app and not be able to easily do something everybody else should need and likely be doing, which is manage their users via some admin UX on the site itself.
So, if you're DTC (down-to-code), I would appreciate any, simple examples of how to do the following (#1 is by far the most important. I can extrapolate to #2 and #3...I hope.). Assume nothing fancy (a local machine project using the embedded SQL DB. You know, project template defaults.):
Display all users registered on a website AND THE ROLES THEY ARE PART OF. I've already got everything I could ever want to directly know about a user down with Entity Frameworks. But why are roles so non-obvious here? Snippets for the M, the V and the C much appreciated.
Add or remove roles for a user.
Add or remove available roles for users.
I see the tables, much like the ones that have been around forever, in new MVC projects. The basic user stuff is exposed very easily, but an old, trusted and necessary friend (roles) seems to require some voodoo, mojo or secret sauce to expose in a similarly easy fashion. I'm not far from just mucking with the tables via SQL directly. I know that's bad in the new world order and will likely tip the bouncers off that they shouldn't let me into the party behind the velvet rope.
p.s. I've even seen some posts here and elsewhere suggesting roles be done with claims. While that seems logical, I would prefer ASP.NET Identity 2.0 stuff based on the vestigial of roles (.NET types, SQL tables, etc.) that still exist.

Answer 1

I find the issue quite straightforward (much more than it was before, at least with the membership system). The default installation uses Entity Framework as its backend and creates three tables (among others): one for users, one for roles and one for the many-to-many relationship. It also provides us with two classes that help us with managing users and roles: IdentityUserManager and IdentityRoleManager. With the default template we get classes inherited from these (ApplicationUserManager and ApplicationRoleManager). With these classes we get the basic functionality to manage users and roles.
A last comment about your last p.s.: When you login, the framework stores your roles (which were stored in the database) as claims (which are stored in the authentication cookie). You can access these claims via the ClaimsIdentity of the ApplicationUser.Identity so you don't have to access the database every time you want to know a role of the current user. This is also used in the Authorize action filters.

Answer 2

For 1. Create new controller with read/write actions using EntityFramework(right click on controllers folder) and select model ApplicationUser.
2 and 3. You can paste this code into Seed method in Migrations/Configuration.cs
if (!context.Users.Any()) {
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("INSIDE USER SEED");
try {
var store = new UserStore<ApplicationUser>(context);
var userManager = new ApplicationUserManager(store);
var roleManager = new RoleManager<IdentityRole>(new RoleStore<IdentityRole>(context));
string roleName = "Admin";
if (!roleManager.RoleExists(roleName)) {
roleManager.Create(new IdentityRole(roleName));
}
roleName = "TeleMarketer";
if (!roleManager.RoleExists(roleName)) {
roleManager.Create(new IdentityRole(roleName));
}
roleName = "Marketer";
if (!roleManager.RoleExists(roleName)) {
roleManager.Create(new IdentityRole(roleName));
}
var user = new ApplicationUser() { Email = "informatyka4444#wp.pl", UserName = "informatyka4444#wp.pl" };
userManager.Create(user, "TestPass44!");
userManager.AddToRole(user.Id, "Admin");
user = new ApplicationUser() { Email = "s8359#pjwstk.edu.pl", UserName = "s8359#pjwstk.edu.pl" };
userManager.Create(user, "TestPass44!");
userManager.AddToRole(user.Id, "Admin");
user = new ApplicationUser() { Email = "marketer#wp.pl", UserName = "marketer#wp.pl" };
userManager.Create(user, "TestPass44!");
userManager.AddToRole(user.Id, "Marketer");
user = new ApplicationUser() { Email = "telemarketer#wp.pl", UserName = "telemarketer#wp.pl" };
userManager.Create(user, "TestPass44!");
userManager.AddToRole(user.Id, "TeleMarketer");
} catch (DbEntityValidationException e) {
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("EXC: ");
foreach (DbEntityValidationResult result in e.EntityValidationErrors) {
foreach (DbValidationError error in result.ValidationErrors) {
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(error.ErrorMessage);
}
}
}
}