Back to a few basics
Before we dig into more details, let's understand the differences between authentication and authorization.
Authentication and authorization may look similar and be used interchangeably, but fundamentally they are different. The following table illustrates the differences:
Note
Refer to Chapter 12, Understanding Authentication, for more details on how authentication works in ASP.NET 5.
To summarize, authentication and authorization go hand in hand. Authorization works only after the identity of the user has been established, and an authentication challenge is triggered by authorization when a user tries to access a secure resource. In the upcoming sections of this chapter, we shall understand how to implement authorization in ASP.NET 5 applications.