Creating form based authentication users using client object model

Question

I need to create a considerable number of form based authentication users. I have an Excel spread sheet containing user names and email addresses. I have no permission to execute code directly on farm servers. And I'm not authorized to execute any server side code. Therefore I cannot use SharePoint Server Model. I'm limited to SharePoint Client Object Model. So please.

How to create form based authentication users using client object model?

Is it even possible?

EDIT:

I tried this code, but obviously it doesn't work:

var context = new ClientContext("http://sp2013/sites/test");
var parameters = new UserCreationInformation() {
    Email = "[email protected]",
    LoginName = "jesuslpm",
    Title = "Jesús López"
};
var user = context.Web.SiteUsers.Add(parameters);
context.ExecuteQuery();

It throws ServerException

The user does not exist or is not unique

I cannot find a way to specify forms authentication nor the password for the user.

I searched the web, but everything is using server side code.

Answer 1

You can't do it with CSOM.

From msdn:

Not all functionality that you find in the Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles assembly is available from client APIs. For example, you have to use the server object model to create or change user profiles because they're read-only from client APIs (except the user profile picture). Also, there's no client-side access to some namespaces, such as Microsoft.Office.Server.Audience, Microsoft.Office.Server.ReputationModel, or Microsoft.Office.Server.SocialData. To see what's supported functionality for the client APIs, see Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Social and Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.UserProfiles.

Answer 2

You are using FBA - but what is the authentication source? Is it SQL, AD LDS, or another mechanism. Typically it is just SQL, with which you have a few options. If it's ADLDS - you can script it using LDAP.

There are a few methods you can use to call SQL server remotely. If you want to keep this inside SharePoint you can hook up BCS to talk to your user databases and then use CSOM to interact with data. I don't have specific examples of this working - but it's just SQL like any other external data source. Here is a link to the CSOM page for BCS on MSDN: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj164116.aspx

The other option is to use PowerShell.Courtesy of Mr. Don Jones: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh855069.aspx

function Invoke-DatabaseQuery {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param (
        [string]$connectionString,
        [string]$query,
        [switch]$isSQLServer
    )
    if ($isSQLServer) {
        Write-Verbose 'in SQL Server mode'
        $connection = New-Object-TypeName System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection
    } else {
        Write-Verbose 'in OleDB mode'
        $connection = New-Object-TypeName System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection
    }
    $connection.ConnectionString = $connectionString
    $command = $connection.CreateCommand()
    $command.CommandText = $query
    $connection.Open()
    $command.ExecuteNonQuery()
    $connection.close()
}

You use the above in the following manner:

Invoke-DatabaseQuery –query "DELETE FROM MyTable" –isSQLServer –connectionString "Data Source=SERVER1\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=MyDatabase;User Id=myLogin;Password=P@ssw0rd"

In your case I would wrap the above in a foreach

$userCSV = Import-CSV "<path to CSV>"
foreach($user in $userCSV){
    <Place your DB access function call in here>
}

NOTE: Both of these assume you have the proper permissions to make these changes. This is also just referencing adding users to your data store. Once they are added you still need to assign access rights to them in SharePoint.