Have FBA users visible (via people picker) to a non-FBA site

Question

I have a publishing site collection extended into two zones: Zone1: (default zone, win auth only- internal users) Zone2: (internet zone, fba only- external users)

I want zone1 users to be able to add fba users to the site collection w/o actually enabling FBA users to log in to zone 1 (b/c in the fba/zone2 I do things like hide the ribbon).

Also, I don't want to enable win auth on zone2 because I don't want to confuse external users by presenting them with a choice over which type of credentials to enter (fba vs win).

Is there a way to make FBA users visible to my zone1 site w/o actually enabling forms authentication? I had made all the corresponding FBA web.config changes in zone 1- but this doesn't seem to have helped.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Unfortunately, I don't think you can have your desired setup and you have to fully enable FBA authentication on zone1.

If your issue is merely avoiding confusion about authentication (not presenting a choice of 2 authentication providers), then I would suggest using the OrbitOne SharePoint Auto SignIn solution at http://spautomaticsignin.codeplex.com.

I hope this helps.