22.3. Impersonation

Everything that ASP.NET does is executed under a Windows account. When using IIS 7.x, this identity is the identity of the worker processes created for an application pool configured in IIS. Each application pool can have its own identity configured as you learned in Chapter 18. In any case, as each page request is processed, the configured identity determines what ASP.NET can and cannot do.

Impersonation provides you with a way to make this system more flexible. Instead of using a fixed account for all users, web pages, and applications, you can temporarily change the identity that ASP.NET uses for certain tasks. This process of temporarily assuming the identity of another Windows account is impersonation.