Authenticating a SQL account user name and password in ASP.NET

Question

For one part of my app I need to authenticate the details of a users SQL account.

The way this is currently done is to append the username and password to the connectionstring and then return a dataset with the users details. This code lives in a try statement and if there an exception is thrown it assumes the user details were incorrect (a very nasty way of doing things.).

The current code is something like this:

  iBindClientServices.Services service = new iBindClientServices.Services(); //nasty com+ service           
  try
  {
  string szConn = "DSN=xxxxx" + ";UID=" + userName + ";PWD=" + password;
  //check username and password
  ADODB.Recordset record = service.GetUserDetail(szConn, ""); 
  }

  catch(Exception ex)
  {
  //login unsuccessfull
  }

Is there an elegant way to do this?

Answer 1

How about this piece of code

public static bool checkConnection()
{
    SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection("mydatasource");
    try
    {
         conn.Open();
         return true;
    }
    catch (Exception ex) { return false; }
}