Diffrent types of Authentication modes in the .NET environment

 <authentication mode="Windows|Forms|Passport|None">
       <forms name="name"
                          loginUrl="url"
                          protection="All|None|Encryption|Validation"
                          timeout="30" path="/" >
                          requireSSL="true|false"
                          slidingExpiration="true|false">
          <credentials passwordFormat="Clear|SHA1|MD5">
             <user name="username" password="password"/>
          </credentials>
                    </forms>
       <passport redirectUrl="internal"/>

</authentication>

Attribute	Option	Description
mode		Controls the default authentication mode for an application.
	Windows	Specifies Windows authentication as the default authentication mode. Use this mode when using any form of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) authentication: Basic, Digest, Integrated Windows authentication (NTLM/Kerberos), or certificates.
	Forms	Specifies ASP.NET forms-based authentication as the default authentication mode.
	Passport	Specifies Microsoft Passport authentication as the default authentication mode.
	None	Specifies no authentication. Only anonymous users are expected or applications can handle events to provide their own authentication.