Create Sharepoint Users from webservices

I'm doing a some research on the feasiblity of a Sharepoint project that has come our way. Basically, we are looking at keeping users on the SP site and an 开发者_如何学编程external system in sync. We have no prior experience with SP though we are familiar with ASP.net.

So, what we need is the ability to create users and set user role of SP users through web services. I have read that SP doesn't have it's own users and they come from AD or SQL DB etc. And the API methods I've seen under UserGroup web service indicates that I cannot really do what I'm looking for. E.g. I can't create a user with a given username and password on SP, over WS. Is this correct?

If so, does that mean we have to directly code against the SQL DB containing the ASPNET membership tables? Or is there a 3rd party component that we can deploy on the SP host that will expose the user management functionality we require?

You are correct. SharePoint itself doesn't manage authentication; you'll need a different method. For example: NTLM, LDAP, database, or third party. More info here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262350.aspx.

Once you are able to authenticate users, you then use the SharePoint web services to give users permission to content within SharePoint.

Might this get you along the way?