Replicating a production server's Active Directory is possible through a number of approaches as mentioned here and here. I'm looking for a simpler approach if one exists.

I have a mixed-mode authentication site that I need to test. Quite simply AD users (internal) will have more privilege's than someone who logs in via forms (external).

We have a web service that cache's an AD structure (users & groups). I'm thinking of building a module (http handler I guess?) that will pick up my specially formed URL (http://impersonateduser@localhost/mywebapp) and use the bit before the @ as the username. That will be the username I use for any subsequent operations.

How does that sound? Has anyone got other proposals for testing scenarios like this?