How to create roles in ASP.NET Core and assign them to users?

I have created an action in the Accounts controller that calls a function to create the roles and assign the Admin role to the default user. (You should probably remove the default user in production):

    private async Task CreateRolesandUsers()
    {  
        bool x = await _roleManager.RoleExistsAsync("Admin");
        if (!x)
        {
            // first we create Admin rool    
            var role = new IdentityRole();
            role.Name = "Admin";
            await _roleManager.CreateAsync(role);

            //Here we create a Admin super user who will maintain the website                   

            var user = new ApplicationUser();
            user.UserName = "default";
            user.Email = "[email protected]";

            string userPWD = "somepassword";

            IdentityResult chkUser = await _userManager.CreateAsync(user, userPWD);

            //Add default User to Role Admin    
            if (chkUser.Succeeded)
            {
                var result1 = await _userManager.AddToRoleAsync(user, "Admin");
            }
        }

        // creating Creating Manager role     
        x = await _roleManager.RoleExistsAsync("Manager");
        if (!x)
        {
            var role = new IdentityRole();
            role.Name = "Manager";
            await _roleManager.CreateAsync(role);
        }

        // creating Creating Employee role     
        x = await _roleManager.RoleExistsAsync("Employee");
        if (!x)
        {
            var role = new IdentityRole();
            role.Name = "Employee";
            await _roleManager.CreateAsync(role);
        }
  }

After you could create a controller to manage roles for the users.

My comment was deleted because I provided a link to a similar question I answered here. Ergo, I'll answer it more descriptively this time. Here goes.

You could do this easily by creating a CreateRoles method in your startup class. This helps check if the roles are created, and creates the roles if they aren't; on application startup. Like so.

private async Task CreateRoles(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
    {
        //initializing custom roles 
        var RoleManager = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<RoleManager<IdentityRole>>();
        var UserManager = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<UserManager<ApplicationUser>>();
        string[] roleNames = { "Admin", "Manager", "Member" };
        IdentityResult roleResult;

        foreach (var roleName in roleNames)
        {
            var roleExist = await RoleManager.RoleExistsAsync(roleName);
            if (!roleExist)
            {
                //create the roles and seed them to the database: Question 1
                roleResult = await RoleManager.CreateAsync(new IdentityRole(roleName));
            }
        }

        //Here you could create a super user who will maintain the web app
        var poweruser = new ApplicationUser
        {

            UserName = Configuration["AppSettings:UserName"],
            Email = Configuration["AppSettings:UserEmail"],
        };
    //Ensure you have these values in your appsettings.json file
        string userPWD = Configuration["AppSettings:UserPassword"];
        var _user = await UserManager.FindByEmailAsync(Configuration["AppSettings:AdminUserEmail"]);

       if(_user == null)
       {
            var createPowerUser = await UserManager.CreateAsync(poweruser, userPWD);
            if (createPowerUser.Succeeded)
            {
                //here we tie the new user to the role
                await UserManager.AddToRoleAsync(poweruser, "Admin");

            }
       }
    }

and then you could call the CreateRoles(serviceProvider).Wait(); method from the Configure method in the Startup class. ensure you have IServiceProvider as a parameter in the Configure class.

Using role-based authorization in a controller to filter user access: Question 2

You can do this easily, like so.

[Authorize(Roles="Manager")]
public class ManageController : Controller
{
   //....
}

You can also use role-based authorization in the action method like so. Assign multiple roles, if you will

[Authorize(Roles="Admin, Manager")]
public IActionResult Index()
{
/*
 .....
 */ 
}

While this works fine, for a much better practice, you might want to read about using policy based role checks. You can find it on the ASP.NET core documentation here, or this article I wrote about it here

Temi's answer is nearly correct, but you cannot call an asynchronous function from a non asynchronous function like he is suggesting. What you need to do is make asynchronous calls in a synchronous function like so :

    public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory, IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
    {
        loggerFactory.AddConsole(Configuration.GetSection("Logging"));
        loggerFactory.AddDebug();

        if (env.IsDevelopment())
        {
            app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
            app.UseDatabaseErrorPage();
            app.UseBrowserLink();
        }
        else
        {
            app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
        }

        app.UseStaticFiles();

        app.UseIdentity();

        // Add external authentication middleware below. To configure them please see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=532715

        app.UseMvc(routes =>
        {
            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "default",
                template: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
        });

        CreateRoles(serviceProvider);

    }

    private void CreateRoles(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
    {

        var roleManager = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<RoleManager<IdentityRole>>();
        var userManager = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<UserManager<ApplicationUser>>();
        Task<IdentityResult> roleResult;
        string email = "[email protected]";

        //Check that there is an Administrator role and create if not
        Task<bool> hasAdminRole = roleManager.RoleExistsAsync("Administrator");
        hasAdminRole.Wait();

        if (!hasAdminRole.Result)
        {
            roleResult = roleManager.CreateAsync(new IdentityRole("Administrator"));
            roleResult.Wait();
        }

        //Check if the admin user exists and create it if not
        //Add to the Administrator role

        Task<ApplicationUser> testUser = userManager.FindByEmailAsync(email);
        testUser.Wait();

        if (testUser.Result == null)
        {
            ApplicationUser administrator = new ApplicationUser();
            administrator.Email = email;
            administrator.UserName = email;

            Task<IdentityResult> newUser = userManager.CreateAsync(administrator, "_AStrongP@ssword!");
            newUser.Wait();

            if (newUser.Result.Succeeded)
            {
                Task<IdentityResult> newUserRole = userManager.AddToRoleAsync(administrator, "Administrator");
                newUserRole.Wait();
            }
        }

    }

The key to this is the use of the Task<> class and forcing the system to wait in a slightly different way in a synchronous way.