Issue:
An authentication server (not under my control) is stripping get values after the first from the returnUrl. Is there any way to work around this? (Or around the larger problem as a whole?)
e.g. http://authentication.corporate.com?returnUrl=http://localserver/addcomment.php?FirstName=Sally&SecondName=Sparrow redirects as http://authentication.corporate.com?returnUrl=http://localserver/addcomment.php?FirstName=Sally, stripping any subsequent $_GET values.
(I am led to believe through my research that the stripping of the $_GET values may be an issue with what the authentication server is doing, but I have no way of getting access to it. If this is the case, is there a workaround? If this is not the case, what am I doing wrong?)
Context:
I am writing part of a web application which is to allow users to add comments to documents. The web application must retrieve the user's (correct) corporate username, first name and last name.
I am updating a previous version of this web application which allowed users to add comments in a two-step process.
Step 1 After clicking an 'Add Comment' hyperlink, the user is authenticated and a returnUrl value directs them to a page where they may add their comment. http://authentication.corporate.com?returnUrl=http://localserver/addcomment.php
Step 2 In addcomment.php $_POST values have been retrieved (and confirmed as correct) from the authentication server. The user may then enter their comments in a textarea and submit them via action=post to a final page which inserts the comment and user information into a database.
I would like to reduce this to a one-step process where the user may type in a comment on the main page. The way I am attempting to do this is by passing the comment as a $_GET value to be returned via the authentication server. e.g. http://authentication.corporate.com?returnUrl=http://localserver/addcomment.php?FirstName=Sally&SecondName=Sparrow along with the $_POST values.
Related
this question has been posed in many flavours, but no one fits my needs.
I'm working on a partially complete Razor project; the original developer has left our office, and he wasn't much concerned about securing password fields, as he left all of them in clear.
These passowrd fields authorize several aspects (Ftp primary and secondary access, Ftp on AS400 and mail sending), so nothing related with login/submit forms. When I changed these fields from text to password, they revert to blank fields, regardless the content of the View Model, and this should be the correct behaviour, as per the numerous answers I've seen googlin around.
My problem is this: the user needs to know at least if a password has been configured (seeing a string of * or any other mask character the browser use), so I need to show him that value to let him know if the service is configured, and the best would be to let him also reveal the password to check if it's correct. The option to not update the particular field in the DB if it's left blank is not an option.
This site works only on Intranet, so there is no concern about hackers monitoring the connection or similar.
I've tried all (I think) the possible combinations, including building the input element manually through html, using the #Html.TextFor and #Html.PasswordFor helpers, decorating the corrisponding member in the view model with [DataType(DataType.Password)]. The data is binded when the page is loaded, so no ajax calls help me retrieving data.
I'm relatively new to Razor, as my last two projects are entirely in PHP.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Ok, no other solution found than issuing an ajax call to a dedicated HttpGet controller method to retrieve only the password fiels, then populating the dedicated fields when the controller returns the object containing all the password I need.
I have an Html page with a load of javascript that changes between views.
Some views require the person to be logged in, and consequently prompt for it.
How can I note the person has successfully logged in, using the javascript, that will not be a security issue, but will mean the person does not have to repeatedly log in for each view. I do not want to keep on going back to the server each time.
Edit:::
To explain more. Here are the problems I see.
Lets say I have the following in my javascript:
var isLoggedIn = true;
var userEmail = "myemail#mysite.com";
Anyone can hack my code to change these values and then get another person's info. That is not good. So instead of isLoggedIn do I need something like a hashed password stored in the javascript:
var userHashedPassword = "shfasjfhajshfalshfla";
But every where I read, they say you should not keep any password stuff in memory for any length of time.
So what variables do I keep and where? The user will be constantly flicking between non-user specific divs and user-based divs, and I do not want them to have to constantly log in each time.
****Edit 2:*****
This is what I am presently doing, but am not happy with.
There is a page/div with 3 radio buttons. Vacant games (does not require user information), My Game (requires knowledge of user and must be signed in), My Old Games (also requires logged in status).
When first going on the page it defaults on vacant games, and gets the info from the server, which does not require login.
In two variables in the javascript I have
var g_Email = "";
var g_PasswordEncrypted = "";
Note these are both 0 length strings.
If the user wants to view their games, they click the My Games radio button. The code checks to see if the g_Email and PasswordEncrypted are 0 length strings, if they are it goes to a div where they need to login.
When the user submits their loging info, it goes to the server, checks their details, and sends back an ok message, and all the info (My Games) that the user was requesting.
So if the login was a success, then
g_Email = "myemail#mysite.com";
g_PasswordEncrypted = "this is and encrypted version of the password";
If there is any failure in login, these two are instead set to "".
Then when the user navigates to any page that requires login, it checks to see if these two strings are filled. If they are, it will not go to a login page when you request information like My Games.
Instead it just sends the info in these strings to the server, along with the My Games request. The server still checks these Email and encrypted password are valid before sending back the info, but at the client side, the user has not had to repeatedly input this info each time.
If there is any failure in the server request, it just sends back an error message (I am using ajax) in the callback function, which knows to set the g_Email and g_PasswordEncrypted to "" if there is anything wrong. (In the latter case, the client side knows it has to re-request the login details because these two strings are "").
The thing I do not like is I am keeping the Encryted password on the person's client machine. If they walk away from their machine, someone can open up the debugger in something like chrome and extract these details, and then hack it into their machine some time later.
If javascript loads content for each view from the server then it is for server to know if a current session belongs to logged user or not. In case the user is not logged, the server responses with prompt to login, otherwise it sends content of the view.
If javascript bulds content for the views deriving it from the data that was already received from the server then it should use some variable keeping state of the user (logged/not_logged). And depending on that value javascript will either show a prompt to login or display required content of the view.
I have a service in AngularJS that generates all the steps needed, the current state of each step (done, current, show, etc) and an associated directive that actually implements the service and displays the data of the service. But, there are 2 steps that are divided in 4 and 3 steps each:
Step one
Discounts
Activities
Duration
Payment Length
Step two
Identification
Personal data
Payment
How can I "save" the state of my form in case the person leaves the site and comes back later? Is it safe to use localStorage? I'm no providing support for IE6 or 7. I thought of using cookies, but that can end up being weak (or not)
Either local storage or cookies should be fine. I doubt this will be an issue, but keep in mind that both have a size limit. Also, it goes without saying that the form state will only be restored if the user returns on the same browser, and without having deleted cookies / local storage.
Another option could be to save the information server side. If the user is signed in, you can make periodic AJAX calls with the data and store the state on the server. When the user finishes all steps, you can make an AJAX call telling the server to delete any saved data it might have. This allows you to restore state even if the user returns on a different browser, as long as he is signed in.
Regardless of what direction you go with this, you can use jQuery's serialize method to serialize the form into a string and save it using your choice of storage.
Ok so here is what is happening:
I have a client that I am building an application for. My client has a flowchart that they would like posted on the front page of their application. Check. My client then wants this flowchart to be set up as an image map so that a user could click one of the boxes in this flowchart and be taken to a report in another part of the application. Check.
All of that is elementary and, in a technical sense, works. The issue is, and it is an issue I have encountered before with APEX, is that every time a user clicks one of these links it takes them to the login screen. It seems that linking directly to a page's URL breaks the session and requires you to login again, even if you are linking from one page in the application to another in the same application.
I have played with all of the authentication settings in a hopes of fixing this and tried to determine what is breaking the session exactly but with no luck.
Has anyone else had this problem and could share their method for fixing it? I really cant have users logging in every time they click a link and I also cannot simply remove the authentication on the pages. Thanks in advance.
You should pass on the session id in your links. If you don't, then apex will see this as a new session. You can tell from the url: take note of the session id in your url when you are on your image map. When you select an application, take another look at the session id part in the url. If they are different, then you are starting a new session each time.
/apex/f?p=190:90:1674713700462259:::::
190 -> application id
90 -> page id
1674713700462259 -> Session id
To pass on the session, it depends where you construct your links.
In PLSQL, you can find it through :SESSION or :APP_SESSION
For example, in a plsql dynamic region: htp.p('the session id is '||:SESSION);
In javascript code you can use $v("pInstance") to retrieve the value dynamically, or use &APP_SESSION. which will have the value substituted at runtime.
Small example:
function printsome(){
var d = $("<div></div>");
d.text('&APP_SESSION. = ' + $v("pInstance"));
$("body").append(d);
};
So you probably just need to alter the construction of your link somewhat to include the session!
I was assuming the binding variables will do the job. But they were helpless.
Best way is to pass the current session id to an item then use the item value in the link.
f?p=&APP_ID.:32:&P31_SESSION.:::P32_CUSTOMER_ID:#CUSTOMER_ID#
Say a user is browsing a website, and then performs some action which changes the database (let's say they add a comment). When the request to actually add the comment comes in, however, we find we need to force them to login before they can continue.
Assume the login page asks for a username and password, and redirects the user back to the URL they were going to when the login was required. That redirect works find for a URL with only GET parameters, but if the request originally contained some HTTP POST data, that is now lost.
Can anyone recommend a way to handle this scenario when HTTP POST data is involved?
Obviously, if necessary, the login page could dynamically generate a form with all the POST parameters to pass them along (though that seems messy), but even then, I don't know of any way for the login page to redirect the user on to their intended page while keeping the POST data in the request.
Edit : One extra constraint I should have made clear - Imagine we don't know if a login will be required until the user submits their comment. For example, their cookie might have expired between when they loaded the form and actually submitted the comment.
This is one good place where Ajax techniques might be helpful. When the user clicks the submit button, show the login dialog on client side and validate with the server before you actually submit the page.
Another way I can think of is showing or hiding the login controls in a DIV tag dynamically in the main page itself.
You might want to investigate why Django removed this feature before implementing it yourself. It doesn't seem like a Django specific problem, but rather yet another cross site forgery attack.
2 choices:
Write out the messy form from the login page, and JavaScript form.submit() it to the page.
Have the login page itself POST to the requesting page (with the previous values), and have that page's controller perform the login verification. Roll this into whatever logic you already have for detecting the not logged in user (frameworks vary on how they do this). In pseudo-MVC:
CommentController {
void AddComment() {
if (!Request.User.IsAuthenticated && !AuthenticateUser()) {
return;
}
// add comment to database
}
bool AuthenticateUser() {
if (Request.Form["username"] == "") {
// show login page
foreach (Key key in Request.Form) {
// copy form values
ViewData.Form.Add("hidden", key, Request.Form[key]);
}
ViewData.Form.Action = Request.Url;
ShowLoginView();
return false;
} else {
// validate login
return TryLogin(Request.Form["username"], Request.Form["password"]);
}
}
}
Just store all the necessary data from the POST in the session until after the login process is completed. Or have some sort of temp table in the db to store in and then retrieve it. Obviously this is pseudo-code but:
if ( !loggedIn ) {
StorePostInSession();
ShowLoginForm();
}
if ( postIsStored ) {
RetrievePostFromSession();
}
Or something along those lines.
Collect the data on the page they submitted it, and store it in your backend (database?) while they go off through the login sequence, hide a transaction id or similar on the page with the login form. When they're done, return them to the page they asked for by looking it up using the transaction id on the backend, and dump all the data they posted into the form for previewing again, or just run whatever code that page would run.
Note that many systems, eg blogs, get around this by having login fields in the same form as the one for posting comments, if the user needs to be logged in to comment and isn't yet.
I know it says language-agnostic, but why not take advantage of the conventions provided by the server-side language you are using? If it were Java, the data could persist by setting a Request attribute. You would use a controller to process the form, detect the login, and then forward through. If the attributes are set, then just prepopulate the form with that data?
Edit: You could also use a Session as pointed out, but I'm pretty sure if you use a forward in Java back to the login page, that the Request attribute will persist.