There are two sites - .Net Core site (site1) and Wordpress site (site2). When I have logged on site1 I want to redirect to some page on site2 by link with autologin on site2. Users are duplicated on two databases(site1 - MSSql Server, site2 - MySql). How to pass login credentials to site2 and redirect to link page on this site? Can I use the REST API, what else should I use? Are there any ideas, a simple example?
Thanks!!!
You can called Single Sign On or SSO. You would essentially be bypassing WordPress' authentication methods and use those from a 3rd party. WordPress needs a local user of some kind for normal operations to work (the user_can() function for example.)
So the general gist would be something like this - Send any request for authentication to a 3rd party who will yay or nay and return some data about the user - if yay, check if there is a WordPress user that represents the authenticated user.
If not, create one and add any meta data you might need from the third party. - these WordPress users are like placeholders and every time you successfully authenticate, you update the meta data of the WordPress user to keep things in sync.
This is how OneLogin does it and you can poke around their WordPress plugin to get a sense of how it works.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/onelogin-saml-sso/
Or You can refer this also.
http://carlofontanos.com/auto-login-to-wordpress-from-another-website/
So I need a way to lock down both bigcommerce and wordpress if a user is not logged in. First suggestion was asking if when a user is created in bigcommerce create the same user account in WP... but that doesn't seem like a good approach to me since the user will not need any interaction as a user on WP just need to block access to pages if they are not logged in.
So my thought is to check if a user is logged into bigcommerce, then pass a variable to wp header file. If the variable does not exist then redirect them back to bigcommerce login. For this install BigCommerce is currently using the header from wp so they match and all works well so that is why I assume I should be able to pass a variable to check if a user is logged into bigcommerce or not. I have not been able to find any documentation in the API about accessing if a user is logged in or not.
Has anyone done anything like this and or know if this would be possible? Or know of a better solution for what I am trying to do. Maybe check for a cookie or session?
Recently I did a project where the client wanted to show custom content to bigcommerce loggedin users and block the rest. The best way I found was to check the value of %%GLOBAL_CurrentCustomerFirstName%%. It is "Guest" for non-loggedin users.
you can try this:
localStorage.setItem("user", %%GLOBAL_CurrentCustomerFirstName%% );
and then you can use on wordpress pages :
var user = localStorage.getItem("user");
if(user=="Guest"){
//redirect to login or block page
}
Obviously they can get around javascript so using ajax to store it somewhere and then retrieving it would be more secure but I hope this will help you proceed :)
In my wordpress site i wants to add an additional step in user login.
Means After user enter username and password successfully. He/she has to enter the security question answer which is enter by the user at the time of registration.
Till he/she has not enter the correct answer is not able to access rest of the page.
I can able to redirect the user after login to security question answer page but here he/she can access all other pages without going any security validation.
Please suggest how to restrict user to access all other the pages before validating the security question answer page.
Why don't you let them answer all 3 questions in one form? That way you could verify the security question first and check for the right password/log-in immediately afterwards.
You could start here and build in the security step yourself: http://natko.com/wordpress-ajax-login-without-a-plugin-the-right-way/
WordPress by itself does not provide such functionality of multi-factor authentication. Just redirecting the user after login process to security questions page will not work as the user is already authenticated and cookies are set in the browser. So the user can browse any authenticated URL without answering the security questions.
What should be done is to delay the authentication process of the user until the validation of security questions so that the authentication cookies are not set in our browser.WordPress has several free plugins that provide this functionality.
miniOrange 2-factor authentication plugin in WordPress directory enables to implement this feature easily. The user will have the option to set the security questions in the settings page of the plugin. These questions are presented in a single form after the login process. Without validating these answers users will not be able to navigate to any post-login page even if the URL is correctly entered.
It is better to go for such trusted plugins rather than creating the functionality from the scratch. This plugin is free to use after registration.
Check this guide to add security question in a few simple steps.
I have an existing Wordpress site. The plan is to rebuild the site using the cakePHP framework. Due to time restrictions, I want to replace individual sections of the Wordpress site one at a time. This will mean that both apps will be running side by side for a certain period of time. I need to control access to the cakePHP app using the authorization provided by Wordpress. I'm not sure the best way to go about doing this. I've seen similar questions asked a lot, but I have not yet found a clear solution.
I'm thinking about two approaches:
Plan A:
Configure Cake to look for Wordpress's authorization cookies.
configure Cake to look at Wordpress's database.
Borrow some of Wordpress's authorization logic to teach Cake's Auth component how to authenticate WP users.
Plan B:
set up an authorization API on my Wordpress site.
set up separate auth component in cake.
ping the WP endpoint when a user hits a protected page in the cake app and then manually log in the user. (This would create a second set of auth cookies)
Do either of these sound like the right approach? Is there a better way to do this?
Helpful references: Article about Cake session handling, Cake Auth component documentation, Cake Auth tutorial, brief overview of WP authorization, a more in depth look at wordpress authorization
UPDATE
We've started working on this, and it seems like it will work, but there is a very tricky aspect involving password hashing that warrants its own question. If you're following this thread, you may want to have a look.
I once had a similar situation: Cross framework authentication zend + codeigniter which was few months ago...
Anyways, this is what I will prefer:
set up an authorization API on my Wordpress site.
set up separate auth component in cake.
ping the WP endpoint when a user hits a protected page in the cake app and then manually log in the user. (This would create a second set of auth cookies)
Here, I would suggest a slight change which is do-able.
Make sure, you have a token system of SSO. As in, when person is logged in on Wordpress, set another cookie which will have a token: Token will be username + password (hashed) + secret key, which will be same between Wordpress and CakePHP. On either site, look up for cookie and manually log the user in or just perform a database look up. Hashing is important for that cookie!
However, if the site is using different domains, you might need to re-strategize:
I had different domains once. At the login or unauthorized page, I would ping the other website and bring up their login box. On the other website if the user is logged in, they get post login page and if request URI has sent a token, we perform normal operation and return the authorized token to this (current) domain.
In simple words:
Site A = WordPress & Site B = CakePHP
Site B hits a page where authorization is required then, ping Site A for a login (as it happens when u do Login-with-Facebook sort), which will request via a Token (private key) and REQUEST_URI which will be part of SSO verification table on Site A, if person is already logged in then, Site A will return (via POST) a token, which further will be decrypted via (private key) of Site B and log the user in. Private key of B and A will be same.
Hope this was understandable.
Questions? :)
Answer to your questions in comment:
Ideally, why we use SSO? We use it because of many constraints. For example: You have a database of say... a million row with more than thousand tables, you need to add a module over ur huge app already... so, instead, you will use another database... SSO will return user information, which can further be replicated. For example, when you click on 'Login with Facebook', it returns requested information, like email address, or user's name or even profile picture. Which can further be added to our database... Keeping different databases is strongly recommended :)
To your 2nd and 3rd question: Should both sites reference the same users table in the database? different databases is recommended unless, you are using the same data. Or say changing the software platform.
Should I copy the site-specific user rows into separate user tables for each app? Yes, that should happen automatically. Once you are registered on a main site, nothing happens, things should happen once you are logged in already and then go to site B... Once logged in, user info can always be requested :) That way, new site will have active users ! 2 birds?
Don't complicate (bother) yourself with how what works but, concentrate on how, what is achievable in short period. SSO - Logged in - Restricted page - Look out for log ins - Either login - If already logged in - fetch user info - If user info exists - login via secondary site OR set the new user info . Done!
We developers love flow charts! Don't we? I just created one:
Further answers:
Does the "Fetch User Info" stage mean that we take the user info from the site which is logged in, and create a new user (row) automatically in the other site?
Ideally, you will ask permission from the user before they 'allow' their info to be used but, it varies how your privacy policies are.
In other words, one site handles all the registration/user-creation and the other site just waits for that user to show up and trigger automatic creation. OR at the moment a user registers on the one site, BOTH databases get a user row inserted?
one site handles all the registration/user-creation and the other site just waits for that user to show up and trigger automatic creation. You can have both. Sign up on your website and also a trigger based automatic creation. Depends on your strategy. OR at the moment a user registers on the one site, BOTH databases get a user row inserted? That would be a horrible practice! It will kill the motive of SSO. Motive of SSO is to create an auth family which can be used by users so that they do not have to register every now and then for different websites. update only one database at a time and other when required :)
Questions? :)
I have done this once. I don't have the snippets and/or any references to anything. But thought it might be helpful.
Configure WP and CakePHP both to use same session, you can do this by session id and session name,
When User registers for your website, register them using both WP and CakePHP,
Choose one framework that will handle login view from the front end. I had chosen CakePHP as I was more proficient with it, once the login is successful locate the same user in other framework's DB and authenticate the user using their authentication system.
Hope this helps !!!
Suggestions:
If you are building a closed system, meaning you have to be signed in to access anything useful in the site, then you can use CAS . I know it's used by mainly universities, but for closed systems it works.
( If you need to handle anonymous users the suggestions below might help)
Keep it simple and, similar to Part A of your plan, have a cookie ( visible by both cake and wordpress ) that simply states if a user is logged in. The cookie should be created/checked by both cake and WP. Cake does not need to look at WP's DB. The cookie can have information on how the users in each system are mapped.
Have a central login screen, this is similar to what CAS does. But please build your own. CAS does not handle anonymous users. I am currently creating a central login screen for work. It's simple. The central login screen will handle all authentication and create the cookie visible to both WP and cake. This would mean that the login link for WP and cake will redirect a user to a common page. The link will need to provide a callback URL so that after the user authenticates successfully, he is redirected back to the original service. You will need to decide on a central DB for user authentication.
The cookie approach has following bonus:
It's a lightweight solution and can be wrapped with an on/off switch. In WP, simply wrap the cookie logic with a wp_options value.
You can use WP's and cake's authentication system. no need to work with API's and/or sessions. No need to couple applications by looking at each other's DB.
You can keep roles and permissions native, meaning WP will work with it's own roles and permissions system and your cake application will work with it's system.
Adding a new "service" to your platform is as simple as "create/check for a cookie" then use the system out-of-the-box auth system to log the user in.
Single Sign On is as simple as creating a cookie. Single Sign Off would be deleting the cookie.
I can definitely go into more detail on each suggestion if you're interested.
Here is the scenario...
I have a site:
http://internet.com
and I set a token(cookie, something like that) from http://internet.com when a user has SUCCESSFULLY logged in.
I also have http://web.internet.com.
On http://web.internet.com I want to display data to users that have that token/cookie/etc available to them.
Here is the use-case
user logs into http://internet.com (asp.net framework hosted on different server - this is our primary product that requires a subscription / username & login )
user then has access to a section that is hidden from plublic view on http://web.internet.com (wordpress site hosted on goDadday - this site contains a knowledge base that we do not want to make public unless they have done [XXXXX] )
both sites are hosted independently of each other and do not share a common username and password
======
Another scenario is to set up wordpress to allow a specific section as a jsonp response. but only if the user is logged in at http://internet.com to allow the user to have access to the jsonp response located at http://web.internet.com
Any ideas from you beautiful people?
It really depends on the level of security you require. You can log a user in to a Wordpress site without a password by using wp_set_auth_cookie, however if you are just validating that a user is logged into the ASP.NET site and then using JSONP to load a page that set's the auth cookie, it will work, however you definitely have some security gaps.
A better solution would be to set a domain level cookie for .internet.com with a token that can be read by any server in your domain. The Wordpress site could then check is_user_logged_in(), and if not take that cookie value and make a back end call to the ASP.NET site to verify its authenticity, and then call wp_set_auth_cookie(). A simple web service would likely be the best option. You would still need some level of mapping between usernames on the ASP.NET and Wordpress site however to know which user_ID to pass.