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Need Help with JsConnect Install

petersg51petersg51 New
edited September 2012 in Vanilla 2.0 - 2.8

Is there any documentation that explains about the authentication url? I see references to it when I search the help forum for jsconnect but I don't see any basic documentation that explains what this is.

I'm stuck at what to put in the jsconnect settings field for : "Authenticate Url". The field instructs: "The location of the jsonp formatted authentication data." I really don't know what this means however.

The JsConnect doc here: http://vanillaforums.com/blog/help/implementing-jsconnect-single-signon-on/
does not mention anything about the plugin or an authentication url.

Peter

ps - would be nice to be able to attach a screenshot to show the issue

Comments

  • You can attach files in the comments.

    To your problem: The authentication URL is a page you have to provide with the relevant data on it. This URL has to be built by you on the website where your users log in. Depending on which environment you use, you should go with a library that you can find in the link you provided.

    This is an example JSON response that has to be provided by your authentication URL:

    test({"email":"test@test.com","name":"testuser","photourl":"","uniqueid":1234,"client_id":"12345678","signature":"XXXX"})

    I hope that helps. If you have any further questions, dont hesitate to mention me.

  • businessdadbusinessdad Stealth contributor MVP

    As the description says, that's the URL that will return the JSON data that JSConnect expects. It's part of "the other" website, i.e. the one where people will log in before coming to the forum. The flow will be the following:

    • User logs in on Yoursite.com
    • User goes to Vanilla Forums and tries to log in
    • Vanilla connects to Yoursite.com/jsconnectdata (this is the Authenticate URL). Yoursite.com provides the data in the required format, telling Vanilla that User is logged in.
    • Vanilla uses the data to log the User on the forum

    That's basically it.

  • ok thx guys. I actually eventually did figure this out after a while.

    It'd be nice to have the something like the descriptions above on the doc page:

    http://vanillaforums.com/blog/help/implementing-jsconnect-single-signon-on/

  • edited June 2013

    is that really how it works?

    The user logs into my site. Then the user goes to the vanilla forum and tries to login there too?

    If I set this up the way I'm supposed to, doesn't the user just login once and then when he tries to go to the forum he gets logged in automatically (using the settup I made) ?

  • hgtonighthgtonight ∞ · New Moderator

    @robertburkhalter You could just force the user to log in automatically via JS.

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  • edited June 2013

    ok. I did some sleeping on this. that always helps me.

    hgtonight, thanks. I think you're right. I think i'm trying to do that.

    from my site, once a user is logged in and wants to go to the forum, should they go to the url
    mysite.com/vanilla/entry/jsconnect?client_id=

    ??

  • ok. two points. by putting a line in my conf file I was able to get the boinks to go away and be replaced by really usefull error messages. It told me to change the security of cache/Smarty/Compile folder. Now, when I press the link on my site to go to the forum, I've got it saying "connecting...". And it says that for more than 2 hours. Probably longer but I'm guessing if after 2 hours it hasn't come up with something more, it's stuck. So I interrupted it.

    since I've seen no mention of /vanilla/entry/jsconnect?client_id= in ANY of the documentation, and I got this by examining the url it was about to try when I pressed a link labeled "connect via , may I suggest THAT WE ADD IT TO THE DOCUMENTATION for jsconnect. It seems to be a crucial part of installing jsconnect.

    Also it might make sense to name the file labeled "index.php" (in the jsConnectPHP-master folder) somthing that is much closer to "authentication" since that seems to be what it's about. I mean, when you upload it, or my version of it to the server, that's the file pointed to in the "authentication url" in the jsconnect settings.

    I'll keep you posted on what I did to get past "connecting...". I hope it's something other than installing ProxyConnect....

    thanks for your kind thoughts, encouragement, and help.

  • Good thoughts for the Vanilla Wiki. Go ahead and document it there

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  • wait a minute. Why should the documentation leave out this vital piece? I mean, why should someone have to go to the Wiki to get the vital parts of the documentation?

  • hgtonighthgtonight ∞ · New Moderator

    @robertburkhalter said:
    wait a minute. Why should the documentation leave out this vital piece? I mean, why should someone have to go to the Wiki to get the vital parts of the documentation?

    I can understand the frustration you are feeling. It would be amazing if all the vital information needed to use jsConnect SSO was available in a document format. It is available, but not without reading the source code. Being able to understand the intent of code is one of the expectations of using the open source version of Vanilla.

    We, the community, cannot modify the official documentation (would it even be official if we could?).

    We have been working on improving documentation through our Community Vanilla Wiki. With your help, we can make the wiki be the first stop when looking for documentation.

    Search first

    Check out the Documentation! We are always looking for new content and pull requests.

    Click on insightful, awesome, and funny reactions to thank community volunteers for their valuable posts.

  • So I just went over to the Vanilla Community Wiki and added a page called Single sign-on. And that's all it allowed me to do. Bummer. I was hoping to share what I learned was missing from the single sign-on documentation.

  • @robertburkhalter said:
    So I just went over to the Vanilla Community Wiki and added a page called Single sign-on. And that's all it allowed me to do.

    Fixed, log out, log in and try again please

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

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