I am making a small two page php project for someone.
I have a login page which redirects to a page with 20-odd checkboxes populated from the DB.
On login if the details are valid it creates a session user and a few others.
Locally everything is fine.
On the server however, it's not configured to use any custom session path and apparently is a shared hosting eviroment so I can't change the php.ini to include the session info.
It seems that the host is also blocking php post information.
Is there any other way I can simulate the same effect as having a session variable?
Related
I have this script that works well on other servers but the session part fails on a particular host. I have pointed to another server but would really like to figure out what could be the problem. I have observed that :
It takes 5-15 mins for changes on code to reflect(e.g changing
text on index page).The server seems to cache pages especially index
(BTW i cleared my browsers cache e.t.c)
When i logout and login as another user the server still retains
the session of the last user on the index page (the other pages seem
OK)
I can open index.php (without logging any user) and what i
believe is the last logged in users details display
I tried swapping my code for some authentication systems on github (just to be sure) even PHPAuth which uses cookies (not sessions) fails the same way. But the same code works flawlessly on localhost as well as other servers.
So i would like to figure out exactly what goes on on that host. It is a shared hosting package.
Got a reply from the host. Seems the problem was with the hosts session variable path. They fixed it.Thanks
I have created a website, I have to login to view this site, now I have copied all files into a new directory and created a separate database for that.
The problem is whenever I am logging in one site the other one is also logging in, and also for log out. Can anyone tell me why this is happening? My server is running on localhost (XAMPP).
I followed this tutorial to create login page:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/php/php_mysql_login.htm
When us store data in the session like you do at $_SESSION['login_user'], this session stored data is for your domain. When you copy the application in an other directory, it still runs under the same domain thus it will access the same session data. You can fix this by making the session data key unique to its directory ex. $_SESSION[$domain.'_login_user'] with $domain being some application specific variable.
Also take a look into session hijacking when using sessions, you are definitely not using them safely: PHP Session Fixation / Hijacking
Here's the thing:
I have Website A in Server 1, a CakePHP 2 based website without any kind of login system.
I also have Website B in Server 2, another CakePHP website which has its login system (uses CakePHP's Auth for more details if it matters), with a login form in first page where users can enter login/password to access it.
So now what I need to do is to add a login form in website A that logs users into website B (as if they had used the form in website B).
Is that possible? If so, what approach should I take to do that securely? (By that I mean without plainly exposing the users credentials).
I assume you're doing this so that you can go between multiple sites, but only login once? I've come up with a way to do this, provided that the sites share domains, but are hosted on different subdomains by getting them to share session. The reason this only works on websites that share domains is because two completely unrelated websites cannot share cookies, which is necessary to get them to share session.
Note that since your goal is to make the two servers completely share their sessions, you will encounter some problems, like for example, flashmessages for one site will appear on both. I ended up extending the Session component so that it would automatically append to all session variables with a prefix to specify which server the session variable belongs to.
Here's an outline of the steps:
The login server will need to be able to host shared sessions, probably via memcache's session save handler, which you will need to install on both your servers. See more here: http://www.dotdeb.org/2008/08/25/storing-your-php-sessions-using-memcached/
The login server's site will need all the regular stuff for a login system, but you also need to set the server up so that it will use the shared memcache session instead of the normal way of saving session. Example once you have memcache installed, add to its php.ini file:
session.save_handler = memcache
session.save_path = "tcp://[login server ip]:11211"
The other server's site will also need to use the shared memcache session stored on the login server, so config its php.ini the same way you did for your login server. Then, set up the Auth component on this site so that it will require logins, but for actually logging in, redirect them back to your login server.
On both servers, in bootstrap.php, add the line ini_set('session.cookie_domain', '.' . ROOT_DOMAIN); Where root domain is the root domain both of them have. So if you were using test.com and subdomain.test.com, ROOT_DOMAIN would be "test". This way, the websites will also share their session cookies.
Make absolutely sure both servers are set to the same time. If their times don't match, you'll likely randomly lose your session because one of the servers will think the session is much older than the other server, and so it will delete it because it thinks the session is too old.
I have a homebrew CMS installed on two different web servers. Each maintain the same code. I have had a really annoying problem when I try passing $_SESSION variables between different domains.
My CMS is on domain1.com. The website it is controlling is on domain2.com. My system passes all the session variables for the login information from domain1.com to domain2.com via a url link (domain1.com has a link like this: http://domain2.com?sessionId=1gh...)(sessionId is generated by session_id()). domain2.com retrieves the session id and does session_id($_GET['sessionId']) to set the session and grab the variables. It then proceeds to show a bar at the top with admin features.
This system works well on one of my hosts, as well as my localhost. But I recently transferred to a different host and installed my CMS with the same code with success. Everything works except for this feature. When I click on the link and try to set the session_id, the session_id changes, but the $_SESSION variables are removed. When I return to my CMS, I have to relogin. Somehow on this host, changing the session_id deletes the $_SESSION variables.
I have never liked session variables and I would not use them if I were to start again (I would probably use plain cookies). But I really need to figure this out. The host that it works on is Bluehost, with both domains hosted by Bluehost. The host that it does not work on is [EDIT]ByteHost, and the domain registrar is Godaddy.
Here is some example code from domain2.com:
...
if ( $_GET['sessionId'] )
{
session_id($_GET['sessionId']);
}
session_start();
echo session_id(); // returns the proper sessionId passed through the url
print_r($_SESSION); // does not work. returns array()
...
I can guarantee that the $_SESSION variables existed before, because I was still logged into my CMS.
Any ideas why session variables work on 1 host, but not on another?
I tried replacing the php.ini file with the working host one. Problem was still there.
Thank you for your time!
UPDATE
I ended up removing this from my CMS. Now, I just pass the login details over the url and it logs the person in. It works a lot cleaner.
Here are some reasons why this may not be working:
different physical server
different account for each domain (even if it's the same physical server)
different apache/php daemon for the domains (some shared hosting sites will create a separate directory for each domain, and then restrict apache from sharing information between domains. This will also have the effect of preventing session information from being passed. Think about it - do you want someone else's domain on the same hosting provider to have access to YOUR client's session info?)
configuration (apache or php), or .htaccess rules
Here is what I will recommend: stop doing this. This is a great opportunity to fix a very serious security flaw in your code. By the time you diagnose it with the hosting provider, you could probably just rewrite everything you need using HTML5 storage or secure cookies.
My guess is that the hosting provider is smart enough to protect session information form being stolen from another domain. But in either case, I strongly recommend you change the code so that it does not need to steal session information from another domain.
To have a session on multiple domains you would need to have the session id passed in the url instead of the sessions cookie as cookies only work on a single domain basis.
Using subdomains would solve the problem if they're not separate customers a.domain.com and b.domain.com
we've recently done some installation but I'm facing issues with one pc in particular and its baffling. We have a webapplication installed on our local server which is accessed by all our workstations. FOr some reason we can't log into our webapplication using one workstation. The application is a PHP MYSQL collaboration system. I double checked and for some really odd reason whenever we login it creates a session ID but upon logging in and redirecting to another page the session is broken and a new session id is generated thus the individual is automatically logged out again.
What could be the issue here - is its a firewall thing - its not the web application as we can access it fine via the other workstations. We even disabled the firewall but in all cases that single dumb workstation seems to have an issue with maintaining the session.
Help please - I'm sure its an issue confined to that one PC - what could it be.
Update
The authentication sequence is as follows:
Login
Authenticate user
Build session
Store session variables with session ID in db
Redirect
SESSION variables are empty - a new session ID is generated
Since new session ID is not of an authenticated user - return to login
More details
SSL is not enabled
Cookies are enabled are on the problem machine
UPDATE
I don't understand how can redirection be the problem here. My redirection code is as follows I'm using the following function to redirect to the index page upon successful login.
function _redirect($url)
{
#To redirect to a specified page
if(headers_sent())
echo "<meta http-equiv=\"refresh\" content=\"0;URL=$url\">";
else
header("Location:$url");
exit;
}
Plus even if it is an issue why is it a problem on just one PC and not on the others? I don't wish to change my code just to accommodate one system as opposed to fixing whats wrong with that one system which is preventing it from behaving in the first place.
MORE UPDATE
I just double checked and found something odd. My login is ajax based i.e. a request is made via ajax if it is a success the session variables are generated and a boolean 1 is sent back upon receiving the user is redirected via a javascript call which is:
function _redirect(url)
{
window.location = url;
}
I commented out this call and instead when the user is logged in I manually go to the index page and it works fine!! What is the javascript redirect messing up in this one pc thats not messing up in the other workstations is beyond me :( How do I fix this?
It sounds like the cookie is not being set and sent back to the server properly on this machine. Verify that you have cookies enabled and that you don't have some 3rd party browser extension or other software blocking cookies.
what browser are you using on this workstation? IE? Firefox? Have you tried different web browsers? Tried checking the browser settings yet? What is the time out set to? Is the time on the server and workstartion syncing properly with ntp?
In IE you can disable accepting of sessions cookies if the security is set to high I believe.
If you're losing the session, it's likely because the session cookie is not being transmitted. Does the browser on that machine have cookies enabled? Are you using SSL for your login page? Does your login code do anything besides validate a username/password (e.g. validate an IP address or machine name)?
Edit
Can you verify with Fiddler/Wireshark that the session cookie is transmitted when you redirect? Can we see some example login code?
I misunderstood the question to begin with (hence my edit history)
What is the domain the login is on and the main site is on? If it's between domains (could be anything like sending between example.com and www.example.com)