When user enter my site they receive a dialogue box proposing to install my wonderful app. When the user presses the accept button, the play market page with my app pops up.
This dialog box appears only if user browses from phone.
However, this dialog will popup even if user has my app already. Thus, I am interested in a way to inform site about presence/absence of an app on the phone. If app already installed on a phone, dialog should not appear.
phone w/o app -> browse site -> get dialoge box
phone with app -> browse site -> normal browsing
Simple and useless solution which comes in mind:
If link is opened from my app, it is extended with some action to identify that app is installed.
It is useless, because app is all-sufficient, so opening site will not give any benefit.
A bit more advanced idea was proposed by msh: Give user an option which app will open a link. If link is opened with my app as above.
Is there a better way to do this ?
Yes, Mobile Browsers (on their own) cannot communicate the application installed status to web. But still if you are desperate to implement this behavior, I have got a "WILD" solution for you.
This Solution is divided in two parts: Client Side (Android Device) / Server Side (Web)
Client Side (on Android Device):
In your application you'll need to implement a BroadcastReciever that will be continuously listening to the Network State changes. Whenever a broadcast is received for new network connection available (e.g. when the user turns on the Mobile Data), your app should read the acquired IP address and communicate it to your web-server (using HttpURLConnection).
Communicating the IP address will inform your web-server that the device browsing your website from this IP address has got your application installed.
Server Side (on Web Server):
Your web-server will keep a track of all the IP addresses reported by all the devices on which your application is installed(off-course in a database). To avoid redundant entries you can decide a expiry/validation time for each IP address record received.
Now when your server receives a web request, it will match the IP of the requesting client with all the IP's that were saved in its database. If it finds a matching IP, it means that the web request has come from a device on which your application is already installed. Otherwise you can direct the user to your app's play store link.
Limitation of proposed Solution: This solution will work with 100% accuracy only in the case when the user is using Mobile Data (2g / 3g / etc) to connect to internet. Since using Mobile Data, everytime the device will be issued a unique IP address by the service provider.
This wont work perfectly for wi-fi connections. While browsing using a wi-fi, all the devices that are connected to same wi-fi spot are allocated the same IP address. So there may be a situation where two mobile phones are using internet from same wi-fi spot, out of which one phone has your application installed and the other phone does not. This will confuse the server.
** This solution may not be highly recommended, but could be used with some minor fixes if you don't get any other solutions ;)
It is not possible of course, browser doesn't leak phone configuration and installed apps to random websites (I hope, or somebody has to fix it ASAP)
You can probably make your app react to the VIEW Intent with certain URL then redirect to that URL on your site, but that will make Android ask the user whether they want to open this URL with your app or the browser, so it is not transparent
You could have two seperate urls like: www.yousite.com and www.app.yoursite.com. This way at least the users are free of the popup from the app.
Related
Requirements
I'm currently working on a PHP portal for a machine-seller. His machines are capable of communicating over the internet with an integrated SBC with LAN port. The consumers who bought a machine can configure it online after they logged in to the machine-sellers-portal.
After they configured it online, they can download the configuration file via the HMI (touch display at the machine itself) to the machine. The configuration file contains valuable and private information.
The HMI is not browser based. It's a binary application that has, for example, a button "Load config". The rest has to be done in bash/php-scripts in the backround.
Solution for authentication?
I'm in a very early state of conception, but I'm wondering about some processes. I've never had a machine thats needs access to my services, only humans. What is the way to do this actually?
I have three approaches:
1. Access with "API-Key"
Means: In the OS of the SBC lies a file containing a sequence like 8asd7d7d. When I receive a GET-request to portal.company.com/getConfig/8asd7d7d I know from which machine it comes and that it is allowed to receive this config.
Disadvantage: The buyer has access to the SBCs file system. He could destroy the file by accident. He could find out the generating scheme and download configuration files from other buyers.
2. Generating one-time UUID-URL
Means: The consumer creates his configuration online. After that, he gets displayed a one-time URL like portal.company.com/getConfig/d8ac2292ea1fec3fe5c65e6ef573 which he can enter in the HMI and load the file.
Disadvantage: The consumer has to type a long URL into the display of the HMI.
3. Simulating the human authentication process
Means: The machine sends a valid post-request to portal.company.com/login with the login-data of its human owner. It gets a session-cookie (is that even possible in a non-browser environment like pure PHP-scripts?!) and the portal logic knows which URLs are accessible and which not (like for a human visitor).
Any other/better ideas?
I tend to use solution 2 as it's relatively easy to implement and hopefully secure (lets pretend a sha512-string as URL-parameter). Do you have any better suggestions? Mind, that the other way round is not possible, the portal can not actively push data to the machine (as it has no fixed IP, no webserver, ...)
If the device supports cryptographic functions, PKI can be used. Encrypt the data using the device public key. Only the device knowing the private key can decrypt the config file. PKI supports authentication also. here the device connects to a login portal that requests client certificate and after authentication of client, the config file is send to the device encrypted in device public key.
cons: each device requires a client certifcate.
Is there a way to get a user's full address on the internet, using php, so that the address can be send to a client application on another computer on the internet and enable it to transfer files directly?
What I'm trying to do is: I have put together a desktop application in vb.net that will exchange live webcam feed between computers on a lan. However, I want to enable the users to exchange the feed via the internet, but the only servers I will have at my disposal are simple lamp servers. I'd like to write a script in php that the desktop application can periodically connect to so that the server can confirm the computer's availability as well as maintain it's physical address. Then, when a computer's desktop webcam app wants to connect to the other, it can check the php server to make sure it's available and grab it's physical address to know where to send the udp packets to.
Also, if anybody has a better suggestion as to how to deal with this need, I'd try anything that might work. I'm a paramedic at an ambulance service who loves to play with code and my boss is wanting to be able to use our mobile internet connections on our trucks to be able to provide live feed to the local trauma center and interact with trauma surgeons during our transports. I'm making great progress so far, but this is kind of where I'm stuck. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
Have you looked at OpenTok? Its a javascript based video chatting solution. The service costs money, but is very affordable (free for 25,000 minutes a month)
I have an android app on Google Play and also an website where.
For the moment, I am using javascript to detect if the device connected to the website is an android device. If is, I am displaying a popup dialog on the device inviting the user to download the app from the PlayStore. If the user clicks ok, he will be redirected to the PlayStore page of my app, I f he clicks no, he will continue using the browser.
Now, the problem is that when the user have installed the app and tryes to access the webpage again, he will be asked again to download the app, even if he allready installed it (which is not a good idea).
Do you know a solution on how to check if the user has allready the app installed on his mobile device?
It is also possible to do android detection with php, so if you have a method with php to detect if the app is installed, I can also use it.
Thank you very much.
I don't think this is possible for security reasons. I would not want some random website I visit to be able to access my phone Package Manager and find out what apps I have installed.
This would raise a lot of privacy and security concerns.
But I saw one answer that might have a different way of achieving your intent that might be useful to you:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/12901352/1369222
Even if the user doesn't install your application, your web site shouldn't ask more than one or two times to download your application from the PlayStore. The usual way of doing this is to use the browser's cookies in order to remember if it's a new visitor or not. It's not full proof because the cookies functionality could have been deactivated but at least, you won't have to worry about this problem for most of your visitors.
I run a computer lab for grade schoolers (3-14 y.o.) and would like to create a desktop/dashboard page consisting of a number of iframes, each pointing at a different external website
(for which we have created individual accounts for each child); and when a kid logs in (to the dashboard) a script will log her in to those websites, so she does not have to.
I have 1 server and 20 workstations, I'll refer to them as 'myserver' and 'mybrowser'(s) respectively. All these behind the same router (dynamic IP).
A kid gets on a 'mybrowser' workstation, fires up Firefox and runs desktop.php (hosted in 'myserver') and gets a login screen (for 'myserver')
'mybrowser' ---http---> 'myserver'
Once logged in, 'myserver' will retrieve a set of username and password stored in its database and run a CURL script to send those to an 'external web server'.
'mybrowser' ---http---> 'myserver' ---curl---> 'external web server'
SUCCESSFUL, well, I thought.
Turns out CURL, being run off 'myserver', logs in 'myserver' instead of 'mybrowser'.
The session inside the iframe, after refresh, is still NOT logged in. Now I know.
Then I thought of capturing the cookies from 'myserver' and set it into 'mybrowser' so that 'mybrowser' can now browse (within the iframe)
as a logged in user. After all, we (all the 'mybrowsers') are behind the same router as 'myserver', thus same IP address.
So in other words, I only need 'myserver' to log a user in to several external websites all at once ,and once done pass the control over back to individual users' browsers.
I hope the answer will not resort to using CURL to display and control the external websites for the whole session, aside from being a drag that will lead to some other sticky issues.
I am getting the nuance that this is not permitted due to security issues, but what if all the 'mybrowsers' and 'myserver' are behind the same router? Assuming there's a way to copy the login cookies from 'myserver' to 'mybrowsers', would 'external web server' know that a request came from different machines?
Can this be done?
Thanks.
The problem you are facing relates to the security principles of cookies. You cannot set cookies for other domains, which means that myserver cannot set a cookie for facebook.com, for example.
You could set your server to run an HTTP proxy and make it so that all queries run through your server and do some kind of URL translation (e.g. facebook.com => facebook.myserver) which then in return allows you to set cookies for the clients (since you're running on facebook.myserver) and then translates cookies you receive from the clients and feed them to the third party websites.
An example of a non-transparent proxy that you could begin with: http://www.phpmyproxy.com/
Transparent proxies (in which URLs remain "correct" / untranslated) might be worth considering too. Squid is a pretty popular one. Can't say how easy this would be, though.
After all that you'll still need to build a local script for myserver that takes care of the login process, but at least a proxy should make it all possible.
If you have any say in the login process itself, it might be easier to set up all the services to use OpenID or similar login services, StackOverflow and its sister sites being a prime example on how easy login on multiple sites can be achieved.
I am currently working on 2 web servers, One Coldfusion and the other PHP.
Right now, the Coldfusion server is my main server where users log in to access restricted data.
However, I have also begun using a PHP server and want to make it transparent for users to access a specific page on that server - that server requires log in information as well.
I do not want the users to log in twice.
Is there a way to accomplish this ?
Thx
UPDATE: Working in an Intranet environment, so I can't use any public solution.
UPDATE: Reason I am asking for this is because we are moving from a MSQL / Coldfusion environment (Initial server) to a PHP / ORACLE (new server). So I have 2 user tables as well (although they contain mostly the same information).
I am trying to faze out the use of our initial server in favor of our new server transparently to the user and thus I have to work in parallel for the time being.
Most single-sign-on solutions work a bit like this...
Main system authenticates use
User opts initiates a need to move to system 2
Main system authenticates the user with system 2 in the background
System 2 supplies a random, long and disposable token to Main system
Main system redirects the user, with the token, to system 2
System 2 checks the token (and other factors such as IP address) to validate the session
System 2 disposes of the token to ensure it can't be replayed
You would want to ensure that the transmission channels had some security on, especially where Main system and system 2 are talking to each other. You would want that to be a secure transport.
Store sessions in a database, and share them between the two apps.
You could use xml-rpc to get user data and log the user into the other site when they have a login cookie for the first one and vice versa.
Php manual page for XML-rpc
Here is what I have done, in running my own game server, had users on sql server, and on mysql, and wanted to integrate them both.
I made sure that if a user was created on 1 system, was also created on the other.
So you can modify code in both applications, to automatically create a user in other system if it is created on here.
Depending if both servers share a domain, can you do cross-domain sessions or cookies...But my best guess is to store and retreive data...
Or..
as a person logins/registers record their current ip address, on both servers, then check if this person was on the other server within 2-5 minutes, if so, use the ip address to identify them....
This system is tricky because timing is important, so your not leaving a huge hole in your security....But for short term, going between servers, this is simplest solution, in my own opinion.
Good Luck.
If you are on an intranet, you can actually sniff out the network username of the user from the PC they are logged into the network on using PHP. This assumes that:
You are using IIS to host your PHP application.
Your users are using Windows.
Check the section "2.2 Enabling Support for Detecting Usernames" here.
After that, all you need to do is investigate if the same is possible from Coldfusion, and you have the basis of an SSO solution based on the network usernames.
How about implementing an OpenID solution, much like the one apparent on StackOverflow?
You may benefit from dropping a shared object on the client machine via Flash or Flex. This object could then be read from ColdFusion/PHP/Python on servers that otherwise had no connection to each other or access to a common database.
Here is a simple example from the Adobe Docs
Maintain local persistence. This is
the simplest way to use a shared
object, and does not require Flash
Media Server. For example, you can
call SharedObject.getLocal() to create
a shared object in an application,
such as a calculator with memory. When
the user closes the calculator, Flash
Player saves the last value in a
shared object on the user's computer.
The next time the calculator is run,
it contains the values it had
previously. Alternatively, if you set
the shared object's properties to null
before the calculator application is
closed, the next time the application
runs, it opens without any values.
Another example of maintaining local
persistence is tracking user
preferences or other data for a
complex website, such as a record of
which articles a user read on a news
site. Tracking this information allows
you to display articles that have
already been read differently from
new, unread articles. Storing this
information on the user's computer
reduces server load.
Full Information: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/flash/net/SharedObject.html