Here is the situation: there has been an application for years. It's old and should not be used. Therefore I created a whole new application to replace the other. Now I want to show a piece of information to the users trying to access the old one (regardless whether already authenticated or, which is more likely, not yet authenticated) and a link to the new one.
I don't want to change anything in the old one or just change as few things as possible, it should stay. So I came up with an idea: why not backing up current Default.aspx and then creating new Default.aspx telling users to try and use the new application (maybe slightly modifying web.config but how?). However, when an unauthenticated user enters ~/Default.aspx, she gets redirected to the login page.
Is it possible to allow unauthenticated users to see this default page without getting redirected to the login page just to give their credentials and then see the default page telling that there is the other application?
Are you just looking to "announce" that users should go to the "new" application (and not do an auto-redirect)?
IF SO, then wouldn't a simple html page that made this announcement be your "linker"?
The reason I'm suggesting .html (instead of an .aspx page) is that if you "don't want to change anything" in the old site, then an html page/file takes it out of the "ASP.Net pipeline" (asp.net will not process it, IIS will) - I'm guessing that the entire old application requires authentication because you mentioned the default.aspx (normally the default document of the web site/application) already requires a login (which is why it redirects).
You can set the "old" application default document to be this (new) standard "announcement" page.
Hth...
Related
We have a DNN based websites being used for our company. Within that there are multiple sites among which there is a site at https://example.com/siteId25.
This particular site have been modified by any one of the Admin's in such a way that upon visiting that url, its only downloading a document(.docx) file rather then showing the website which used to be there.
The file is within the hosted website's portal folder at path "wwroot/WebsiteFolder/Portal/25/Info siteId25.docx". Upon removing that file, it starts giving error.
We already have Testing version of that site on a different server, which is serving appropriate website page upon visiting that path.
Upon checking the Site settings in the Website Persona Bar, as well as checking that in the database table Portal Settings, we didn't found any relevant settings to serve document rather then webpage.
All of the settings are having same values default values in both production & in Testing environment. We tries switching Site Alias mapping mode from canonical to direct, but issue persist.
Can anyone please tell us any to set back url to show website rather then download file?
You find the start page in the table PortalLocalization. The value in the field HomeTabId is the TabId from the table Tabs (pages were called tabs in DNN in former times).
Mind the field PortalId, and CultureCode (if you have a multilingual portal). Set the value to the TabId needed (mind the PortalId also in the table Tabs).
After changing anything in the databse, you should always restart the application pool in IIS. If you have no other way to do it, just open the web.config file with a text editor, enter a blank line, delete this line and save the file.
I'm trying to achieve FormAuthentication with multiple login pages by following this solution:
FormsAuthentication with multiple login pages
Basically the concept is to have a "middle page" that redirect you to the respective Login page of respective folder.
But I can't get this to work if I have friendly URL enabled in my application, I simply get a Redirection Loop error.
Please advise what should I do to achieve FormAuthentication with multiple login page.
P/S: I know FormAuthentication limit to have only one Login page, this is just how it being designed, a work around like the "middle page" is not a really good solution.
I been thinking to implement login myself without using FormAuthentication, but I do not have any idea how should I do it.
In one of the application I wrote previously, I store UserId in Session and use Session["LoggedIn"] = 1 to indicate the user are good to go, but I always have Session expiry issues. I know I should use Cookies but I not sure how.
if possible, just use one log-in form and use different web.config files in different directories, or one web.config with special s.
if not possible, web.config files might still help.
ex: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/316871
I had finally figure out a solution for this (perhaps a work around)
Instead of putting the Login Form inside each folder, put each Login Form in the root, then use the same concept of "middle page" and redirect them respectively.
In the Login page OnLoad function, just check if User is authenticated and have specific roles, then redirect them to the respective folder, so they wont need to signin again if they already signed in.
I recently started working on a site that another developer built (who is not within the company anymore, so can't ask him)
On the site there is several separate accounttypes for users, so when a user logs in, the user comes to one of two specified login-start pages.
Some users have two accounttypes. When that's the case I want to make a dropdownlist that holds both startpage-options (let's call them a, and b)
If they choose option a) from the ddl, the a-startpage will be that users permanent startpage until the user changes it to b, then b will be that specific users permanent startpage.
the project is made with C#, ASP.NET, with Webforms, MS SQL.
any suggestions that might lead me in the right direction is much appreciated
/S
there are at least 2 possible solutions that require little effort:
a cookie on the user's system: when accessing the system for the
first time (or after a system change or a browser's cookies clearing)
the application takes the user to the dropdown page and let the user choose the
preferred login-start page. on subsequent accesses the choice is read from the cookie and then the user is forwarded to the expected page. the biggest advantage IMHO is that no changes to the backend structure are required and the changes on the fronted are minimal.BEWARE: do not trust what you get
reading the cookie and always double check that the page suggested
by the cookie is actually allowed for the user.
an attribute of the user: the user choice is saved in the user's profile and read on subsequent accesses.this approach requires some change in the backend because a new attribute must be added to the user entity and maybe also the tools (stored procedure, method, whatever) needed to interact with that new attribute have to be created.this solution requires less or no checks/validation because the information is stored server side so you can redirect 'blindly' to the login-start page.
there is not a 'right' solution because it mainly depends on what you are allowed to do and your skills.are you allwed to alter the backend's structure? what you know better, backend or frontend development?which one is easier for you to change? is there any policy/guideline to follow while developing that favor one of these approaches?
So in the end i solved it like this.
Firstly i created an int(allows null) column called "changesite" in the db (member/user)table so i could use the members id.
Then i connected it to the dropdownlist where the members/users can choose their startpage (in my case i made the ddl only visible to the members if they are the type of user that has the both user accounts).
if the user chooses the first option a 1 got saved in the db, and for the second option a 2. (This method could be used with any number of startpages you might have).
Then in .cs file were users got redirected to their designated startpage it was as simple as creating an if, else-statement, with the value from changesite as identifier.
Basically if the value from column changesite == null, do nothing. If changesite == 1 redirect to the first startpage and else redirect to the second startpage.
A big thx to Paolo for his inputs.
Let's say I have a website www.mysite.com and I want it to be a multilingual site. Following are the things I wanna achieve :-
1. When a user visits my website, I want to fetch the user's country's ISO code. Let's say the ISO is "FR".
Now I want the user to be redirected to www.mysite.fr
In case the ISO address can't be fetched, the user will be redirected to www.mysite.com
Now I have used the dll from this site http://ipaddressextensions.codeplex.com/ and used their method which is something like
iso3066code(). BUT I am not able to fetch ISO code based on a user's IP address. What is the best method to fetch the ISO code anyway??
2. I have a differenet master page for different countries. Like for France there is France.master, for Germany there is Germany.master, etc.
What I want is that firstly the ISO Code of the user should be fetched, then the user should be redirected to the site corresponding to the ISO
AND want the corresponding master to load.
Here's a scenario:-
A user from France opens my website by typing "www.mysite.com". Now I want to show the user my site's contents in French so I want him to be redirected to
"www.mysite.fr" AND want the France.master to load for all the pages. What I am doing is check the "Top level domain name" entered by user which is "com" in this case, then I fetch the ISO code
then if ISO exists, user is redirected to "www.mysite.fr"
IN CASE, ISO cant be fetched , "www.mysite.com" will only be opened for the user.
3. How do I redirect the user?? Response.Redirect("http://www.mysite.fr") is failing and giving errors like :-
"Page is not redirecting properly" I tried changing it to Response.Redirect("http://www.mysite.fr", false)
and Response.Redirect("http://www.mysite.fr", true). This didn't work.
4. www.mysite.com and www.mysite.fr aren't two different websites.Just that when is it www.mysite.com, English content will be shown on the website.
When it is "www.mysite.fr", French content can be seen inside the website.
What I did was :-
In the Global.asax file :-
I tried fetching ISO code using that dll above from the site ipaddressextensions. Then I created this Application("UserISO") variable in Global.asax file.((Is this a good approach?))
I needed to make it because I wanted to use this global variable within my Global file itself..In some user defined method.
Then I am setting master page name in a cookie and using this cookie to change master page dynamically for every content page in the Page_PreInit() event.
and lastly I am redirecting the user with " Response.Redirect("http://www.mysite.fr", false)". This response.redirect doesnt work!
Now, AM I on the right path?? I am super confused over how to actually make it work! :(
How do multilingual site redirect their users? Where can I learn about all this ? I have tried and tried and tried but this just won't work!
Lastly, there are not really any domain names set for the site as of now. Running it using the IP address set in the IIS.
So how do I test my site. How do I really go about it. Am I following the correct approach at all??
Please direct me to the right path. ANY help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Belgium has 3 official languages, you can't find my language by just looking at the ip address or the domain.
The best way to find the language of a visitor is to check the language of his browser. You can find it in Request.Userlanguages.
Don't do this. It's really frustrating when you try to assume what language the user speaks. You're bound to get it wrong for someone eventually. Put some small flag icons or the language name choices on your main page in a highly visible place, and let your visitors chose what site/language they want to browse in.
Facebook's main sign in page is a great example of this.
Edit: The best you could probably do is to use the HTTP1.1 Header Accept-Language as a hint, but even then I think you should push back on this requirement of your project.
You get redirect error because the .fr site is probably the same site as .com, but session cookies are only valid for a certain domain which means that Session_OnStart() is invoked on the redirect as well. One way to circumvent this is to override the redirect/ip-lookup somehow, maybe send in a querystring or a specific landing page that you can identify:
www.site.fr/?overrideredirect=true
www.site.fr/redirected.aspx -> which then redirects back to / after Session_OnStart
In order to choose the right master page, you could probably identify which host that was requested and from that override master page in your global.asax, perhaps in the BeginRequest event.
i have an application and a user must log-in before he/she can access pages. now once the user logs in i keep the user details in a session variable (say Session["CurrentUser"]).
now if a user tries to jump to a page directly i will check if the Session["CurrentUser"] has a value or not...if not then the user will be directed to the login page...
my problem is that i have done this or rather say written this "Checking Code" on almost all the pages.
what i want is this code to stay on a particular location and i will just access that method all the time on all the pages...now where should i write this method ??
thank you.
You could create a class that inherits from System.Web.UI.Page and then have all your individual page classes inherit from that. Have you looked at the built in ASP.net forms authentication techniques?
You should take a look at ASP.NET Authentication. This will allow you to secure a section of your website, or individual pages via the web.config file and uses a cookie to handle authentication instead of you checking a session variable.
You could put it in a base class which extends Page, then have all your pages codebehinds extend this.
A better solution would be to use the
Application_AuthenticateRequest
pseudo event in the Global.asax. You really shouldn't be using the session either, have you looked at Forms Authentication?