Question

Using form.Attributes.Add('action'... to do a https form post

Asked by: ayacenda

I have an ASP.Net page, 'login.aspx'. The user enters a username and password and submits the form. I would like the page to do an https secure post. So I put the following code into the Page_Load class:

this.form.Attributes.Remove("action");
string secureAction = "https://" + Request.ServerVariables["SERVER_NAME"] + Request.Url.PathAndQuery;
this.form.Attributes.Add("action",secureAction);

This compiles fine, it looks its working as I step through the code in VS.Net. But when I run the page and view source the form tag still has action="Login.aspx".

Just to test the basic idea, I added 'this.form.Attributes.Add("target","_self");' just before 'this.form.Attributes.Remove("action");' That worked perfectly. The opening form tag contains 'target="_self"' So, it seems like I can manipulate the other attributes of the form.

I do not want to open the login.aspx page with https protocol -- this has some search engine crawler implications.

Any ideas?

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Asked On
2004-12-17 at 15:08:41ID21246753
Tags

form

Topic

Programming for ASP.NET

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
12

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Answers

 

by: Justin_WPosted on 2004-12-17 at 16:07:56ID: 12855072

The easiest solution would be to emit/include some javascript that will change the form's action attribute on the client side.

 

by: toddhdPosted on 2004-12-18 at 10:15:29ID: 12858496

If I understand you correctly, you are trying to change the way or location of how the posts. In classic ASP, you could do this by using the form's target property, as you listed above. In ASP.NET however, the form always posts back to itself, regardless of the targer property. So you have two options.

Option 1 is to make the login page an *.asp page, and not an aspx page (or, remove the runat="server" tag from your form so it submits client side and not server side)

Option 2 is to use response.redirect or server.redirect to get the page to go where you need it to.

 

by: Justin_WPosted on 2004-12-20 at 09:28:17ID: 12868568

toddhd wrote >> In ASP.NET however, the form always posts back to itself...

Note: The above statement describes the default ASP.NET behavior, but it _is_ possible to post to a different URL by changing the form tag's action attribute.

 

by: toddhdPosted on 2004-12-20 at 09:40:05ID: 12868673

Sorry Justin, that's incorrect. As long as the runat="server" tag is in the form, it will post to itself. For example, try this:

<form id="Form1" method="post" autocomplete="off" runat="server" action ="http://www.microsoft.com">
<asp:Button id="Button1" runat="server" Text="Submit To Microsoft"></asp:Button>
</form>

Tell me if you end up at Microsoft.com?

 

by: Justin_WPosted on 2004-12-20 at 09:53:50ID: 12868793

toddhd,

I successfully customized an ASP.NET page to post to a different URL a while back, so I know it can be done.

 

by: Justin_WPosted on 2005-01-31 at 09:56:10ID: 13184868

I think that the answer I gave above is an acceptable solution to the posted question.  Therefore, unless the author objects, I think that I should get points for my answer.

 

by: toddhdPosted on 2005-01-31 at 10:03:18ID: 13184944

I respectfully disagree. Justin posted a hypothetical answer, with no code or examples to back it up. If he can provide a working example of what he is proposing,  then I'd say to give him the points. Otherwise, I reccomend deletion, as there appears to be no "solution" to the problem.

 

by: ayacendaPosted on 2005-01-31 at 10:06:51ID: 13184982

What I was trying to do was to submit the form via https. In other words I wanted to do the postback via a secure post. JustinW's suggestion would allow me to submit a different page; but would not allow me to do the postback via https.

From everything I've read, there is no way to do exactly what I wanted.

toddhd's answer is most correct.

 

by: Justin_WPosted on 2005-01-31 at 10:16:31ID: 13185064

I thought my answer was suffficiently self-explanatory, but apparently not.  Put this in your page's ASPX:

<form id="Form1" method="post" runat="server">
<script language=javascript>
<!--
      var f = document.forms[0];
      f.action = '<%# "https://" + Request.ServerVariables["SERVER_NAME"] + Request.Url.PathAndQuery %>';
//-->
</script>


And make sure you call the page's DataBind() method.

I just tested it and it DOES force the PostBack to use the HTTPS protocol.

 

by: Justin_WPosted on 2005-02-02 at 10:04:11ID: 13205852

ayacenda,
I'm curious as to why you accepted the "it can't be done" answer _after_ I had posted a working and tested code example that proves it can be done?

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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