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php Session issues

I am trying to control access to some web site "back end" pages via session & session variables.

I am using a technique I have used on other sites & it has always worked perfectly, until now.

Maybe there is a change in php 5?

See attached php files.

The chk_login.php is used to check the validity of the login & go to the admin menu. The admin_menu.php is self-explanatory.

But they don't work. After the timeout, the admin_menu page is just a blank page with the <!DocTYPE and <html tags at the top, rest of page completely blank.

What's wrong?

Thanks
admin-menu.php
chk-login.php

Ray Paseur

The correct design pattern for PHP client authentication is available in this article.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/PHP/A_2391-PHP-login-logout-and-easy-access-control.html

Please read it over and have a look at the code samples. It is intentionally simplistic, but it is the foundation of "how it's done."

Cornelia Yoder

Make sure the webpages are all under the same domain level directory. Session variables do not persist across domains.

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Ray Paseur

Here is the chk-login.php script annotated with some comments. Error checking is important when you are running queries. MySQL is not a black box -- it can and will fail for reasons that are outside of your control. You would want to trap these failures and take appropriate action.

<? // THIS USES THE SHORT-OPEN TAG.  SUGGEST YOU CONVERT TO THE FULL TAG LIKE <?php

// THIS NEEDS TO BE THE FIRST LINE OF EVERY SCRIPT
error_reporting(E_ALL);

// set up database
$Host = "db380492857.db.1and1.com";
$User = "dbo380492857";
$Password = "abcxyz";
$DBName = "db380492857";

// THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTION CAN FAIL, AND MUST BE TESTED FOR SUCCESS
$Link = mysql_connect ($Host, $User, $Password);

// THE FIELDS HERE NEED TO BE ESCAPED
$qry = "SELECT * from admin where code = '" . $_POST['uc'] . "' and password = '" . $_POST['pwd'] . "'";

// THIS FUNCTION IS DEPRECATED - CHANGE IT. http://php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-db-query.php
$res = mysql_db_query ($DBName, $qry, $Link);

// HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT VALUE IN IN $res?  YOU HAVE TO TEST IT BEFORE YOU TRUST IT IN ANOTHER FUNCTION
$n = mysql_num_rows($res);

// WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF $n == 3?  MAYBE YOU NEED A LIMIT IN THE QUERY
if ($n == 0) {
	header("Location: login.php?bad=1");
	exit;
}

// THE SESSION IS NOT STARTED UNLESS THE LOGIN IS SUCCESSFUL?  THAT IS A RECIPE FOR CONFUSION
session_start();
$_SESSION['vavusr'] = $_POST['pwd'];
$_SESSION['user'] = $_POST['uc'];
$_SESSION['alast_used'] = time();	
header("Location: admin_menu.php");
exit;

// THE ZEND CODING STANDARD RECOMMENDS ELIMINATING THE CLOSING PHP TAG. OMIT IT.
?>

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Ray Paseur

Regarding this, Session variables do not persist across domains.

I think the issue might be across sub-domains? That may or may not be true. If you need session variables to persist across sub-domains, it is easy enough to make it happen. You just have to set the session cookie yourself. If you do not set the session cookie yourself, the PHP session handler will set a cookie that does not persist across sub-domains. No cookie persists across domains - cookies are domain-specific.

Ray Paseur

Same general comments apply to admin-menu.php -- you need to use error_reporting(E_ALL) to see what might be going on. You need to replace the deprecated code, etc. You might want to ask yourself why you are testing $tdiff and mucking up the client session. PHP has its own session timeout mechanism. I think I would use that instead or trying to write my own.

Richard Korts

ASKER

To Ray_Paseur:

Thank you for all your comments & your impressive tutorial on this general subject.

However, I have been successfully using the technique I described on other sites.

As it turns out, the comment by haloexpertsexchange:solved the problem, moving the session_start to the beginning resolved the issue.