asked on

Association between website

Hi,

I need to link from mysite to another website when a user is logged in, I'm wondering what the best way of doing this would be.

One thought that comes to mind would be to hold a identical SALT on both servers and pass as MD5 hash between via a link with a url, passing the user name too.

So somthing like:

$userid = "tom"
define('SALT','654gf4t5g6GTDY');
$hash = md5(SALT.$userid);

then on other end

define('SALT','654gf4t5g6GTDY');

if md5(SALT.$passedid) == $passedhash){
echo "link ok";
}

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Is this the best way of doing it.

Darren

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Ray Paseur

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darren-w-

ASKER

Thanks Ray, assuming the user will be logged in via https on my side, would the link to the external page need to be via https?

Ray Paseur

Yes, it could. HTTPS is not required, it's just a good security precaution if you're going to be transferring any sensitive data between the sites.

The general design pattern might be a site-to-site handshake like the one illustrated here, adding your md5() string into the mix.

<?php // RAY_REST_get_last_name.php
error_reporting(E_ALL);



// DEMONSTRATE HOW A RESTFUL WEB SERVICE WORKS
// INPUT FIRST NAME, OUTPUT FAMILY NAME
// CALLING EXAMPLE:
// file_get_contents('http://laprbass.com/RAY_REST_get_last_name.php?key=ABC&resp=XML&name=Ray');



// OUR DATA MODEL CONTAINS ALL THE ANSWERS - THIS COULD BE A DATA BASE - AS SIMPLE OR COMPLEX AS NEEDED
$dataModel
= array
( 'Brian'   => 'Portlock'
, 'Ray'     => 'Paseur'
, 'Richard' => 'Quadling'
, 'Dave'    => 'Baldwin'
)
;


// RESPONSE CAN BE PLAIN TEXT OR XML FORMAT
$alpha = NULL;
$omega = NULL;
if ( (isset($_GET["resp"])) && ($_GET["resp"] == 'XML') )
{
    // PREPARE THE XML WRAPPER
    $alpha = '<response>';
    $omega = '</response>';
}



// TEST THE 'API KEY' - THIS COULD BE A DATA BASE VALIDATION LOOKUP - AS SIMPLE OR COMPLEX AS NEEDED
$key = (!empty($_GET["key"])) ? $_GET["key"] : FALSE;
if ($key !== 'ABC')
{
    echo $alpha . 'BOGUS API KEY' . $omega;
    die();
}



// LOOK UP THE FAMILY NAME
$name = (!empty($_GET["name"])) ? $_GET["name"] : 'UNKNOWN';

// IF THE NAME FROM THE URL IS FOUND IN THE DATA MODEL
if (array_key_exists($name, $dataModel))
{
    // RETURNS THE APPROPRIATE FAMILY NAME FROM THE DATA MODEL
    echo $alpha . $dataModel[$name] . $omega;
    die();
}

// RETURNS THE UNKNOWN NAME INDICATOR
else
{
    echo $alpha . 'UNKNOWN' . $omega;
    die();
}

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darren-w-

ASKER

Great thanks Ray

Ray Paseur

Thanks for the points - it's a great question. ~Ray