Using Sitecore users in YetAnotherForum

YetAnotherForum (or YAF for short) is an open source discussion forum written in C# and .NET. Sitecore and YAF cannot run in the same IIS application (they can, if you change the YAF source code, which I will show in a later post), but with a little piece of open source code you are able to use the Sitecore users in YAF.

The open source code is available at:

http://trac.sitecore.net/YAFSingleSignon

The idea is to have Sitecore and YAF running in the same second-level domains: For example let your Sitecore website run at www.mysite.com and YAF in forum.mysite.com.
When users log into the Sitecore extranet, the user information is stored in a cookie which is then digested by YAF.

First you will need to download the code from http://trac.sitecore.net/YAFSingleSignon and build it yourself.

Copy the YAFLogin.dll to your Sitecore /bin/ folder. Then copy the YAFLogin.dll and SitecoreLogin.dll to the YAF /bin/ folder. Also copy the /sitecorelogin/default.aspx page to YAF.

In order to save the extranet credentials, you must apply the following 2 lines of code to your Sitecore extranet login dialog:

// Create a SitecoreUser by logging into the Sitecore extranet
// and retrieve the user information
SitecoreUser user = SitecoreUser.Login(eUserName.Text, ePassword.Text, chkRememberMe.Checked);
// Store the SitecoreUser as a cookie. This cookie can be retrieved by YAF.
user.Store();

That’s it. The user information is persisted in a cookie which can be digested by YAF, as cookies can be shared across second-level domains. There are 2 methods of digesting the Sitecore extranet user. The first method is to call the /sitecorelogin/default.aspx page which will create the user in YAF (if not already existing) do a login a redirect to the default YAF page. The second method is to extend the default.aspx page of YAF with the following code:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  try
  {
    // Restore the sitecore user from the persistant storage (the cookie)
    YAF.Sitecore.PersistenceManager manager = new YAF.Sitecore.PersistenceManager();
    YAF.Sitecore.SitecoreUser user = manager.Restore();
    if (user != null)
    {
      // Instantiate the login manager and log the Sitecore user into YAF
      YAF.Sitecore.LoginManager loginManager = new YAF.Sitecore.LoginManager();
      loginManager.Login(user);
      // The SitecoreUser is now logged in, and the cookie can be removed
      manager.Delete();
      // Load same page to let YAF read the session
      Response.Redirect(Request.RawUrl,false);
    }
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {
    Response.Write("Failed to login Sitecore Extranet user: " + ex.Message);
  }
}

This code does the same as the /sitecorelogin/default.aspx but will be executed by every page in YAF you call.

You can read more about the source code at http://trac.sitecore.net/YAFSingleSignon/browser/Trunk/Sitecore.YAF.docx

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