Advanced login features

See Note on passwords and Note on failed logins.

Refer to Interfaces for more information.

Log in is performed through the default.asp or the login_act.asp page, both located at the root of the Web Manager application directory. By forming an appropriate URL, you can log in to the SWM application. See Login Options for available options.

Logging in through a URL

By placing the following link on a web page, you can directed a user to www.yourServer.com and have them log in with the login ID of user123.

<a href="http://www.yourServer.com/swm/login.asp?LoginID=user123"> Click Here to Connect to Host</a>

Note

Any number of key/value pairs can be passed in the URL by following the form ?LoginID=user123&foo=bar&foo1=bar1.

Also, any text passed via the URL must be URL encoded text, as specified by RFC 1738: Uniform Resource Locators (URL) specification. URL encoding of a character consists of a percent sign (%), followed by the two-digit hexadecimal representation (case-insensitive) of the ISO-Latin code point for the character. For example, a space must be encoded to %20, so foo=My Text must be encoded to foo=My%20Text

Logging in through a form

By placing the following form on a web page, you can directed a user to www.yourServer.com and have them log in with the login ID of user123.

<form action="http://www.yourServer.com/swm/login.asp" method="POST">
<input type="hidden" name="LoginID" value="user123">
<input type="submit" value="submit">
</form>

Note

The above form uses a hidden variable for the LoginID, this could just have easily been a visible text input field named LoginID. Also, the method of the form could be either GET or POST. POST passes the variables in the header of the HTTP request, while GET passes the variables in a URL. POST text does not need to be URL encoded, while GET text must be.

login.asp vs. login_act.asp

login.asp

Use login.asp to populate LoginID or to use options when a password is not required.

login.asp supports LoginID=NT,String, IP,HOST, or SHORTHOST. It does not support login ID/password automated log in. Upon failure, users are redirected to the login screen.

login_act.asp

Use login_act.asp to redirect the user back to original page and when password is required.

login_act.asp allows you to login to the application with either LoginID and Password or just LoginID (if password is not required), it does not support LoginID=NT,String, IP,HOST, or SHORTHOST. The main use of login_act.asp is that upon login failure, it redirects the user back to the referring page. Therefore, you can have a link on the page www.SomeServer.com/links/ that points to www.myServer.com/swm/login_act.asp. If the log in fails, the user is brought back at www.SomeServer.com/links/. This allows Web Manager to remain transparent to the user, who never sees the login screen.

Login options

There are a number of available login options available to administrators of the Web Manager application. Use either the URL or FORM methods described above to pass the following key/value pairs.

LoginID=String

Passing LoginID=String attempts to login to the Web Manager with the login ID of String.

Usage: http://www.myServer.com/swm/login.asp?LoginID=user123

LoginID=NT

This option is for browsers logging into a page with NT challenge response. Once a users successfully negotiates the NT challenge response, the browser makes the user name variable available to the server. Web Manager then attempts to log in with the user name as provided by the user.

Usage: http://www.myServer.com/swm/login.asp?LoginID=NT

LoginID=IP

Web Manager determines the IP address of the client machine and uses it as the login ID.

Usage: http://www.myServer.com/swm/login.asp?LoginID=IP

LoginID=HOST

Web Manager uses the reverse DNS lookup service provided by IIS to determine the host name of the client machine. Web Manager then uses the host name as the login ID. The reverse DNS lookup attempts to find the machine name registered with the DNS server and returns the full machine name, in the form myMachine.myDomain.com. If no DNS entry is found, IIS returns the WINS name of the client machine. If no WINS name is found, IIS returns the IP address of the client machine.

Note

Reverse DNS lookup must be enabled on the Web service of the IIS server, by default it is disabled. If reverse DNS is disabled, IIS returns the IP address of the client machine, which makes LoginID=HOST behave exactly the same as LoginID=IP. Consult your documentation for details on enabling reverse DNS lookup.

Usage: http://www.myServer.com/swm/login.asp?LoginID=HOST

LoginID=SHORTHOST

This option works identically to LoginID=HOST, with the exception that if Web Manager receives a full machine name string of the form myMachine.myDomain.com, it then substrings the string up to the first dot (.). Thus myMachine.myDomain.com becomes myMachine which Web Manager uses as the login ID.

Usage: http://www.myServer.com/swm/login.asp?LoginID=SHORTHOST

pWord=String

Passing pWord=String attempts to log in to the Web Manager with the password of String. E.G. pWord=openSesame.

Note

For security reasons, it is very unwise to pass passwords in clear text over the Internet, or to write them out in URLs or FORM variables which can be viewed in the HTML source code. The pWord variable is provided as a convenience and can be used safely if appropriate security measures are taken. Use login_act.asp for login ID/password combinations, login.asp simply populates the login ID and forces the user to enter a password.

Usage: http://www.myServer.com/swm/login_act.asp?LoginID=String&pWord=String

Note on passwords

If the administrator has configured Web Manager so that passwords are required for a user to log in, then Web Manager presents a login ID and password page to the user. If one of the above automated login options above is used, then Web Manager populates the LoginID with its determined value. If both a login option and the pWord option are used, then Web Manager automatically performs the log in (only through login_act.asp).

If passwords are not required, or if the pWord option is used in conjunction with a LoginID option, then the user does not see the login ID and password page. They transparently log in and host screens launch.

Note on failed logins

When performing automated logins, if the log in fails:

•

login.asp presents the user with the login screen.

•

login_act.asp determines the URL of the referring page and redirects the user back to that page.