| Blog News Main Page NEWS FROM 2006-03-25
Blog Entry: 3/25/2006 4:23:31 PM
I just finished implementing the V7 product on our site and someone made mention that on the profile form where you are asked all your personal and user information there are 2 fields for passwords. The first field uses masking to hide the password as you type it, where the second shows it in clear text.
Now we know that the only people able to see the password are the user and the administrator, but it is playing mind games with my users as they think there is a problem with the application. I am not a programmer (however, learning ASP slowly now!) and am not sure if you did this on purpose or if it is a bug?
If it was done on purpose, can you advise how I can make the confirm password field masked as well to eliminate the unfounded questions!
Thanks , ok, here is what is going on
you are password protecting an ".asp" page that requires querystring info to run correctly (example - "somepage.asp?ID=3"")
that is something I never intended anyone to do.. while it does handle and repass the querystring info along during successful login it does not re-pass that info during a failed login as you have found out
this is all by design.. the only reason the system re-passes the querystring info at all is because I wanted to make it smart for the sake of the remember me/cookie feature.. so if someone was using that and bookmarked a page deep in your site with querstring info...then when they went back to that bookmark they would get authenticated and still see the page as intended with the querystring info in tact
it was a nice feature never intended to handle any situations other than what I just described...
now... notice the url in the browser after failing a login.. then logging in successfully.. it is missing the querystring info
that more than anything is what is going on.. browser caching can cause some confusion when dealing with this because the browser likes to return you to the page minus the querstring info... when that happens a simple browser refresh at that time may very well solve the problem and then you see the page you are supposed to see...
To avoid all of this...
One solution to this is to always start people logging in to an ".asp" page that has no querystring info. That way this won't happen. Once they are logged in you can then offer them links to the pages they need to go to. (you of course still want to password protect those pages)
Another solution is to log them into a page with no querystring info and then do a response.redirect to the page with quersytring info.. thus accomplishing the same thing but without the possibility of the issue because of a failed login.
Another solutions is to do checks in your asp page for missing querstring info.. and if it isn't there do something about it like send them somewhere else.. or display a message about there being an error... etc etc
So,basically you don't want to tell people to login into such and such page with querstring info... and providing a username and password..... You can do it but like you found out it can cause an error if they mess up logging in the 1st time. The system just was not designed to handle that. There are complex reasons for that involving security that would just take me too long to explain.
I hope this makes some sense to you.. it is very hard to try and explain ,
Now that I really think about it.. instead of logging that info to a text file and worrying about folder permissions you could probably just save the post info into an application variable during the paypal ipn.asp post like so
For Each Item In Request.Form formdata = formdata & vbCrLf & Item & "=" & Request.Form(Item) & vbCrLf Next
Application("PayPalPost") = formdata & " - " & NOW
then anytime you wanted to see if that info was there or when it happened you could make a simple asp page in your site to display the results like so
<% Response.Write "(" & Application("PayPalPost") & ")" %>
cwilliams38421.6747453704, Perfect exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks , User Registration
The "users" folder allows users to sign themselves up and edit there accounts as well as retrieve lost passwords..
In the settings tab of the ASPProtect admin area there are options for which fields are used and which are mandatory when a user signs up. The only validation the system performs by default is checking for mandatory status. If you want to add more validation so reduce the chances of input errors that is up to you.
You can add additional server side validation by doing server side checks on the save pages... you can also make the field sizes larger in the database if you think you need to. You'll need to be good with ASP to do this.
Always backup your files before making changes to them so that you can revert back to a working copy if you mess something up. , maybe this is the issue...
do you realize that the descriptive name you give a group is not always going to be the same ID in the database ? The two are not related.
Perhaps what you named Group 1 is really group ID 3
You can tell for sure by generating protection code for group 1 and see what ID it tells you to use..
You also need to remember that you are testing this with different users and it is really easy to get confused so you need specifically log off using the log off page to ensure session info from the previous login doesn't show up and cause confusion when you log in with a different user... etc etc
in addition to logging off that way you may also want clear the session and application info via the code at the bottom of my article http://www.powerasp.com/content/new/displaying-session-and-a pplication-variables.asp
and do that in between any user you log in as , You are right, there are NO entries in the "PayPal_Subscriber_ID" field at all. Any way of fixing this? , UPDATE
Version 8.1 has code generators for these new methods built in... , Chris,
Thanks for the reply. It all makes sense.
I have gone with your first option but here is the problem:
I have moved the password protected page from the detail page with the
querystring to the straight .asp page. This obviously fixes the
previous error.
Once someone has logged in they are then presented with a list of links
to the previously protected pricelist detail pages (example -
"somepage.asp?ID=3""). They are then able to access the pricelists.
The problem is that if someone copies the pricelist URL they are then
able to pass it on to someone else and bypass the password protection.
If I also password protect the pricelist pages then someone will have to login twice.
Is there some code that i can add that will simply check that they have
logged in otherwise kick them back out to the protected .asp page.
All code in your documentation tends to open the login page regardless of whether you have previously logged in.
Thanks,
Stuart
, Got any info for me on this ?
Chris , That is by design, removing and deleting are two different things as far as the classifieds system goes.
A regular user can only remove an ad from the category index. (which makes the ad inactive)
An admin however can truly delete an ad from the system. , Hi,
How do you know permissions are ok in that folder ? Please tell me more on how they were set.
Please read through my article on how they are set correctly. http://support.cjwsoft.com/code/moreinfo136-1.htm
Often times they are not set correctly or people thingk they set them somehow but in fact did not do it the correct way.
I would also suggest using the "test_physical_path.asp" page in the "extras" folder to verify if the path you are using to the database mdb file is in fact correct. That page should work whether permissions are set or not. At least then you will know if the path is correct or not and you can go from there. , I have a need for more than the current number of custom fields currently available in the registration form. Is there a documented method of adding additional fields or am I not able to do so?
Thanks,
Dave , You edit the web.config file that came with ASPProtect.NET.
You find this tag
<customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" />
you change it to this
<customErrors mode="Off" />
If you have a different web.config file in your root I suggest you make sure the tag is set to off there as well for troubleshooting sake
If done correctly you will get a detailed error It's basic low level ASP.NET stuff really and does not have anything specific to do with ASPProtect.NET.
You also need to make sure your web is set up correctly for ASP.NET and that the correct web.config's are firing..etc etc
cwilliams38454.4368055556, Gotcha.
Can you set an expiration date on a subscription?
Thanks,
Jess , Thanks.
Nick , I Dont know... it shouldnt do anything like that.
if it ever asks to download a aspx or asp page its generally a server configuration issue not related to the actual code
provided you arent trying to grab the injectbanner page through an iframe call which is only for use with the javascript method of calling banners , No worries
then..
is there any way I can get rid of those information shown on User activity screen, so I can at least know who logged in current day?
thank you in advance , sorry for the confusion. I completely forgot about that flag setup, and how different it is between the two databases., Thanks for the install. After many hours I finally got part of the
system working. I can log in and log out as a user. My problem is I
want the pages
accesses by Members ONly. The database will contain the names of
the members and only they are allowed access, and no one else. I
tried Joe Blow to log in and it worked, the only thing is Joe was not
in the database and he should have been locked out and a page come us
saying something like "you are not a registered user, please complete
the membership application" and then link back to the root web,
application page.
I am also afraid of breaking the codes you provided thus far. I also
want the password protected pages in a sub-web of the root web.
This may sound like elementary stuff, but this newbie is having
constant trouble. I am also referencing books on ASP and Access
and VB and still come up with a dead end. Search the net and come up
with a few codes which are described as something I am looking for, but
dont want to add any thing like that for fear of breaking the whole
thing.
Any suggestions?
, there is no straight answer to a question like that..
I think my code is very easy to figure out and work with...
What your asking all depends on your skills and also what sort of payment processing system/merchant account you go with and what sort of ASP example code they provide you, More Info on Simple File Sharing
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp/filesharing.h tm
http://www.theeldergeek.com/quick_guide_to_simple_file_shari ng.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;3040 40
, 1st of all when I look at the site I see a lot of non US characters and I can see the regional settings of the site are foreign.
ASPClassifieds in only intended to run under US and Canadian regional settings as stated on the site.
Thus the BIG notice on the purchase page. http://www.aspclassifieds.com/purchase.asp
It won't run right like that for a lot of reasons and it is not supported like that as that notice says.
The categories showing 0 is just one of the problems you will have.
If I help you fix this it will just lead to 4 more issues right after.
If you would like support with the classifieds application you need to run it on a server with US or Canadian regional settings like the site says. , Larry,
I have a new computer up and running and am back on the Internet full time. I am here to help when you are ready to continue with this.
I went to your site to look around and "try it" like you mentioned but I can not really try anything as the admin username/password seems to be something other than the default , ok, Thanks, I'll take a look.
Nick , Christopher,
I can empathize. It can be a real pain to stablize a server and fend off hack attacks.
As for beta testing, I was referring to once you get to the point where you're ready to release it to the public whether it's this month, next month, etc.
Good Luck!
Al , Thanks Chris.
Yes i never actually considered that they should log in twice.
The site uses two main url and the cookie was being stored for only one
of them. I have fixed the double login issue by making changes to
menu to ensure that they are always logging only via the url stored in
the cookie.
Thanks for your hep,
Stuart
, Please Note : ASPProtect v7.x has a new feature called groups that is much more powerful than access levels. Access Levels were left in the product primarily for existing customers that upgrade to the new version so they do not need to make a lot of changes to their site if they were using Access Levels.
More On Access Levels
Again, Examples of managing Access Levels are provided in the "multiple_access_levels" folder included in the root of the Password System. Look at the source code of the ASP pages in that folder with a text editor to see the working code.
Access Levels and how they work can be re-coded to work in many different ways. However, you have to be a good ASP developer to make changes to it. Here is some information on how they work by default.
In the "check_user_inc.asp" that comes in the root of this system Access Levels work as follows.
Level 1 has Access to - Level 1 Level 2 has Access to - Level 1,2 Level 3 has Access to - Level 1,2,3 Level 4 has Access to - Level 1,2,3,4 Level 5 has Access to - Level 1,2,3,4,5 Level 6 has Access to - Level 1,2,3,4,5,6 Level 7 has Access to - Level 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Level 8 has Access to - Level 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 ADMIN has Access to - Level 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,ADMIN
Here is some additional info..
If the access levels are too restrictive you can ignore them all together and create your own totally custom solutions. Here is a quick rundown of some of the things you can do.
Ok... so if you want to be really specific about what each user can see and can't .. here's an example of what you can do
Don't use the access levels before the include file.. Don't worry about what you set a user to in the admin area since the access levels won't be used.
Do something like this..
Every time a user logs in session variables are set that you can access at any time.. thus allowing you to know who they are.
So you could do something like this...
<%@ LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" %>
<!--#INCLUDE FILE="check_user_inc.asp"-->
<% If Session("USERNAME") = "bob1267" or Session("USERNAME") = "carl45" or Session("ADMIN") = "True" Then Session("PASSWORDACCESS") = "Yes" Else Session("PASSWORDACCESS") = "No" Response.Redirect(Request.ServerVariables("script_name")) End If %>
The following URL explains what Redirects are. http://www.powerasp.com/content/code-snippets/redirects.asp
That would in effect create totally custom access levels.. but you would have to do it manually for each user.
You can also do things like this after a person logs in
Show custom html to any specific user based on either their username or access level ... like so
say there was a menu and a certain link should only show up to username "paully67"
you could do something like this
<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE></TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY>
<br> <a href="main.asp">Home Page</a> <% If Session("USERNAME") = "paully67" Then %> <br> <a href="paullys_page.asp">Pauls Stats Page</a> <% End If %> <br> <a href="links.asp">Links Page</a>
</BODY> </HTML>
Or you can show custom HTML or links based on Access Levels or any other info.
You can do just about anything with if-then statements and using the built in vbscript functions..
Hopefully this info will help to give you some ideas...
Bottom line is you have to do some work within your site to make the Access Level system really come alive. cwilliams38403.6781481481, Thats what I needed. Thank you!, The main users screen... the 1st screen you see when you go to the admin area.. where you email an individual user..
The settings I am referring to being the various emailing settings on the settings screen, The settings you showed me.
As for emailing via a remote server over dsl. It may not be working because the ISP's block the port (25) to stop people from running email servers over their dsl.
Your POP3 works because POP3 uses port 110.
If you want to send emails from your local server on your dsl you should probably install the SMTP service of IIS if you have not and send emails using that with CDOSYS. Either that or get a commerical DSL account with a static IP that allows for running email servers. , Your actually confusing me with the whole "joe bloe" thing and user access. I just do not get what you are trying to tell me. Perhaps you can explain in a less confusing way. Your just not technically explaining it andand thats what I need to know to possibly help.
As for the subweb thing you just can not do that. Subwebs have their own sets of application and session variables. An ASPProtect installation and any pages you protect with it are required to be in the same "application" in IIS. Sicne subwebs have their own "applications" in IIS that won't work. It is the nature of "forms based authentication" A sub web is alo considered by our licensing to be a seperate web site and ASPProtect is licensed per web site.
As for breaking pages.. you really shouldnt be editing any pages in the admin area as you will break them unles you are very good with ASP. (does not sound like you are..no offense meant at all)
Pages in the "users" folder are less complex and it is usually ok to edit them carefully. http://www.powerasp.com/content/hintstips/common_sense.asp
Pages of your own that you password protect can still be edited in your usualy way though without effecting anything.
Truth is if you back things up before you start editing how can you go wrong ? That's how you learn. , ASPProtect v7 comes with working example code of protecting an image from being downloaded and also protects the true file location of the image on your server..
This comes with the system as an example folder with some files in it.
(some of the initial purchaser's of the system might not have that directory.. if that is the case please ask)
Here is how it works...
Basically we protect the image in 2 ways.
- We use Javascript right click disabling code that works in both IE and Firefox.
- We stream the image via a special password protected ".asp" page and use an image tag to call it. This hides the true location of the file. You can therefore keep your images out of your web or keep them in a folder in your web that does not allow file browsing. Under this scenario even if someone looks at the img tag html source they can not tell where the file came from. Doing all of this allows you to offer certain images only to people that are logged in.
All in all this is should be very effective protection. Yes, there are still ways to get the images like doing screen captures, but this will ensure that people viewing images are logged in to your site. This will in most cases keep them from right clicking and saving the images. This will ensure that people can not tell other people the image's url location and it will ensure other sites can not leach your images and bandwidth.
For the image protection examples to work you may need to edit some values in the stream_pic.asp file that are valid for your setup.
Look at the source. The values you can edit are commented.
Now, you also need to call a valid "image file name" from the call_pic.asp file which is an example of how you protect a page with javascript and call a streamed image using an image tag.
Lasty, here is a great article I found on image protection and some of the things you can do about it and some of things you cannot.
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID =41 , We want to insert a hyperlink i the mesage area when we e-mail users from the Password Admin area. Is ther an easy way to insert the hyperlink so when the user gets the e-mail, they can just click on it and go the the page we want them to?
Thanks,
Andy cwilliams38456.0983101852, Some of our users complained that their users id and passwords are sent in the clear. So we decided to invest in an SSL certificate from Verisign. It has been tested fine with all forms and pages in ASPProtect version 6. The only remaining page which I am not sure how to protect is the home page. Let's say my home page is http://www.MyDomain.com/index.asp. When the user goes to this link he/she will be presented with the check_user_inc.asp page so he/she can enter their ID and PW. So how to make the login information send from this page thru HTTPS? , [QUOTE=cwilliams] Is that a real term or just something you named it cause they have like a zillion people using that SQL server?[/QUOTE]
yeah thats it, you buy into a part of the sql server so it's an sql server hotel... , If you want to have a login form on a non protected page that posts to a protected ".asp" page use code like this.
Change the action of the form to the page you want them to log into. Make sure the page you send them to is protected by the "check_user_inc.asp" file.
<center> <table border="0" width="400" height="200" bgcolor="#000000"> <tr> <td bgcolor="#F4F4F4"> <form method="POST" action="memberarea.asp"> <input type="hidden" name="Status" value="Checkem"> <p align="center"><font face="Arial">ASPProtect Login</font></p> <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" bgcolor="#C0C0C0"> <tr> <td bgcolor="#EBEBEB"><strong><small><font face="Arial">Username</font></small></stro ng></td> <td><input type="text" name="Username" size="10"></td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#EBEBEB"><strong><small><font face="Arial">Password</font></small></stro ng></td> <td><input type="Password" name="Password" size="10"></td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#EBEBEB" colspan="2"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="-1"><input type="checkbox" name="KEEPMESIGNEDIN" value="True">Keep me signed in on this computer unless I log off.</font></td> </tr> </table> </center> </div> <div align="center"> <center> <p> <input type="submit" value="Login"></p> </center> </div> </form> </td> </tr> </table> </center> cwilliams38411.453912037, Tony,
ASPBanner.NET was discontinued about 14 months ago. It is no longer supported in any way because quite frankly the classic ASP version is faster, more stable, has more features, and is a lot easier to install and get running.
If you PM me via the forum you are welcome to a copy of the current ASP Unlimited Version. It can serve banners to any type of page extension. All you have to do is ask for a copy.
Whether or not your existing ASPBanner.NET database is exactly the same structure I do not know, but I believe it is. You should compare the two if you plan to keep using the old database and make any neccessary changes so the old database has the exact same structure as the new version. If there are any differences they are very few. , Is there a way to upload photos to individual user directories? I don't want all the picture files in a single directory.
Thanks,
Steve , Ahhh....yes, I always forget about the cache. That's exactly what it was.
I had made modifications to the import_pics.asp file, because I added more fields to the db, and made the import folder path dynamic, but I seem to have forgotten to add in the response.expires=0
Once I added this back in it has stopped messing up.
What was happening was, it wasn't overwriting the files, nor were they too big, but you would click on one thumbnail in an album(category) and it would display a picture from a totally different category. It seems browser cache was the culprit, however.
Thanks for the quick reply, great product tooo!!! ,
Timecard Entry: 3/25/2006 4:23:31 PM
lunch, PUT NEW HYPERLINKS FOR JAVASCRIPT MENU AND FINISHING TRANSFERING OLD CONTENT, web billings from Lisa, logins / radlog / e-mails, LUNCH, THEMOOSE.NET WANTED CONTENT ADDED TO PROGRAMS PAGE, Timecards from last week..., emial, voicemail, call backs, proposal for kt power, NOC Center duties. E-Mail, Voice-mail. Organizing customers and matching up with new services in Frame relay hubs in Watertown and Syracuse POPs., worked on fixing DNS problems , Emails, and info for new employee for tech support, Sales tax and cashflow, 58 miles, logins / e-mails / radlog, back to Clayton, helped a customer with email problems. helped another that couldn't surf, Had a meeting with Paul about my new position, Training course on Business writing, Online Supervisor meeting off site. , Emerald posting, worked with beth on ideas for revisions to work order system. information from WAN customers sent to beth c. receipts put together for carol. po included for atm training (written today and copied)., Fax VPN Quote again to Frank Marzano, talk to Mike F. @ Knowlton Specialty papers re: printing problems., Research missing PO's, Email/Newsgroups, Adding my username and password to all netservers we have. Checking modems up in Ogdensburg., Company overview., Verizon analysis, press conference, Worked on Sithe proposal- spoke to jim crowley and Dave about it- sent draft to Dave, revised last page of quote information. Spoke to Nate about the Work Place in Watertown, spoke to Rod Wood re: wireless for the transitional living center, set up appointment for thurs. spoke to ed about appointment with GYMO on Thursday Passed lead to Ken mills for dedicated access in VT, Working with servers. Working with customers. Supporting customers.,
|