Identify FormsAuthentication Timeout

[Chuck]

I have a forms authentication website that has a page where users spend a lot
of time on. So somebody spends an hour on the page and then presses submit
and gets redirected to the logon page. Followed by a redirect back to where
they were minus all the data they typed in.

Is their a way to handle time outs without loosing data on the redirect.
Maybe popup a logon page versus a redirect or something.

 

[Guest]

I have a forms authentication website that has a page where users spend alot
of time on.  So somebody spends an hour on the page and then presses submit
and gets redirected to the logon page.  Followed by a redirect back to where
they were minus all the data they typed in.

Is their a way to handle time outs without loosing data on the redirect.
Maybe popup a logon page versus a redirect or something.

Hi Chuck

you can try to prevent the timeout by placing an iframe in the page
that hits another page. See:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/session/Session_Defibrillator.aspx

Another approach is to add js with timeout which is less then the
ASP.NET timeout

http://jeremywadsworth.com/Default.aspx?blogentryid=41

Hope this helps

 

[Chuck]

Thanks,
Interesting technique, but I can't use it. The users credentials are
security sensitive so we do need to have authentication deactivated after the
timeout period expires.

 

[Joe Kaplan]

The better thing to do here is to design the app so that it can easily
handle holding data that is in an intermediate state of completion (not yet
"submitted") and provide code that allows features like auto save to work
and to make the current transaction "GET friendly" so that if the user is
redirected away from the page they've been working on and then redirected
back, they are returned to their in process transaction with the data as it
was last saved either through some sort of auto save feature or via a user
interaction.

You can also make it such that the forms auth does not time out at all (or
takes a very long time to), but that may not be desirable from a security
perspective.

Obviously there is some significant rework involved to make the app behave
like this.

 

[Chuck]

Thanks,
Can't really redesign the application. I have a heavily customized
FormsAuthetication provider. I would rather just customize it so that
regardless of the application using FormsAuthentication, the current page
data would not be lost.

I was thinking of adding somesort of check in EndRequest that would inject a
client script to create a javascript newwindow that is actually the login
page. In EndRequest if you check for
HttpContext.Current.Response.StatusCode == 302
&&
HttpContext.Current.Response.RedirectLocation.ToUpper().StartsWith(FormsAuthentication.LoginUrl.ToUpper()))
Then you know your being redirected by forms authentication.


Having some trouble with that so far.

 

[Guest]

Thanks,
Can't really redesign the application.  I have a heavily customized
FormsAuthetication provider.  I would rather just customize it so that
regardless of the application using FormsAuthentication, the current page
data would not be lost.

I was thinking of adding somesort of check in EndRequest that would inject a
client script to create a javascript newwindow that is actually the login
page.  In EndRequest  if you check for  
HttpContext.Current.Response.StatusCode == 302
             &&
HttpContext.Current.Response.RedirectLocation.ToUpper().StartsWith(FormsAut hentication.LoginUrl.ToUpper()))
Then you know your being redirected by forms authentication.

  Having some trouble with that so far.

I think that "auto save" can be easily done without major changes in
the application. It can be implemented using javascript and its
setTimeOut function that can be executed after certain period of time
(e.g. every 1 minute) and keep the form data stored as a draft... The
only thing that need to be changed is an initial load of the form
where you would need to check if there is any draft or not.

 

[Chuck]

Would have to be an unattended autosave, incase the user is away from the desk.
Also would have to change the logic of the save to not require required
fields before saving. Which involve removing constraints from the database
or changing to some sort of temporary data storage. Not trivial or even a
good idea IMHO.

 

[Joe Kaplan]

Probably your best best is to change the forms auth ticket so that it
doesn't expire or takes a very long time to expire. Your app is not well
designed to deal with a long running process on the client side like filling
out a very long form, so you really can't afford to allow the app to
redirect the user to a different page in the middle of this.

If you still want the auth to time out, you'll probably need to invest in
some client side javascript that will "test" whether the form post can be
submitted without a timeout via some type of AJAX call and if it is going to
fail, instead pop up a new window (or some type of overlay) that allows the
user to reauthenticate without a change to the underlying page. Basically,
if the server redirects the user to log in again as a result of an
authentication failure and issues a 302 redirect to the browser, the user
will lose all their data so you'll need to make sure the page never submits
an action that will cause this to happen. Client side script is the only
thing I can think of here.

In the future, you may also want to consider allowing the app to auto save
and allow for violations of the business rules for intermediate (not
submitted) data. Basically, you need a function like email clients have to
"save as draft" with auto save. Gmail and OWA do a nice job with this in
the browser.

 

[Chuck]

We use the forms authentication timeout for security purposes. So coding to
defeat the timeout using javascript or chaning the timeout value, would not
be looked upon kindly.

I have about 50 sites that use the same FormsAuthentication site, so
rewriting 50 websites or chaning or methodology on any of them would be
hugely expensive. Also it is somewhat repulsive to me to have to change a
data access methodology when a possible two line coding solution could be
available.

Hence my post for asking specfically about handlinge time outs without
loosing data on the redirect.
Maybe popup a logon page versus a redirect or something

 

[Chuck]

Anyway to get a response from a MS support engineer within 48 hours?

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi Richard,

Hence my post for asking specfically about handlinge time outs without
loosing data on the redirect.
Maybe popup a logon page versus a redirect or something

I think Anon User's suggestion a good way to solve this issue if you
want enable the timeout. You can store data in cookie (client side) or
database (server) or other places where the client can access later.

If you need a simple workaround, I think you can use JavaScript to popup a
new window to temporarily save data. If the timeout is 10 minutes you can
pop up a window after 9 minutes.

In main page, call this JS to popup window:

<script type="text/javascript">
function Popup()
{

var w = window.open("NewWindow.aspx?data=" +
document.getElementById("testinput").value);
}

</script>

<input id="testinput"></div>

Use settimeout if needed:

http://www.w3schools.com/htmldom/met_win_settimeout.asp

In the popup window, call this JS to fill data back:

<script type="text/javascript">
function FillData() {

window.opener.document.getElementById("testinput").value =
GetQueryString("data");
}
function GetQueryString(ji) {
hu = window.location.search.substring(1);
gy = hu.split("&");
for (i = 0; i < gy.length; i++) {
ft = gy.split("=");
if (ft[0] == ji) {
return ft[1];
}
}
}

</script>
<input onclick="FillData();" value="Fill Data" />

Please let me know if it can resolve this issue and feel free to ask if you
have additional questions.

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support

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[Joe Kaplan]

The thing with a pop up login page is that you would need to implement that
with client side code. The server can only issue a redirect if a resource
is requested and authorization is denied. This is why I suggested a client
side change to implement something like this. Unfortunately, the server
can't really generate a popup because it just issues 302 redirects.

The only thing I can think of to help with this on the server side would be
to implement some sort of HTTP module that might detect that a POST request
was being redirected to the login page and somehow block that, but I still
think you'd need some client code changes to accomplish this. Perhaps the
data could be added to session and then after the user is redirected back to
the page it could be added into the page data during the GET request after
the login? That would certainly be more than 2 lines but might not be
horribly difficult. Most of the code would be involved with capturing the
raw form post data and adding back into the editable fields during the GET.
Just a thought.

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi Chunk,

Hence my post for asking specfically about handlinge time outs without
loosing data on the redirect.
Maybe popup a logon page versus a redirect or something

Have you solved this issue?

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support

 

[Chuck]

nope

Hi Chunk,


Have you solved this issue?

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi Chunk,

nope

Could you tell me have you tried my code or the Silverlight approach? If so
why them cannot meet your requirement? Please let me know the reason so
that we can discuss further.

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support

 

[Chuck]

Didn't see the Silverlight approach.
Can't use a javascript approach because of complex controls in the page.

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi Chunk,

Didn't see the Silverlight approach.

The Silverlight approach is to use isolated storage (mentioned in my reply
to your another thread):

https://silverlight.net/blogs/msnow/archive/2008/07/16/tip-of-the-day-19-usi
ng-isolated-storage.aspx

Can't use a javascript approach because of complex controls in the page.

Could you clarify what do you mean by "complex controls"? I think you can
write custom controls if needed to generate these JavaScripts. Then you can
reuse them in your all projects. To register JavaScript via custom control
please refer to this project:

http://cid-2fa13ebc6cc8e80f.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/RegisterClien
tScriptResource%7C_lvl%7C_300.zip

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi Chunk,

Didn't see the Silverlight approach.
Can't use a javascript approach because of complex controls in the page.

Have you solved this issue? Please don't hesitate to let me know if you
need further assistance.

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support