Auto-Login From another App

 I am hoping for suggestions on how to best implement the following:

On a Windows Application that resides on any number of computers, all different ip addresses, I would like add a button that would re-direct to my DNN portal.

If the user has the proper credentials, which is determined by custom profile properties, I would like to 'auto-login' the client..

I think the best way is to send the values that will determine user authentication is to include them as URL parameters.

The trick is, how could I best send them securely? I was thinking I would encrypt them but the catch is, the Windows app was written in ASP.NET 1.1 and I am running DNN 4.5.3, so I am unsure if/how I could do the encryption.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance,

Frank

You can Encrypt it in a 1.1 framework app and decrypt it in a 2.0 framework as long as you use the same encryption method.

Keep in mind though, that even if it is encrypted that won't keep the querystring from being hijacked and used by someone else so you may want to do it using SSL and a post.

You might also be interested in this:

http://www.snowcovered.com/snowcovered2/Default.aspx?tabid=242&r=3f3f44b3d3&PackageID=7593

Thanks for your reply.

Could you explain on how I would use SSL and a post?

I do have a SSL certificate on the server, and had thought about redirecting with 'https://myportal.org' but I didn't think that this would encrypt the URL.

Frank

Ok, I get it now. Because the data would be IN the form, the data is encrypted when it is sent, and decrypted when received.

I see this working when I redirect to my portal from a classic asp site, which I do need to do, but is this possible as well if user is being redirected from a client side Windows application?

I think what I will do, is have the install executable for the Windows app add an asp file in its program directory, populate fields with a call to that LOCAL asp page, and then have it redirect to my portal. That way the call to the local file can't be intercepted, right?

The code below can be used to open the default browser and display an webpage. Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts. You definitley got me going in the correct direction.

string target= "https://www.myportal.com";try

{

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(target);

}