For the past week I have been trying to integrate Vanilla with my external application that is using Codeigniter as the backend. Making use of Mark's integration with Wordpress guide, I was able to link the my databases/user tables so that my main application's user table would be the primary table. I intend to use my main application's sign up/registration forms and I've already made use of my main application's login/logout form, therefore I should not need to make use of people.php. Here is the main question:
How do I let Vanilla know that I'm logged in?
Once in, how do I let Vanilla know that I am a member/admin? In other words, how do I get the settings/accounts tabs to appear when making use of an external authentication system without the people.php file?
Cmon.... Someone wants this Vanilla Cookie. :-)
Mark's integration with wordpress - http://lussumo.com/docs/doku.php?id=vanilla:integration:wordpress
I guess all you need to do is set the same cookie/session information which Vanilla uses as part of your own login method. Off the top of my head I think there's an AuthenticateUser function in the people libraries which deals with this but I'm not 100% sure and I cant check at the moment. Try and hunt it out and let me know how you get on.
Well that is similar to what Mark has done. However, how do I get the process to start/fire.
This should be so simple, but I can't for the life of me find the magic trigger that Vanilla uses to tell the whole system that:
a) The user is logged in b) The user is an admin
I've checked the people library again and again but all roads lead to neverland. There has to be one simple variable that acts as an on/off switch for the sessions and in turn, domino effect style, it turns on/off the admin/basic member session!?
I can already see that Vanilla and I will have a great love/hate relationship. :-)
Does your external database integration also include the columns of the user table that handle role information? it's almost like vanilla isn't getting that information.
The user table in my external app is well aware of Vanilla's table/information. Checking how passwords are stored, and it appears that the external app and Vanilla are different. However, I have removed the calls to password in the Vanilla Authenticator class and am relying solely on id information. This should be fine as all of the validation will happen in the external app.
I am determined to find the answer here as it seems so obvious.