Configuring the Parent Application

The Parent application is responsible for authenticating the user (the "single sign-on") when they first connect. The authentication process should produce a valid user ID and optional lists of Roles (which correspond to Roles established in the Logi application) and/or Rights.

The ClientBrowserAddressquery string valueis no longer required.

When the user first requests a report or web page from the Logi application, the Parent application issues a SecureKey request to the Logi application's authentication service, using this basic format:

http://myServer/myLogiApp/rdTemplate/rdGetSecureKey.aspx?Username=bob&ClientBrowserAddress=192.168.4.75

The URL may also optionally include a list of Roles and/or Rights, using this format:

http://myServer/myLogiApp/rdTemplate/rdGetSecureKey.aspx?Username=bob&ClientBrowserAddress=192.168.4.75&Roles=Worker,Manager&Rights=View,Update,Delete

The rdGetSecureKey.aspx service called in the URL expects or accepts these standard query string values in the URL:

You may also create your own custom query string variables to send other information into the Logi application:

http://myServer/myLogiApp/rdTemplate/rdGetSecureKey.aspx?Username=bob&ClientBrowserAddress=192.168.4.75&Roles=Worker,Manager&myCustomParam1=10&myCustomParam2=120

These extra values will be assigned to session variables in the Logi application and can be accessed using @Session tokens. For example, @Session.myCustomParam1~ would equal 10 and @Session.myCustomParam2~ would equal 120. Remember that theses tokens are case-sensitive and you will need to match the spelling in the query string exactly when using them.

The ClientBrowserAddress query string valueis no longer required.

Using POST vs GET

For additional security, or if you have a lot of custom query string variables or really long values, you may elect to POST the URL and its query parameters. The Logi application will examine the HTTP request for them automatically, regardless of whether they were sent using HTTP POST or GET.

Using the SecureKey

The Logi application's authentication service returns a SecureKey to the Parent application, which then redirects the user's request to the Logi application, passing the SecureKey as an additional query string parameter. The URL for this redirect will look something like this, using the two keywords rdReport and rdSecureKey:

http://myServer/myLogiApp/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=myDesiredReport&rdSecureKey=1a34c56f7b89

Sample Code

The following Visual Basic.NET code provides an example of the two things you'll need to do in a Parent application: request a SecureKey and redirect the user's report request using the SecureKey.

Your Parent application may have multiple links to the Logi application, so the following code is an example of a function that can be called from the click event handlers for any of those links. It assumes the user name, user Roles, and user Rights have been placed into session variables as part of the login authentication process and that the Logi application base URL has been specified in the Web.config file.

Public Function getSecureKey() As String

' define parts of the SecureKey request URL
' Logi application base URL is set in Web.config file
Dim strLogiAppBaseURL As String = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("LogiAppBaseURL")
Dim strGetKeyURL As String = "/rdTemplate/rdGetSecureKey.aspx?Username=" & Session("UserName") & "&Roles="_
& Session("UserRoles") & "&Rights=" & Session("UserRights")
Dim strClientAddr As String = "&ClientBrowserAddress=" & Request.UserHostAddress

' define web request and response receiver
Dim webRequest As Net.HttpWebRequest
Dim webResponse As Net.WebResponse|
webRequest = Net.HttpWebRequest.Create(strLogiAppBaseURL & strGetKeyURL & strClientAddr)

' send the SecureKey request to the Logi app
Try
webResponse = webRequest.GetResponse()
Catch ex As Exception
' if server has Basic or NTLM authentication, try to set creds from the current process
If ex.Message.IndexOf("401") <> -1 Then
webRequest.Credentials = Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials
webResponse = webRequest.GetResponse()
Else
Throw ex
End If
End Try

' receive the response and return it as function result
Dim sr As New IO.StreamReader(webResponse.GetResponseStream())
getSecureKey = sr.ReadToEnd()

End Function

The event handler code for the links to the Logi application might look like this:

Protected Sub lbtnReports_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles lbtnReports.Click

' identify the Logi report definition to be displayed by this menu item or link
Dim strLogiDefName As String = "Default"

' get the Logi application base URL, which is set in the Web.config file
Dim strLogiAppBaseURL As String = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("LogiAppBaseURL")

' get a SecureKey for this request
Dim strSecureKey As String = getSecureKey()

'redirect to Logi app
Response.Redirect(strLogiAppBaseURL & "/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=" & strLogiDefName _
& "&rdSecureKey=" & strSecureKey)

End Sub

Additional coding examples in other languages are available in SecureKey Coding Examples.

Debugging SecureKey Requests

It can be very helpful, when developing applications, to view the information being sent between the Parent application and the Logi application during the SecureKey request.

To do this, temporarily provide a value for the Security element's SecureKey Shared Folder. This will cause SecureKeys to appear there as XML files, so you can see when they're created. You can open and examine them in order to determine what's being passed in the SecureKey requests.

We also offer a SecureKey test program (.NET environment only) which is available for download from DevNet; it displays the SecureKey information in a test exchange: https://clm.logianalytics.com/downloads/info/TestSecureKey.zip