Proxy access denies login

[Bobby]

Hi there

We have a user who repeatedly cannot login through her proxy (she's affiliated with a university). Her login keeps going back to a blank login page. This happens in both IE and Firefox. We've tried refreshing, clearing cookies, etc., but nothing works.


What can we do to help?

Thanks
Bobby

[asmecher]

Hi Bobby,

Check your server log for error messages -- when OJS serves a blank page, it's usually an indication that a PHP error occurred. Post the message here and I'll suggest a work-around.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Open Journal Systems Team

[smcphill]

Hi Alec,

I'm Bobby's sysadmin - there are no ojs-related entries in the apache error log. I can see POSTs being made by the client to the login resource though - below is a sample login attempt as logged by apache.

We're using php 4.3.11, apache 1.3.34, OJS 2.0.2.1.

The user account can be used to log in locally and from my home internet connection. The remote user in question has not been able to log in from her location using this proxy service using her own account or a test account.

Short of grabbing the POST data as it comes down, I'm not sure where to look next....

Code: Select all

XXX.XX.XXX.XX - - [28/May/2006:12:19:37 +1000] "GET /openpublish/index.php/jasal HTTP/1.0" 200 4680 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)"
XXX.XX.XXX.XX - - [28/May/2006:12:19:38 +1000] "GET /openpublish/styles/common.css HTTP/1.0" 304 - "http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)"
XXX.XX.XXX.XX - - [28/May/2006:12:19:38 +1000] "GET /openpublish/public/journals/1/journalStyleSheet.css HTTP/1.0" 304 - "http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)"
XXX.XX.XXX.XX - - [28/May/2006:12:19:38 +1000] "GET /openpublish/js/general.js HTTP/1.0" 304 - "http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)"
XXX.XX.XXX.XX - - [28/May/2006:12:19:38 +1000] "GET /openpublish/public/journals/1/homepageImage.jpg HTTP/1.0" 304 - "http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)"
XXX.XX.XXX.XX - - [28/May/2006:12:20:15 +1000] "GET /openpublish/index.php/jasal/login HTTP/1.0" 200 5288 "http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)"
XXX.XX.XXX.XX - - [28/May/2006:12:20:40 +1000] "POST /openpublish/index.php/jasal/login/signIn HTTP/1.0" 200 5413 "http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal/login" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)"
XXX.XX.XXX.XX - - [28/May/2006:12:20:52 +1000] "POST /openpublish/index.php/jasal/login/signIn HTTP/1.0" 200 5413 "http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal/login/signIn" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)"


[asmecher]

Hi smcphill,

In some cases, users browsing from behind proxy farms aren't able to log in because it appears to OJS as though they are connecting from several IP addresses; you can disable this security check by modifying OJS's config.inc.php file and turning off session_check_ip.

However, Bobby describes a blank page, which I think might be something different. PHP can log error messages to a number of different places, one of which is the Apache log -- have you checked to ensure that's where PHP is sending errors?

On second thought, perhaps by "blank page" the user was describing a blank login form; try disabling the option I mentioned above and see if that works.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Open Journal Systems Team

[smcphill]

Hi Alec,

We're actually seeing a single IP address in the logs - I've made the change to the session parameter in the config.inc.php, so we'll see if that makes a difference.

I've just checked the php config, and its little wonder there aren't any logs - this install doesn't have error logging enabled :/

If changing the session config doesn't work, I'll get the user to try to log on to another version on a box where php is logging.

And I think Bobby would have meant a blank logging form rather than a totally blank page.

thanks!

Steve

[smcphill]

Case closed - disabling the ip check in config.inc.php did the trick.

thanks again