chasetoys
11th June 2006 06:55 UTC

http post & cookie response upon installation?
Hey folks!

I'm installing an Internet application which requires a cookie to authenticate. Because it's a low-risk application, I'm using persistent sesssions.

During the installation process, I'd like users to have to enter a login/password for the web portion of the service they've already signed up for... and after that step, they should never have to do it again.

There are a bunch of issues with this (checking for valid input, not letting users advance in the installation if they can't enter their login/pass correctly, grabbing the cookie back from teh response, and updating the registry appropriately) and I'd like to know if NSIS is up to the task (perhaps with a plugin or two).

Anxiously waiting,
chasetoys

Afrow UK
11th June 2006 09:58 UTC

You don't need to use cookies at all. Just use the InetLoad plugin which can send and receive POST or GET data.

-Stu

chasetoys
11th June 2006 10:34 UTC

Hey there...

appreciate the quick response,

But I will be needing to get cookie i get back from the http header request.. as that is my way of authenticating the users ... a local cookie is stored on their system (in the registry) which will serve as authenticating them in the future

Afrow UK
11th June 2006 12:33 UTC

Cookies are a bad idea for this purpose as people use different browsers. Firefox stores cookies under its profile folders, IE in $COOKIES and for other browsers... who knows!

-Stu

Takhir
11th June 2006 19:31 UTC

InetLoad (and AFAIK, NSISdl) not handles Set-Cookie header.

chasetoys
12th June 2006 03:20 UTC

Is there no way to retrieve the cookie header from a html Post/get request from within the NSIS installer?

to address your concern afrow UK, i'm grabbing the cookie reponse, and then saving it off in the registry. so i'm not relying on it to be a randomly on the system some place...

so is there a way to do all of the things i need to with the nsis installer or no?

Afrow UK
12th June 2006 10:30 UTC

I see. Well, if InetLoad or NSISdl does not support the cookie header then you'd need to write your own plugin to do the job.

-Stu