[isf-wifidog] Another authentication method?

[Benoit Grégoire]

On 11 April 2008, Michael Way wrote:
> Thanks for your tips/comments regarding my issue.
>
> I guess I've given up on the idea of having a simpler token
> since I don't have the time (unfortunately) to do the code modifications,
> although Benoit makes it sound quite easy! :-)
>
> Still, it would be useful to have potential users have their email
> authentication link sent to their sponsors email address (which is on the
> inside of our firewall). Unfortunately I discovered that you cannot use the
> same email to sign up more than once. Is there a simple way to change this?
> I would guess it's one or two lines of code somewhere?

Not really, validation tokens are stored in the user table.  There is a unique 
constraint on email (per network), as the email can be used for login.  To 
allow the feature your want, you'd have to get this validation token to be 
stored in another table, and change all references to it in the code.  Not 
very difficult (and quite possibly a good idea), but definitely more than a 
few lines of code, not to mention the database schema upgrade fragment.

> Another more trivial question: Is there a way to set up account
> expiration dates,
> or a way to expunge an account (you're going to tell me to do it in
> postgres I guess)?
> I couldn't find a link in the admin web pages that said "delete account",
> or "set account expiration". Maybe I'll need to repost this last
> question...

Note that accounts are not meant to be deleted, ever, as this would erase all 
traces of the user's passage in bandwidth statistics, and make dynamic abuse 
control essentially impossible in the future.

Accounts are supposed to end their life by setting their status "LOCKED_OUT".  
That could be done using an expiration date, but most uses that would have 
are best served (and implemented more easily) with one time or persistent 
tokens.



-- 
Benoit Grégoire
Technologies Coeus inc.