Authenticate (SSO) Vanilla users with a CakePHP 2 application using Vanilla’s jsConnect Plugin

Using your existing CakePHP website to authenticate users into a Vanilla forum (so they don’t have to setup another account) is fairly simple…once you know how:

In your Cake site:

1. Download the PHP jsConnect client library as described here
2. Create a ‘vanilla’ directory in app/Vendor and copy into it functions.jsconnect.php from the download in 1.
3. In UsersController.php add:

   App::import(
    'Vendor',
    'FunctionsJsconnect',
    array('file' => 'vanilla' . DS . 'functions.jsconnect.php')
   );

4. Paste index.php from the download in 1 into View/Users and rename it as vanilla_authenticate.ctp. Edit so that it contains only:

   // 1. Get your client ID and secret here. These must match those in your jsConnect settings.
   $clientID = "your_client_id_from_js_connect_plugin_settings_page";
   $secret = "your_secret_from_js_connect_plugin_settings_page";
   // 3. Fill in the user information in a way that Vanilla can understand.
   // CHANGE THESE FOUR LINES.
   $user['uniqueid'] = $user_data['your_cake_id_field'];
   $user['name'] = $user_data['your_cake_username_field'];
   $user['email'] = $user_data['your_cake_email_field'];
   $user['photourl'] = $user_data['your_cake_avatar_field'];
   // 4. Generate the jsConnect string.
   // This should be true unless you are testing. 
   // You can also use a hash name like md5, sha1 etc which must be the name as the connection settings in Vanilla.
   $secure = true; 
   WriteJsConnect($user, $_GET, $clientID, $secret, $secure);

5. In UsersController.php, add a vanilla_authenticate action:

   public function vanilla_authenticate(){
       if ($this->Auth->loggedIn()){
            //user is logged in so pass necessary data through to view
            $this->layout = 'ajax';
            $user_data = $this->Auth->user();
            $this->set('user_data', $user_data);
            }
        }

6. Again in UsersController.php, modify your login action:

   public function login() {
       if ($this->request->is('post')) {
           ...
           //Do your normal login business which includes the line
           $this->redirect($this->Auth->redirectUrl()); //after successful login
           ...
           }
       //add following to handle get request from jsConnect
       else{
           if(isset($this->request->query['source'])&&$this->request->query['source']=="vanilla"){
   	    //we need to redirect to vanilla after login so change redirectURL
   	    $this->Auth->redirectUrl('http://www.yourvanillasite.com/index.php?p=/entry/jsconnect&client_id=your_client_id_from_js_connect_plugin_settings_page&Target=http://www.yourvanillasite.com'); //big thanks to @hgtonight for this snippet
   	    }
   	}
       }

In your Vanilla forum:

1. Download and enable the jsConnect plugin (at the moment, the advice is to use 1.03 as 1.4.1 is still buggy, reporting a ‘regex’ error);
2. In the jsConnect plugin settings:
   • autogenerate (using the button at the bottom) a ClientID and Secret;
   • the Site Name: Your Cake Site – this will appear as ‘Sign in with {site name}’ when users go to the Vanilla forum
   • Authenticate URL:  http://www.yourcakesite.com/users/vanilla_authenticate
   • Sign In URL: http://www.yourcakesite.com/users/login?source=vanilla
   • Register URL: http://www.yourcakesite.com/users/register

Well, that’s what worked for me anyway….

Vanilla Community’s x00 tells me that you can avoid the complicated redirect in Cake Step 6 above (and replace with:

$this->Auth->redirectUrl('www.yourvanillasite.com');

if you use the jsConnect AutoSignIn Plugin…but I haven’t tried this yet.

Good luck.