I'm using the Facebook PHP API to allow logins into my website. I am also allowing people to login/register using a built in form in my software incase they don't want to use their Facebook account.
I have this all working fine, my only issue is how do I attach the Facebook account to their account in my MySQL Database?
So for example Joe Bloggs wants to create an account on my website. Rather than filling in a form, he decides to login via Facebook. He does so. After he logs in via Facebook, it returns him to a page on my website where he can fill in the rest of his account details. It then saves his account and he is free to sue the website.
My issue is after he logs in with Facebook, creates and saves his account in the MySQL Database, how do I link his Facebook account and his account in my database?
When you login with Facebook, it returns a STATE, CODE and I can also retrieve an ACCCESS TOKEN using the API. However every time I login, these codes change. I thought there might be one code returned that I can use to store in the MySQL Database so all I have to do is match one of the codes to the database.
But I can't seem to do this. Am I coming at this all wrong?
Hope I'm making sense.
My issue is after he logs in with Facebook, creates and saves his account in the MySQL Database, how do I link his Facebook account and his account in my database?
Just store facebook user id in your table.
When you login with Facebook, it returns a STATE, CODE and I can also retrieve an ACCCESS TOKEN using the API. However every time I login, these codes change. I thought there might be one code returned that I can use to store in the MySQL Database so all I have to do is match one of the codes to the database.
You don't need to persist them ever. Only facebook user id is the identifier you need to identify user
Store their FaceBook UserID as an optional field in your user table to link their unique FaceBook UserID to a user in your application.
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/php/facebook-getUser/
Related
I am working on an app using Laravel that retrieves posts from facebook pages (using fb IPA) then make some operations on them, this tool can be used with no login or creating an account, and my question is:
how and to store the temporary data I get from the API since I don't have users knowing this app can be used by many people at the same time?
I guess you could solve this in several ways. I'm not quite sure what you do the get the data.
You'll need something unique to relate to the data. In case you login to the API using OAuth you could request the user profile of the user (example here using the Facebook SDK) and grab the user id or the email address. In case you do not login then you could use something like the session id.
I'm creating a website that people can send sms from my website, I want to implement facebook login to my website and any one who logs in to my website using his facebook account and doesn't have an account in my website i want to create one for him. as he should later enter his phone number and verify the number and without having an account in my website its not possible. now the problem is if I use his facebook username to create the account it might cause duplicate name (as someone else might have got that username).
I will of course combine the information of the existing accounts when someone uses facebook login which have already account in my website. this is not a problem.
what would you suggest?
thanks in advance.
Dont use the Facebook user name as the userName column of your users database. You can get many other unique information from a Facebook user, like e-mail or facebook ID. Use them to "connect" between the information from your database details and the info you receive from Facebook.
For example:
When signing up to your website, one of the fields you can ask is the facebook login e-mail. Thats how a user would have the option to login to your website by Facebook, without any connection between his facebook user name and your user name.
In your user details table, just add a facebookEmail column, then, after you implement the Facebook Login API and a user login, check to see if his e-mail (from facebook) is in your table.
now the problem is if I use his facebook username to create the account it might cause duplicate name (as someone else might have got that username).
Well, then either build in a check if the user name is still free and if not prompt the user to enter a different one; or
automatically chose a different user name, f.e. by using a counter – if the user name from Facebook is foobar and this is already taken, then check if foobar1 is available, etc.
If creating it automatically, maybe you want to give the user the possibility to change it afterwards.
I'm using the following Facebook Client SDK inorder to authenticate a user without a page refresh (works great)
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/javascript/
The problem I have is I want to store some data along with that user in a local database. SO if the user authenticates himself it would pull back his given data.
I'v seen access tokens but that isn't a permant link to the user. What exactly do I need to check server side as well to guarantee the user and what would I need to store in my DB (account table)?
You could get the user facebook id and check each time if he is present in the database or he is a new one.
I'm trying to implement facebook connect to my website, and i have couple questions.
1: Is it possible to register user in my website using his current facebook email/password.
Let's say user clicks on link Register via facebook and then he have to give me permisions to access his password, email, etc... and after that is done i put that info in my own database and he will be able to login with that account any time he wants without needing to give me permisions any time in the future.
2: If that kind of registration is not possible, what's other solution would be the best for me? Because i need to somehow keep track of that user who logged in with facebook, because he can upload photos, send messages etc.
Anyways, i'm quite new with facebook and similar things, so i'm really lost here, hope some one can help me :)
EDIT Thank you all for wonderful answers it helped me a lot, now all that's left is to read documentation :)
Yes it is, it is possible to get the information of the user. But it is rather complicated, when you have never dealt with it.
First you need to send the user to the following link:
https://m.facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=your-client-id&redirect_uri=xxx&scope=listof-information-you-want
Facebook will then return your client to the uri specified, if the user rejected it will give a reason. If it is not you will get an code in urlencoded format.
This code is needed for the following step, the request of the access token:
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?redirect_uri=xxx&client_id=xxx&client_secret=xxx&code=xxxx
This will give back an access token, if the authorization didn't fail.
After that you can ask for the information you want:
https://graph.facebook.com/me?method=GET&metadata=true&format=json&access_token=access_token
This will include a facebook uid, which is unique for all users. Store it and you can discern between a register and login.
This is roughly the process for any oauth2 application.
Facebook will not ask repeatedly for permissions after the user granted them to you. So you can store the access token and reuse it for backend stuff and also use the same procedure you use for register for login.
You can never access the user's password from Facebook even with his/her permission, so the user will always have to authenticate via Facebook and have Facebook pass you the user id of the logged in user once authentication succeeds. You can store all kinds of other data locally, but not enough to authenticate the user yourself.
Once the user is authenticated, you'll have access to the user's Facebook user id via the API, which should be enough to connect all kinds of information to that specific user.
Facebook does not provide access to accounts when passwords are taken from your controls. It provides it own canvas for login information. Therefore you cannot use your first approach to store passwords in your databases. Check this out.
You can however store email addresses once user logins into his account using the facebook sdks. Check this out link for the example of C# SDK sample code.
You can use the Facebook APIs to fetch user email-id, photos, friendslist and other information and then play around accordingly.
You don't get access to the users password - only email if you ask for it.
Best way would be to have a table of users and their Facebook account id's.
If you want to allow users to sign up without Facebook then have a nullable field for their password and facebook id, and also have a field for username - which you could populate from Facebook if they register via that route.
I have a mysql membership database run by a Perl script. Account creation or login requires an email address and password. The Perl script then sets cookies (password cookie has encrypted value) which allow users to create, own and modify records. A members table contains user information. I've gone through the FacebookConnect information as well as the forum. Maybe I cannot see the forest for the trees, or maybe this is not possible. In order to use FacebookConnect for logins/account creation, I need to be able to send the user email and password to the the Perl script so that the proper cookies are set. If it were an http it would look like this:
http://domain.com/cgi-bin/perlscript.pl?_cgifunction=login&email=ddd#somedomain.com&password=somepassword.
Any hints or advice would be greatly appreciated.
What you are trying to do isn't really possible in the way that you're describing it.
Facebook Connect basically provides you with a single piece of information: whether your visitor is logged in to their Facebook account or not. If they are, you can get their Facebook ID, if not, you can show them a button (or whatever) and ask them to log into Facebook.
Generally a good approach when using Facebook Connect as an authentication method for your site is to have an internal id for the user's member account, and store a user's Facebook ID alongside that. When a user comes to your site, and they are already logged in to Facebook, you just use their Facebook ID to retrieve the local account. Otherwise you show them your login form to log in locally, and/or a Facebook login button.
The problem you're running into here is that you cannot get someone's email address from Facebook, as it is purposely hidden to protect privacy. If your membership scripts provide only the email/password log-in method, then what you need to do is modify these scripts to create the authentication cookie when given a properly authenticated Facebook ID.
Essentially you'll have two login functions... one for a Facebook login, and one for a regular login. Either function should properly created the local authentication cookie.