ClearAuthenticationCache to logout

July 31, 200322 yr

Has anyone been using this command available with IE 6? After reading the forums yesterday and realizing the ONLY way I could get my users to "log-out" via web (and Web Security Database) was to shut down their browser (oh my!), I searched and searched and found this. It does work.

My question is this: do I NEED to use Web Security Database to be most secure? Designing my own system is not sufficient? I have confidential patient information in my database. I only ask because when I was using my own system, it was very easy to "log-out" the user, thus allowing another user to log-in.

Try this ClearAuthenticationCache....I think you will like it! i am thinking about requiring my users to have the latest version of IE so that I can force logouts after inactivity and such.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<head>

<title>Logging out of Basic HTTP Auth</title>

</head>

<body>

<p><a href="#" onclick="

document.execCommand('ClearAuthenticationCache');

alert('You are now logged out!');

">Log Me Out</a>

</p>

</body>

</html>

-Courtney

July 31, 200322 yr

Author

By the way, I am thinking about combining this function with a javascript check upon first entry to the site that the user is using IE 6.0 (or up, eventually). If they are not, I won't let them login and will instead direct them to download the latest evrsion of IE. None of my end-users are the real computer-savvy types that will be too opposed to this (anti-MS and all that) I think. What does anyone think of this approach?

July 31, 200322 yr

I wish all browsers would do that :-)

Well done! All the best.

Garry

August 1, 200322 yr

A site must be really significant to my needs to get me to use IE as a client. Any business with the "ya gotta use IE attitude" will not get my business unless they are offering something valuable for free.

Shall we talk economic theory and web serving costs including databases, site /maintenance, labor, hardware and ISP?

I, too, can have an eclectic attitude. Sorry if my dogma ran over you karma.

August 1, 200322 yr

Author

Yes, yes I agree. I don't like any site that forces me to use any particular browser, however, my site will not be "open to the public" for business. I work in clinical research and we will be using our site to allow specified offsite users to have access to view and update patient data and some computers will be shared between users and must have the ability to logout without shutting down the browser.

Does that change your opinion?

August 1, 200322 yr

Hi, C! I've always wondered about logging out users... maybe I'll try your code. As to IE, I support primarily Mac departments (85%). IE 5.2 is the latest version on the Mac and I believe Microsoft announced that it will completely stop development for IE on the Mac platform except for possible security issues. The Mac community went from primarily Netscape to primarily IE after AOL took over Netscape. Now, Apple's hoping everyone will switch to Apple's new browser, Safari (based on Konquer) but it'll be interesting to see who (if anyone) will win the Mac browser war. IMO, Mozilla is the lead candidate for cross-platform (Mac/Win/Unix).

--ST

August 1, 200322 yr

Author

My boyfriend is way into safari (not to mention macs, in general). And although I usually support the idea that many microsoft products are a sad, sad state of affairs, it seems that in this one aspect, namely, the ability to log out from http authentication (which people all over, not just in the FM community have been searching for forever), they are leading the way. I can only hope other browsers will soon follow and save all of us a bunch of headaches.

As to Mozilla, I have just recently downloaded and been playing around with it but I hear nothing but good things (although it does not support the clear http authentication function, as far as I know).

Also, just an update to all, I have very succesfully integrated the ClearAuthenticationCache bit into my site. I especially like it for development as it allows me to quickly test different user privileges and such without shutting down the browser.