Possible Solution to logging out?

[proton]

There's been a bit of discussion about "Logging out" of a filemaker database on the web and a thought struck me: - in the discussion, everyone keeps saying that the reason you can't "log out" is because releasing the client is a "browser" function, not a filemaker one. So does anyone know the browser function that does this? It is HTML pages after all. Maybe we could provide a link that "tells" the browser to release the client without having to exit the browser. Another consideration is that maybe different browsers have different ways of doing this. It would be interesting to get the answer to this one.

[Vaughan]

The browser is never "logged-in" to the FMP database. The browser asks the database a question, the database answers and that's the transaction. The database does not remember who or what the web user wanted afterwards.

The transaction goes like this:

Web user clicks a form button or a FMPro? link. The browser passes the instruction to Web Companion in the form of a URL. Web Companion decodes the URL and performs the action (a find, sort, editing a record, deleting or running a script, whatever) then passes the results of the action back to the browser. Then the connection between the browser and database is broken. That's it. No logging out because the web user was never logged in.

In various pieces of documentation, FileMaker Inc repeated says that web users don't count as "users" (for instance, the Ststus[CurrentUserCount] function). Technically web users never see the databases, they only ever see Web Companion. Web Companion is the middleware between the web user and FileMaker Pro.

[jwtidwell]

Vaughan,

I must ask that you clarify your meaning. Although what you wrote sounds very viable, When using any browser, I've found that you can return to a "password protected" site and FileMaker "remembers" who you are (your username and password) and you can continue using the site as if you had never left. This is true even if you close the browser window you were using and open a new one. The only way to make FileMaker "forget" who you are is to completely quit the browser and relaunch, which then causes Web Companion to prompt for your username and password. If the connection between the browser and FMP was as simple as you imply, Web Companion would have to ask for your username and password each time an action was passed to FileMaker....thanks for the great work as Moderator!

Jeff

[Arin]

I belive it's actually about the Browser remembering that it passed an authentication check at a certian address. That's why it's the browser that has to be restarted and not FMP.

Someone mentioned that they knew of a command for Apache that forced the reseting of this authentication, but I haven't been able to find out what it is. --Sorry

It seems like this is something that FileMaker Inc. would benefit greatly from providing an awnser to.

-A

[Vaughan]

Yep. Somewhere in Internet Explorer's preferences/options there is a section where you can see all of the "site passwords" that the browser has accumulated. How a web server could instruct the browser to delete any of these is beyond me... I for one would NOT like the web server to have that sort of control.

The ultimate method is, of course, to reguarly change the username or password!

Remember, the browser is *not* seeing FMP nor the databases. It's interacting with Web Companion.

[proton]

quote:

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Originally posted by Vaughan:

Yep. Somewhere in Internet Explorer's preferences/options there is a section where you can see all of the "site passwords" that the browser has accumulated. How a web server could instruct the browser to delete any of these is beyond me... I for one would NOT like the web server to have that sort of control.

The ultimate method is, of course, to reguarly change the username or password!

Remember, the browser is *not* seeing FMP nor the databases. It's interacting with Web Companion.

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This discussion is very informative. Yes the browser keeps an authentication code temporarily. As soon as the browser is completely closed, it gets rid of this code. So that when you go back in, it will ask you to re-login. But I don't think you have to provide a server solution per se. It's a browser function. So the Logout Link will tell the browser to 'erase' the authentication code (without closing the browser), and that way the user would be (for all intents and purposes) logged out of the database.