Automatic Web Login

Background

All of the scripts and web pages that TIM Enterprise provides are protected by a login (username and password) that is provided by the user through their web browser.

Sometimes it is desirable to allow automatic access to a particular web page using a pre-supplied username and password. An example might be the deployment of a stand-alone computer displaying a pre-defined wallboard on a large screen; It can become tedious having to log in every time that computer is switched on.

Different web browsers behave differently for automatic logging-in to web pages. Variously, they range from complete prohibition of the practise, to permitting it if certain system parameters are configured.

Specifics

In this article, details of how to allow automatic logging-in to a web page concerns the Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 6 and above) browsers only. Please consult your browser documentation for a solution related to your own choice of browser.

The solution involves creating a specially-crafted URL in the following form:-

Solution

Although including the username and password in a URL is disabled by default on Windows Internet Explorer since it is considered a security risk, you can override this restriction by making the following changes to the Windows Registry.

WARNING! Since you'll be exposing a username and password as part of a URL, it is recommended that you create a dedicated web user object inside the TIM Enterprise directory that will be used solely for this purpose.  See Adding/Removing Web Users for details of how to set up a web user.

Open Windows Registry Editor, REGEDIT.EXE, from the Windows Start Menu -> Run. Locate the following registry key:-

Close the Registry Editor and create a bookmark in Internet Explorer, specifying the URL as per the following example:-

Replace the following items:-

• USERNAME replace with the username of the web user you use to access the page
• PASSWORD replace with the password of the web user you use to access the page
• HOSTNAME replace with the host name or IP address of the machine running TIM Enterprise

References

This information is available from Microsoft's support site: