Wiki Usernames & Failed Logins

[JWPlatt]

Anyone having a problem with wiki logins can request a wiki username which links to your account here. Logins should go smoothly unless you have special wiki characters in your username.

The PHPBB/Users Integration extension, Auth_phpBB, was added a little while back to stop wiki spam. The extension checks the phpBB database for authentication instead of the wiki database. The better security controls in phpBB made this preferable.

Since then, users with phpBB usernames containing characters which are not valid in wiki usernames could not log in to the wiki to edit. So far, Mac_Fife has been the only member affected because of his underscore, which is not allowed because the wiki reserves the character for its own use. Some other members would also be affected, but Mac_Fife is the only affected member who has been editing the wiki in his role as the wiki administrator. Ironic.

To fix that, we have developed Auth_phpBB further and added a custom field available to your account profile here. You can't see the field in your profile, but it's there. It is for admin use. Please PM me if the wiki doesn't like your username and I'll fix it.

[Mac_Fife]

Just add to JW's message:

If you had previously logged in to the wiki and selected "Remember my login on this computer" then you're not likely to encounter a problem until either a) you select "log out" in the wiki, or b) your login cookie expires (up to 30 days I think).

When you try to login, if your username is affected, then you'll get a message saying "You have entered an invalid user name" - Note that this is a different message compared to entering the wrong password: "You have entered an incorrect password". If you get the first message, then you need to ask JW to set up the custom profile field for you. If you get the second message, then your user name is OK and you just goofed up on your password .

[JWPlatt]

An issue has developed with wiki authentication using forum credentials. The interface has been disabled for now and the wiki is using it's own database for logons. As a consequence, you might find that you will need to enter a very old password because the wiki has reverted to using passwords prior to the integration. Use "Forgot your password?" if needed.

Also, you will not have access to your wiki account if you are one of the very few who need to use forum credentials because of the wiki restriction on special characters in usernames that the forum allows. Sadly, this somehow disproportionally hits some members of the OU team.

As the Auth_phpBB wiki extension which provides the phpBB interface hasn't been well supported in years and has required us to develop it ourselves, this could take a while. Apologies.

[JWPlatt]

I found an active Auth_phpBB fork on GitHub which accommodates changes in phpBB 3.1 and 3.2. I forked that and have ported the changes we implemented here for a few improvements and mainly to use a Custom Profile username translation between phpBB and the more restrictive MediaWiki usernames. I'll be sending a Pull Request once it's thoroughly tested here so maybe I won't have to do this again.

The code is now live on the wiki after testing here. Testing was flawless on the first attempt, and that kinda gives me the heebie jeebies, like something will go horribly wrong. I like to fix at least one thing first. Please test logons to our wiki if you are so inclined. I would be most grateful if you report a problem and give me something to do.

[Christian Walther]

Logging in seems to be working fine for me (sorry ), but I can’t tell whether it’s using the phpBB or MediaWiki account. I was a bit surprised that it told me that I couldn’t edit pages until I confirm my email address, even though I’m sure I’ve made edits before, but that is probably unrelated.

[JWPlatt]

You created a new account by typing "Christian walther" instead of "Christian Walther". And that might be a bug in our wiki/phpBB integration code that I need to look into.

Wiki User List:
Christian Walther (talk | contribs | block) (Created on 3 February 2012 at 07:23)
Christian walther (talk | contribs | block) (Created on 16 February 2017 at 17:01)

[Christian Walther]

Interesting, I hadn’t noticed that. I didn’t type anything but relied on my browser’s autofill to fill in user name and password, and I’m pretty sure it entered it with a capital W. I just tried it again now: when I enter “Christian Walther” in the login form, I am logged in as “Christian walther”.

[JWPlatt]

Okay, thanks. That suggests that the username used to compare and then create the wiki account is one from a normalized compare of lowercase versions from lookup results between phpBB and Mediawiki, with the standard capitalized wiki username applied. It should instead use the capitalized version of the phpBB username. i.e., "user name" -> "User name" and your username, which is already capitalized, should be used as-is.

[JWPlatt]

The code was okay. It was a missing new config setting. The newest version of Auth_phpBB uses uses the lcase() version of the phpBB username (users.username_clean) by default instead of the "Canonical Case" (how phpBB actually displays it) when there is no config setting. phpBB has case-insensitive usernames while MediaWiki is case-sensitive. Also, MediaWiki always capitalizes the first letter (if it is a letter) of a username. This issue should now be fixed.

[Christian Walther]

Works, thanks!