Question

here is my scenario:

I have a website with php, mySQL. I have a software application that has a login screen and sends usernames and passwords over the web by http:

    public String GetWebPageSource(String pURL)
    {

        try
        {


            byte[] vReceivedBytes = null;
            using (System.Net.WebClient vWebClient = new System.Net.WebClient())
            {
                vReceivedBytes = vWebClient.DownloadData(pURL);
            }
            int vBomLen = 3;
            byte[] vStrippedBytes = new byte[vReceivedBytes.Length - vBomLen];
            Array.Copy(vReceivedBytes, vBomLen, vStrippedBytes, 0, vReceivedBytes.Length - vBomLen);

            return System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(vStrippedBytes);



        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {

            Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
            return null;
        }

    }

So to send a username and password I would write:

GetWebPageSource(“http://mywebsite.com/Login.php?username=stackoverflow&password=iscool”)

and the php file would spit out some text saying whether the password is accepted or denied.

However this is NOT secure. So I want to make it secure… https. How easy is it to integrate https? How much will the code change? How much do I have to handle? What is transparent to me. Do I have to check if a cookie already exists and if not write the methods for authentication or is there librarys already provided that will do it for me?

Answer 1

For programming point of view, calling an php script using http or https doesn’t make any difference. It’s just a matter of configuring apache (or any other web server) to handle https (most notably obtaining a certificate).