Question

I have this forgot passowrd form where it checks for a username, if it’s valid sends a temp password to his email.

It works fine,but what I need is after I submit the username , I need the page to display another form where it displays a form with the security question, if it’s valid then create the temp password and email it.
here is my code so far, I dont know where to add the new form and where to validate it exactly.

HTML::cgi_read

    ###############################################################
    #   READ / VERIFY CGI VARIABLES
    ###############################################################
    SET_GLOBAL_VARS


    if { [catch {set REMOTE_ADDR        $CGI_DATA(REMOTE_ADDR)      } e] }  { set REMOTE_ADDR   "" }
    if { [catch {set HTTP_USER_AGENT    $CGI_DATA(HTTP_USER_AGENT)  } e] }  { set HTTP_USER_AGENT   "" }
    if { [catch {set COOKIE         $CGI_DATA(HTTP_COOKIE)      } e] }  { set COOKIE        "" }
    if { [catch {set MSG            $CGI_DATA(msg)          } e] }  { set MSG       "" }
    if { [catch {set USERNAME       $CGI_DATA(username)     } e] }  { set USERNAME      "" }
    if { [catch {set SECQUESTION        $CGI_DATA(secquestion)      } e] }  { set SECQUESTION   "" }
    if { [catch {set SECANSWER      $CGI_DATA(secanswer)        } e] }  { set SECANSWER     "" }

    ###############################################################
    #   ONLY ALLOW HTML START TO HAPPEN ONCE!
    #       Remember:   Redirects don't have HTML Start
    #               Meta Tags have to have it beforehand
    #               Cannot do both a redirect and a meta tag
    ###############################################################
    set HTMLSTARTFLAG 0
    proc HTML_START { } {
        global HTMLSTARTFLAG

        if {$HTMLSTARTFLAG < 1} {
            HTML::Start
            set HTMLSTARTFLAG 1
        }
    }

    ###############################################################
    #   START OF SCRIPT
    ###############################################################

    if {$USERNAME != ""} {
        ################################
        #   Do the hit for the entered user
        ################################
        set queryresult1 [InfxGetLogin $USERNAME]

        #any errors go back and show the blank login page
        if { [regexp -nocase "error" [lindex [split $queryresult1 ,] 0] ] } {
            set junk [InfxInsertLoginHistory $USERNAME "ForgotPassword" "$REMOTE_ADDR|$HTTP_USER_AGENT" "Error"]
            Redirect_Login "DB Error, Please try again."
            exit
        }

        set login   [lindex [lindex $queryresult1 0] 0]
        set locked  [lindex [lindex $queryresult1 0] 4]
        set dbquestion  [lindex [lindex $queryresult1 0] 5]
        set dbanswer    [lindex [lindex $queryresult1 0] 6]
        set emailTo [lindex [lindex $queryresult1 0] 7]
        set userId  [lindex [lindex $queryresult1 0] 8]

        ################################
        #   Validate user info
        ################################
        if {$login == ""} {
            set junk [InfxInsertLoginHistory $USERNAME "ForgotPassword" "$REMOTE_ADDR|$HTTP_USER_AGENT" "DoesNotExist"]
            Redirect_LoginForgotPass "Login Does Not Exist"
            exit
        }

        #locked people shouldn't get here, but if they do, they entered the page directly, send them away
        if {$locked == "t"} {
            set junk [InfxInsertLoginHistory $login "ForgotPassword" "$REMOTE_ADDR|$HTTP_USER_AGENT" "AcctLocked"]
            Redirect_LoginForgotPass "Account is Locked"
            exit
        }

        ################################
        #   Create temporary password
        #       Base64 encoding an rc4 encrypted text, then removing all special characters
        #       and taking the 1st 6 characters.
        ################################
        set pass [::base64::encode [rc4::rc4 -key [clock scan "now"] "randomizeme"]]
        regsub -all {[^a-zA-Z0-9]} $pass "" pass
        set pass [string range $pass 0 5]

        ################################
        #   Update DB w/ temporary password
        ################################
        set result [InfxResetUserPassword $userId $pass]

        if { $result != "ok" } {
            set junk [InfxInsertLoginHistory $login "ForgotPassword" "$REMOTE_ADDR|$HTTP_USER_AGENT" "Error"]
            Redirect_LoginForgotPass "DB Error, Please try again."
            exit
        }

        set result "ERROR"
        set result [HTML::mail "[e-mail] $emailTo" "$emailFrom" "$emailSubj" "$emailMsg"]

        ################################
        #   Go back to login screen on success
        ################################
        if { $result == "0" } {
            Redirect_Login "Password Changed and Email Sent"
            exit
        } else {
            set junk [InfxInsertLoginHistory $login "ForgotPassword" "$REMOTE_ADDR|$HTTP_USER_AGENT" "EmailError"]
            Redirect_LoginForgotPass "Error Sending Email"
            exit
        }
    } else {
        ################################
        #   Initial display of username form
        ################################
        HTML_START

        puts {
        <head>
            <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/login.css" type="text/css">
            <script type="text/javascript" src="js/login.js"></script>

            <title> Services</title>

        </head>
        <body>
            <br><br>
            <img src="images/.gif" />
            <br><br><br>
            <div id="login">
                <form onsubmit="return validate_login_username(this)" action="login_forgotpw.cgi" method="post">
                    <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
                        <tr>
                            <th colspan="2"> Password Reset</th>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td><label>Username:</label></td>
                            <td><input name="username"></input></td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td></td>
                            <td><input type="submit" value="Submit"></input></td>
                        </tr>
                    </table>
                </form>
            </div>
        }

    puts "  <h3 class=\"errormessage\">$MSG</h3>"

        exit
    }

This is the form ,i would like to add and validate ,preferebly in the same page.

puts "<form action='login_forgotpw.cgi' method='post'>"
    puts "<td><label><b>Security Question : </b></td><td>$dbquestion ?</label></td></tr>"
    puts "<tr>"
    puts "<td><label><b>Answer:</b></td><td><input type='text' name='secanswer'></input></td>"
    puts "<td><input type='submit' value='Submit'></input></td>"

Answer 1

Generally speaking, if you are doing a multi-stage form then you pass data from earlier steps forward via one of two mechanisms:

1. Put the data from previous steps in a short-lived (e.g., maybe 1 hour?) database record and store the record key (a UUID?) in a session cookie.
2. Put the data from previous steps in a hidden field (<input type="hidden">) in the form you send to users for handling later steps.

Both methods are quite suitable for you, provided you have a secure communications channel when you deploy (setting up HTTPS in your environment is totally out of scope for this discussion). I can’t tell you how to decide which sort of form to use from your logic; it depends on constraints that you know and I don’t. I can say that between the two implementation techniques above, the advantage of #1 is that it keeps overall messages smaller, and the advantage of #2 is that it means less state management for you (since all state is kept client-side until you’re ready to process a fully-specified password change) and there’s no problem with someone guessing session keys; being somewhat security-minded myself, I’d favor using hidden fields.

---

When generating the form, do so in several steps:

puts {
<form ...>...blah static stuff
}
# Now a dynamic bit
puts "<input type='hidden' name='whatever' value='$whatever'>"
# Back to a static part
puts {
</form>
}

Or consider using the html package in Tcllib for doing templating. This is discussed more on the Tcler’s Wiki.