Question

I’m working in a WPF application which is the desktop counter-part of a website.

The idea is that the application should have the same functionalities that the website has, but for the first release of the application not all features would be available, because of this I want to put a link on the features that are not available yet and hopefully when the user click on that link I want to take them to the website, to the page for that functionality.

So far, I can do this with no trouble, using the shell command I can open the default browser and send the request to the resource I need on the website.

Now, the tricky part is that I want to use the credentials that the user used in the desktop application to authenticate with the website, so the user doesn’t have to authenticate again, I was thinking in sending the credentials encrypted in a header but I don’t know how can I do this, how can I send the header to the web browser from my application.

Any idea on how to do this?

BTW the website is using Forms Authentication.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You could try passing your forms authentication cookie as part of the webrequest.

Uri uri = new Uri("http://services.mysite.com/document/documentservice.svc");
HttpWebRequest webRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(uri);       

HttpCookie cookie = HttpContext.Current.Request.Cookies[FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName];
Cookie authenticationCookie = new Cookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, cookie.Value, cookie.Path, HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Authority);

webRequest.CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
webRequest.CookieContainer.Add(authenticationCookie);
WebResponse myResponse = webRequest.GetResponse();
Stream stream = myResponse.GetResponseStream();

try this link