SSL Login in iFrame

Question

My UI prototype requires me to show the sites login info all the time. Either I should show the usual username and password textbox or "you are logged in as". The last bit don't have to be secure, as it's only info to the user, nothing I will use server side. But the first part should send secure to the server.

It seems that I would have to use https for all pages on the site then. I would like to only use ssl for the things that are required to be secure.

One way is putting the login information into a https://../login.aspx and show it on my mainpage as an IFrame.

One disadvantage I can see is that the user won't know that https is being used, unless they read the IFrame src in the source code.

What do you think?

Answer 1

Another option would be to take advantage of the PostBackUrl property of the Button control.

You would need to create your own login LayoutTemplate to take advantage of this though. You would then be able to add the secure scheme to the current page URL, and set the PostBackUrl property of the submit button to that.

This would have a similar issues to your iFrame solution (the user wouldn't see the padlock symbols), however you would have the advantage that you wouldn't be using iFrames.

Another issue using an iFrame is the affects that they can have on the page:

• They are a separate request, but can cause a block on the JavaScript PageLoad event firing.
• The login form would only postback within the iFrame, so you'd need to refresh the parent page when the user is successfully logged in to remove it.
  • Additionally to that, errors would be returned in the iFrame, probably not leaving you much space for displaying the form as well, etc.

Answer 2

Are you using the built-in asp.net login controls or do you just use two textbox controls?

You could use your own form tag (not runat="server") with the action attribute set to "https://..." and just use two html input tags and a button to log on.

Again this wouldn't show the user that there credentials are secure when logging in.

Because of some recently discovered SSL attacks, it is always preferable to also put the logon form on a https:// page. Otherwise a hacked can intercept the http stream and change your form action from "https://..." to "http://..." and then sniff the credentials.

Answer 3

You've hit the major problems. You want the login, which needs to be on every page to use SSL, but you don't want the entire page to be SSL.

This is more of a business decision at this point than anything else. Would you rather your customers feel more secure about visiting your site, or do you want the login information present on every screen?

If you need to have both, you may need to also look at making your entire site SSL.