access to share pages with silent login or ticket

[suneetha]

From third party application I need to build a http request that provides the 5.2 share document library page to the users bypassing the login page. The users alfresco passwords are unknown and only the admin credentials are known. Could some one please tell me how can I achieve this. As starting point i tried directly in the browser to access share by appending the ticket from the login api but it didn't worked.. 

[afaust]

You cannot use a login ticket to access the Share UI (without doing some web filter customisations). Also, for application-to-application integrations, this is a really bad pattern. Instead of calling the Share UI from another application, call the backend and its services properly. If you require a more complex interaction (and therefor consider "cheating" by calling the UI), then you could create a custom web script on the Repository-tier.

Keep in mind that the functionality and HTTP APIs that the Share UI provides can change with any version, or even when installing a 3rd party addon - they are not considered integration APIs and it would be really risky to rely on them from other applications.

[suneetha]

Axel, Thanks for the response. I thought external authentication is the better option in this case and tried that, initial tests seems to be fine except the basic authentication window displayed (instead of login page) when the request comes without the header. When cancelled the popup window, then login page is displayed. Do you have any idea how to configure to avoid the pop window and to get the login page in case of the request with no header.

[afaust]

When using external authentication (CAS) there should be no "Basic Authentication" login prompt - at least not from Alfresco itself. Though I must admit I have not yet had a customer / project where I had to use external authentication, so my experience is limited to my own, local tests...