Month: August 2011

Simple Authentication for Symfony using Facebook Login

A few days ago I set about the task of writing an authentication system for DropoutUK based around Facebook Connect / Facebook Login Button. I was pleasantly surprised to learn just how simple it seems to be these days, compared to the first implementation I played with back in 2009. Which, OK is 2 years now, but the new social plugins make life so much easier.

So what is involve? Just 4 simple actions

  1. Create a new facebook application
  2. Add your website URL to it
  3. Add the facebook Login Button to the page
  4. Check for the facebook cookie and process a login action if possible.

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Transparent SSH keys – ways in which they can be useful

I’m sure you’ve read time and time again that ssh keys without a passphrase are bad, and that they should never be created, because they create an easy attack onto your system should someone get hold of your ssh public and private key pair somehow. However I find them very useful when accessing the development boxes at work, and I’m sure that anyone else who has to connect to multiple development servers or any internal servers come to mention it will agree; one less password / passphrase saves so much time. Be it connecting to the server to find a file, or scp’ing a file somewhere, or to run some remote command.

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