FAQ:

I am a registered user and I have authenticated myself before I edited a topic. But after saving the topic, the left bar and the variable %WIKIUSERNAME% are showing "TWikiGuest" instead of my name.

Answer:

This FAQ is TWiki 4.0 specific. For earlier releases, ignore the second section, and any references to configure.

Problems with Apache

The first authentication method TWiki supports is called ApacheLogin and uses the Apache server to log you in. It expects the browser to cache your login name and password. If you think have apache authentication enabled, and you can log in but are then forgotten:

• Have you selected Apache authentication? Check in configure {LoginManager}
• Is the browser cacheing the ID in remote user? Log in, then use configure to check your environment variables for REMOTE_USER

Another possible reason is explained in TWikiUserAuthentication: "If, for example, the edit, save and preview scripts are authenticated, but not view, you would get your WikiName in preview for the %WIKIUSERNAME% variable, but view will show TWikiGuest instead of your WikiName."

If you are experiencing this at twiki.org, where tracking by IP address is done, then probably (from the same page) "This approach can fail if the IP address changes due to dynamically assigned IP addresses or proxy servers."

For more details, see TWikiUserAuthentication and TWikiInstallationGuide.

Problems with Sessions

The second authentication method TWiki uses is called TemplateLogin. In this case, TWiki caches your authentication details in a session.

• Do you have sessions enabled? If not, TWiki has no way remember who you are. Check in configure {UseClientSessions}
• Is the session store directory writable by TWiki? This option is set in configure. If it is writable, you should see files

called things like cgisessid_098234a9873db in that directory. After you have logged in, the next time you make a request, TWiki looks up your session to determine who you are. To do this, it has to be able to get your session record. This session record is identified by a unique Session Identifier, or SID. TWiki tries to set a cookie in your browser to record this SID.

• Do you have cookies disabled in your browser? If not, TWiki may not be able to recall your session.

If your users typically disable cookies (and some people do, for security) then TWiki has a second way of determining the session. It looks up your IP address in a table that maps IP addresses to session IDs. If you have cookies disabled, and don't want to enable them, you can enable this mode in configure. This approach can fail if the IP address changes due to dynamically assigned IP addresses or proxy servers

• Do you need to have IP2SID mapping enabled? Check in configure {Sessions}{MapIP2SID})
• Do you have dynamic IP addresses, or proxy servers that might change the IP address?

The third and final way TWiki can find sessions is from the URL. Any URL TWiki writes can include the session ID. This is a last ditch if none of the other session-remembering methods is useable.

• Do you need to to have IDs in URLs enabled? Check in configure {Sessions}{IDsInURLs}

Back to: TWikiFAQ

-- Contributors: HaraldJoerg, CrawfordCurrie

---

Comments & Questions about this Supplemental Document Topic

I had the same Problem. First I thougth, that it is something with the sessions dir, but this was right by default. The Scalar::Util Modul was missing. Now everything works fine.

-- BertShome - 19 Mar 2006

Please use the Support forum if you have questions about TWiki features. This comment section is about the documentation of this topic.

I restored the header and footer. Please help with the classification of the TWiki web.

-- PeterThoeny - 23 Feb 2006