# Integrating login engine with other apps **URL:** \ **Category:** Engines\ **Created:** [May 3, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integrating-login-engine-with-other-apps/94386 "2006-05-03T17:46:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![piers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/b3f665/32.png) [@piers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/piers)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integrating-login-engine-with-other-apps/94386/1 "2006-05-03T17:46:59Z")
Hi I’ve got a general problem, and as ever am running up against the problem of having a small brain. I’ve got an app using login engine, but I need to add some forum functionality. Ideally, I’d want to use Opinion ([http://home.leetsoft.com/opinion](http://home.leetsoft.com/opinion)), but I’ve no clue how to go about tieing it in to my app without having to make the user login twice. Is there a way to merge the two apps under one controller so that I can use the one user table, and be reasonably resilient against any upgrades to Opinion and not have a load of namespace clashes? Same applies in general - how to run two apps side by side Thanks for any help Piers ---
**Author:** ![piers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/b3f665/32.png) [@piers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/piers)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 7:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integrating-login-engine-with-other-apps/94386/2 "2006-05-03T19:08:09Z")
In the same boat as Ive had to port phpBB users over and had to switch between MD5 keys and SHA1 keys, and after looking @ Opinion the passwords are not even encrypted @ all … I wish the authentication method on the Login Engine was more ‘plugable’ to work w/ other apps. From a security standpoint the method used in the Login Engine is by far the right way to go but there is no way to get users to port without having to capture the password and create new keys (there is no method for this). Im under the assumption that as long as the session[:user] is filled @ login + nilified @ logout you should be good to go. I too would like to know what a more official Rails method of doing this would be. - Jon ---
**Author:** ![piers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/b3f665/32.png) [@piers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/piers)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integrating-login-engine-with-other-apps/94386/3 "2006-05-03T20:46:43Z")
On 3 May 2006, at 17:45, James A. wrote: > There is no ‘rails official’ way of authenticating, or storing > passwords, as this is logic specific to your application. Maybe hashed > passwords aren’t important? It’s quite possible. I’m currently playing with the idea of building a load of tools to make a Rails application OWASP compliant out of the box, and then try talking the Rails core into making it ‘standard’. This stuff is so standard, there is no reason why we shouldn’t be making it as standard-orientated as connecting to a database, and then give hooks for legacy authentication. > The login engine isn’t meant to be mashed into other applications > which make their own assumptions about some kind of user model. It > does try to be flexible where it can, but to some extent it’s like > asking a spanner to be a hammer. It’s going to get ugly. I’ve been able to get it to do some pretty weird stuff, but I agree it looks horrendous. My code is _ugly_, which isn’t nice. > I’d recommend that you pick one of these systems (login engine, or > opinion) and then add whatever is missing from the other, within your > application. Alternatively, perhaps login\_engine could have a webservices interface, and then opinion (and others) could talk to it via that? I’m happy to look at putting some code up for that… – Paul R. ---
**Author:** ![piers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/b3f665/32.png) [@piers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/piers)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 7:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integrating-login-engine-with-other-apps/94386/4 "2006-05-03T19:08:10Z")
There is no ‘rails official’ way of authenticating, or storing passwords, as this is logic specific to your application. Maybe hashed passwords aren’t important? It’s quite possible. The login engine isn’t meant to be mashed into other applications which make their own assumptions about some kind of user model. It does try to be flexible where it can, but to some extent it’s like asking a spanner to be a hammer. It’s going to get ugly. I’d recommend that you pick one of these systems (login engine, or opinion) and then add whatever is missing from the other, within your application. - james On 5/3/06, Jon B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > @ login + nilified @ logout you should be good to go. > > > problem of having a small brain. > > use the one user table, and be reasonably resilient against any > > Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). > > [http://lists.rails-engines.org/listinfo.cgi/engine-users-rails-engines.org](http://lists.rails-engines.org/listinfo.cgi/engine-users-rails-engines.org) – - J \* ~