Session IDs and SWFUpload

Rails
1

Hi

I’m using SWFUpload in one of my applications, but it has one big
shortcoming: it doesn’t maintain the session. Let me explain:

The user has to login to the application, thus creating an
authenticated session (cookie _session_id client side and the
sessions table server side). However, when you use SWFUpload, the
upload script is called with a new session (unauthenticated), making
the app assume the new session has no access and redirects it to the
login page.

Currently, I’ve just exposed the upload methods, so that they don’t
require authentication. However, this is like locking your front
door, but leaving the back door wide open.

Apparently, the only way for a Flash file to pass on parameters, is
using GET. I can append the _session_id cookie value to the upload
URL, but I can’t seem to get Rails to use this _session_id value
(params[:_session_id] instead of the one passed in the HTTP headers.

Is it somehow possible to override the HTTP header cookie _session_id
in favor of one that is passed as a GET parameter, but only for the
upload_file method, so that the authenticated state is still recognized?

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

2

Never heard of SWF upload. Why not use acts_as_attachment instead?
Widely used, nicely tested and written by a rails core dev.

http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/plugins/acts_as_attachment/

3

– fxn
I came across the same problem recently and this solved it nicely:

http://blog.inquirylabs.com/2006/12/09/getting-the-_session_id-from-swfuploa
d/

hth

–
Richard L.
Head of Agile Development, CitySafe

http://citysafe.org … CitySafe
http://thatsprogress.com … The Fitness Community (soon)
http://livsey.org … Blog : Musings of a Rails Developer

4

On Jan 18, 2007, at 4:51 PM, [email protected] wrote:

Never heard of SWF upload. Why not use acts_as_attachment instead?
Widely used, nicely tested and written by a rails core dev.

http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/plugins/acts_as_attachment/

They are not comparable. SWFupload is a flash file-upload widget with
lots of features, see

http://labb.dev.mammon.se/swfupload/

– fxn

5

On 21 Jan 2007, at 03:05, Richard L. wrote:

I came across the same problem recently and this solved it nicely:

http://blog.inquirylabs.com/2006/12/09/getting-the-_session_id-from-
swfuploa
d/

This is just great, a big thanks to you Richand and to Duane!

Best regards

Peter De Berdt