External Authentication from Customer Database

[tommythejoat]

We have vBulletin set up with two major usergroups for registered users and association members. Our association members have access to several different systems with resources available for them to use under their membership account.

We have just deployed a windows server based membership authentication system as a Single Sign On service.

I used a vBulletin mod "SAML service provider" as the basis of the external authentication and have it working as far as the basic handshake between the two systems. If one logs onto the authentication server using the facility on the vBulletin Message Board, they get logged in to all the various servers including the message board.

However, if they have logged on to another system and then visit the message board, they are not logged in on the message board.

All the servers that require registration are on the same domain and we use a domain level session cookie to show the global login status. When the member arrives at the vBulletin site, I want to look for the cookie, validate its status and log in the user to the vBulletin site. I have all the code to do this, but I cannot figure out which hook can be used for the purpose.

The login process needs to set two cookies in order to complete the login and all the hook locations that seem reasonable generate the error that the header has already been sent.

Is there a hook location where it is safe to set cookies?

I have tried init_start, global_start, global_setup_complete, global_complete, as well as forumhome_start and forumhome_complete. For a couple of those the results of the error are disastrous to forum operations. One has to edit the code to remove the hook in order to get access to the AdminCP in a couple of cases.