Login programmatically in Sitecore 8.2

Question

We are upgrading from 6.4 to 8.2 and we have some custom login pages for several clients. I used to be able to do something like this:

if (
(System.Web.Security.Membership.GetUser(usernameBox.Text).IsApproved) &&
(Sitecore.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationManager.Login(usernameBox.Text, passwordBox.Text, false))                
)
{
    redirectUrl = Page.Request.Url.GetLeftPart(System.UriPartial.Authority) + "/sitecore/shell/default.aspx";
    Response.Redirect(redirectUrl);
}

But if I do that now it sends me to the default Sitecore login page. I know that it logins them in and as long as I don't try to get into the content management part it is fine. It is like they are not getting the right cookie. Do I need to use something besides AuthenticationManager?

Answer 1

You have redirect user to "/sitecore" instead. You will also need to create the cookie by calling createticket function. Here's a snippet of what should be called after AuthenticationManager.Login.

AuthenticationManager.Login(userName);
string ticket = Sitecore.Web.Authentication.TicketManager.CreateTicket(userName, @"/sitecore/shell");
HttpContext current = HttpContext.Current;
if (current != null)
{
    HttpCookie cookie = new HttpCookie(Sitecore.Web.Authentication.TicketManager.CookieName, ticket)
    {
        HttpOnly = true
    };
    current.Response.AppendCookie(cookie);    
}

Make sure you test item preview and experience editor as you might experience other issues.