Which pipeline should I patch:after my new processor so that I have access to Context.Session

Question

This is what I am trying to do,

If the user is authenticated in sitecore, and not authenticated in external system then log out the user from sitecore.

So, here is the pipeline I use:

<processor patch:after="*[@type='Sitecore.Pipelines.HttpRequest.UserResolver, Sitecore.Kernel']" type="xxx.SitecoreExtensions.Pipelines.HttpRequest.ExternalSystemUserAuthenticationResolver, xxx.SitecoreExtensions">  

The processor xxx.SitecoreExtensions.Pipelines.HttpRequest.ExternalSystemUserAuthenticationResolver reads some data from Session and returns true or false if the external system token is present in session or not.

This is what is happening: When I sign in (sign in logs me in both the systems, sitecore and external), a token is set in the session and the ExternalSystemUserAuthenticationResolver method gives me correct status of authentication. When I am redirected to other page after login, the ExternalSystemUserAuthenticationResolver method does not find anything in session and says that I am not logged into external system so the overall authentication status is false.

Here is the implementation of the new method:

public class ExternalSystemUserAuthenticationResolver: HttpRequestProcessor
{
    protected override void SiteSpecificProcess(HttpRequestArgs args)
    {
        try
        {
            if (Sitecore.Context.User.IsAuthenticated && !AccountHelper.IsExternalSystemAuthenticated())
            {
                AuthenticationManager.Logout();
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Log.Error(ex.Message, ex, this);
        }
    }
}

AccountHelper.IsExternalSystemAuthenticated() reads data from the session to check if the token and if the session is null then I am redirected to another page after login.

Where should I place my new processor so that the session object is populated?

Answer 1

You actually need to use a completely different pipeline: httpRequestProcessed. This pipeline executes after the session has been initialized.

The example below is taken from this blog by Brian Pedersen:

namespace MyNamespace
{
  public class MyClass : HttpRequestProcessor
  {
    public override void Process(HttpRequestArgs args)
    {
      Assert.ArgumentNotNull(args, "args");
      if (Context.Site == null)
        return;
      if (Context.Site.Domain != DomainManager.GetDomain("extranet"))
        return;
      if (args.Url.FilePathWithQueryString.ToUpperInvariant().Contains("redirected=true".ToUpperInvariant()))
        return; // already redirected
      if (Context.PageMode.IsPageEditor)  
        return;

      // DO CODE
    }
  }
}