ParameterCode.Secret

amiractivate

I noticed that theres is an authenticate operation thats currently not used on the loadbalancing server app,
it has a parameter called ParameterCode.Secret, may I know the purpose of this parameter ?

The only information I could get regarding the parameter is "<summary>(221) Internally used to establish encryption</summary>" which is found on PUN as a comment.

could someone point me to the direction if I am interested in finding out how to use this? or is there a tutorial somewhere that shows how to use this parameter?

Kaiserludi

Of course the authenticate operation is used. An unchanged Photon LoadBalancing master- or gameserver side does not allow a client to do anything, until it has successfully authenticated. However the clients authenticate automatically, without the need for you to explictly call an APi function for authentication.
ParameterCode.Secret is indeed unused. The intention behind this parameter is to send a second unique ID for the app additionally to the unique appID like in a username/password pair. There is currently no good reason to make your appID public, so it suits both purposes, being the id and the pw for the app. Therefor ParameterCode.Secret is currently unused.

amiractivate

Hi Kaiserludi,

Thanks for the explanation on the ParameterCode.Secret, Ive been using a customOperation to send username/password, ill relook into sending it via this parameter.

However,I still have problem understanding how the AuthenticateOperation works,

Although I see the Appid and versionid sent via opparameters (from PUN):

public virtual bool OpAuthenticate(string appId, string appVersion)
        {
            if (this.DebugOut >= DebugLevel.INFO)
            {
                this.Listener.DebugReturn(DebugLevel.INFO, "OpAuthenticate()");
            }

            Dictionary<byte, object> opParameters = new Dictionary<byte, object>();
            opParameters[ParameterCode.AppVersion] = appVersion;
            opParameters[ParameterCode.ApplicationId] = appId;
            
            return this.OpCustom(OperationCode.Authenticate, opParameters, true, (byte)0, this.IsEncryptionAvailable);
        }

I still dont get how authentication happens on the server side? plus all the properties are optional :

[DataMember(Code = (byte)ParameterCode.ApplicationId, IsOptional = true)]
public string ApplicationId { get; set; }

[DataMember(Code = (byte)ParameterCode.AppVersion, IsOptional = true)]
public string ApplicationVersion { get; set; }

[DataMember(Code = (byte)ParameterCode.Secret, IsOptional = true)]
public string Secret { get; set; }

[DataMember(Code = (byte)ParameterCode.UserId, IsOptional = true)]
public string UserId { get; set; }

This is the Authentication on the MasterClientPeer upon receving the Authenticate request from the client :

private OperationResponse HandleAuthenticate(OperationRequest operationRequest)
{
OperationResponse response;

var request = new AuthenticateRequest(this.Protocol, operationRequest);
if (!OperationHelper.ValidateOperation(request, log, out response))
{
return response;
}

this.UserId = request.UserId;

// publish operation response
var responseObject = new AuthenticateResponse { QueuePosition = 0 };
return new OperationResponse(operationRequest.OperationCode, responseObject);
}

The code isnt referring to the parameters sent (appid,version). Am I required to edit this part of code to make the application authentication?

[Deleted User]

amiractivate wrote:

The code isnt referring to the parameters sent (appid,version). Am I required to edit this part of code to make the application authentication?

Yes.

We have only provided a "stub" for the Authenticate operation - so that you have a starting point where you could place some authentication code.

As we don't have any idea how you want to authenticate your clients, we have not provided a meaningful implementation - feel free to modify the operation (or even the parameters) to anything you need (for example, you might want to do a database lookup, a webservice request, check windows credentials, etc.).

(On Photon Cloud, the Authenticate operation is implemented to validate the client's ApplicationID, for example.)

amiractivate

Hi Nicole,

Thanks for the clarification, so the operation is currently used by photoncloud but not implemented on the existing loadbalancing sdk code. Sorry I didnt realize it was a stub, off to modify the stub then :idea: