Premium WordPress Integration

troymccann

A quick update for reference, it seems to be an issue with my Bitnami EC2 instance. That said, while others have managed to fix the same issue, I still can't after hours of trying.

Will have to leave this for now and come back another time. I think the solution is going to be migrating to a new server without the Bitnami bloat.

https://community.bitnami.com/t/setting-up-api-access-to-wordpress-on-aws-ec2-instance/60589/7

clarkwinkelmann

troymccann my extension does something very similar to https://github.com/WP-API/Basic-Auth during the initial configuration, so if there are issues with Basic Auth, there will most likely be issues with my extension.

Right now the provided Wordpress user must be able to read and write options via the API for the wizard and health check to work. It's however not required for the integrations to work.

For SSO integration, the Wordpress admin username is actually not required, it's never used. Flarum never makes API requests to Wordpress for SSO.

For the comments integration, the admin username must be able to edit WP posts via the API.

I plan to rewrite that in a future release to add custom Wordpress API endpoints for this extension that won't require authenticating as a WP user at all.

clarkwinkelmann

I have just published a video introduction to the extension features.

My website has also been updated to offer the new install instructions and links for Extiverse (which replaces flagrow.io) https://kilowhat.net/flarum/extensions/wordpress

The price stay the same, though any tax/VAT is now included in the $5/month, so it might be a tiny bit cheaper if you cancel your flagrow.io subscription and move to Extiverse.

troymccann

Thanks, @clarkwinkelmann . I took the time yesterday to rebuild a new server, avoiding Bitnami, and migrated WP across. Your plugin worked instantly using the new server setup and I can authenticate with REST without any mods needed on the server.

As an aside, the Bitnami setup is terrible to work with given everything is installed in unexpected locations in strange ways. One example, after a day of trying I discovered that there's really no way to do something as simple as update PHP. They expect you to create a new container with the updated packages, if it exists, and migrate everything across. Anyway, all fixed now!

I really like this extension. Thanks mate.

clarkwinkelmann

troymccann thanks for the feedback!

[deleted]

@clarkwinkelmann great video. This will go a long way to providing visual feedback and a "configure as you watch" capability.

raafirivero

As someone who's considering making the jump to Flarum, but only if I can integrate with existing WP content and users, this video makes an excellent case.

troymccann

@clarkwinkelmann I'm about to dive into trying to restrict the WP user roles that have permission to log in to Flarum. e.g. You can only login to Flarum if you're an Editor or Admin on Wordpress. Do you have any suggestions before I try this?

clarkwinkelmann

troymccann e.g. You can only login to Flarum if you're an Editor or Admin on Wordpress

There is no such feature implemented at this time. You'd have to manually assign admin/editor groups inside Flarum and use the Flarum permissions to restrict access based on those groups. Anyone would still be able to login into Flarum with a Wordpress account, their access would just be limited by permissions.

troymccann I enter my details and click to login. Nothin happens for about 10 seconds, and then the window loads wp-admin for that user.

This sounds like a WP plugin might be interfering with the login flow. Could you check if you have any security or login related plugins installed ? If a plugin tries to redirect the user to a specific page after login, it might prevent the Flarum login from working.

When logging in from Flarum, the cookie isn't used. It's done like that for multiple reasons, but mostly because it's the most secure one.

troymccann If I clik the 'login' link again, the window pops up trying to load wordpress.site/flarum_auth and returns a 404

You mean when you are logged into Wordpress but logged out of Flarum, clicking the log in button in Flarum opens that page in the popup ? That's something I will try to fix.

troymccann

Before I tackle that one, I've got a strange bug happening when I toggle to only allow WP login.

If I'm logged out of WP and FL, and log into WP, then the cookie settings mean that when I load FL I'm logged in already. That's all great.

If I'm logged out of WP and FL, and I go to log in via Fl, I get a popup from WP to login. I enter my details and click to login. Nothin happens for about 10 seconds, and then the window loads wp-admin for that user. I assume it should close and refresh the FL page using the active cookie? If I close the wp-admin box left, and refresh FL expecting it to be logged in since WP is logged in, it doesn't work and remains logged out. If I clik the 'login' link again, the window pops up trying to load wordpress.site/flarum_auth and returns a 404.

To fix this issue of being locked out of FL, I can go back to WP, log out, log back in, and then FL is happily logged in using the cookie.

I have been tinkering a lot on my WP server, so I'm not sure if this is something I've done or is reproducible in the plugin. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[deleted]

troymccann If I clik the 'login' link again, the window pops up trying to load wordpress.site/flarum_auth and returns a 404.

I can also confirm this behaviour. It's been reported to me several times.

[deleted]

troymccann To fix this issue of being locked out of FL, I can go back to WP, log out, log back in, and then FL is happily logged in using the cookie.

And that's also my workaround...I also have the additional issue of WordPress remaining logged in, and Flarum being logged out.

troymccann

[deleted] Ah, my bad. I had read the whole thread, but before I was looking out for this bug. Thanks.

Looking at the documentation, I'm guessing this part of the process is where the bug is:
Wordpress returns the remember token directly to Flarum without setting any cookie

Is there an explanation on why we don't let WP set the Flarum remember cookie on the cookie domain like in process when logging in from WP?

troymccann

Thanks @clarkwinkelmann. I've just found the issue this morning. It was one of my plugins that I wasn't aware was doing any redirects on login, and was also unnecessarily redirecting the admin account to wp-admin unconditionally.

Looking at their code, it seems to be unintentional. They're using a string of if statements to decide where to direct various types of users and various redirects, but seem to have mixed up the necessary order of some statements and have included others that don't need to be handled at all if they had the correct order.

I've disabled the offending code in that plugin and everything is good now, and I've let them know so they can hopefully clean up their code.

clarkwinkelmann You mean when you are logged into Wordpress but logged out of Flarum, clicking the log in button in Flarum opens that page in the popup ? That's something I will try to fix.

That's right, but with the other plugin fixed this isn't an issue anymore. I assume you want it to be if you manually visit wp.server/flarum-auth when already logged in it won't send a new token to the flarum server?

EDITED

clarkwinkelmann

troymccann thanks for the investigation, glad that issue is solved!

While rare under normal circumstances, there could still be situations in which you end up logged in inside one of the app and not the other. Apart from app errors during login, the other probable cause is if one of the sessions expires naturally before the other and that the user visits again at that time. So I still want to get this fixed somehow. Ideally if you're connected in Wordpress but not in Flarum, I want to either show the login popup just like you would when logged out of both, or eventually make the popup immediately close and connect Flarum with the user already connected in Wordpress.

Gizmotronn

Would this work with Buddypress? Currently I have a custom plugin on my site that I wrote so that the Wordpress comments show up on the user's profile on Buddypress. Would comments written on a wordpress site with this plugin then be incompatible with wordpress?

clarkwinkelmann

Gizmotronn there's no integration at this time. When my plugin is active no comments are saved in the Wordpress database and only Flarum discussions and posts are used.

You could list a user's posts from Flarum through the Flarum REST API. Or use Flarum profiles as the main user profiles ?

Gizmotronn

Thanks @clarkwinkelmann. The only problem for me is that after 4 years of developing with Wordpress & Buddypress, I have grown used to the BP-style profiles (which, unfortunately, Flarum does not yet have - as Flarum is mainly used as a forum, rather than a social network with a forum like Buddypress). The other problem is that I have other requirements for my site that only Buddypress can fulfill. I'll have a look at what you suggested, and thanks for the quick response. As it's not the most important thing it can obviously wait a while.

clarkwinkelmann

Flarum extension version 1.3.4 - May 6, 2020

Flarum beta 13 compatibility
Remove unused code for features not yet implemented

You can update the Flarum extension via Bazaar or Composer.
Requires version 1.2 or greater of the Wordpress plugin.

raafirivero

Is there a way to make this plugin work with custom post types on WP? I am migrating forum posts to Flarum but there will continue to be blog posts and additional videos in their own post type that have traditionally received comments. It would be great if these could be integrated into the forum as well.

clarkwinkelmann

raafirivero absolutely! The Comments post types option on the Wordpress side lets you configure which post types have their comments replaced by the iframe. By default it's only post and page.

If it doesn't work properly with your setup or theme, let me know!

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