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My website requires a user to login before downloading files, I wish to add support for download managers such as Orbit and Free Download Manager. I have tried downloading a file using these managers and entering the user name and password inside the managers but they download my login page instead of the file.

My login is typical, built on cakephp and doesnt even have CSRF.

Is there something special I need to do to enable the download managers to successfully login?

tshepang
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cwal
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1 Answers1

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Download managers don't login. They should honor cookies, however. I beleive the problem of your system is cookie lifetime. You, most probably, set cookies to expire when browser closes. So, download managers send cookie, that already expired.

Check this answer for more details.

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Vladislav Rastrusny
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  • that makes sense, but is this the same if my browser is open and logged in? at the same time as trying to access the file with a download manager? Shouldnt that mean it still has valid cookies? Also the 2 download managers i mentioned to have sepcific inputs for username and password, supposedly for protected site. – cwal Mar 18 '12 at 20:08
  • @user575594 I'm not sure about the browser being open. Try making session cookie remember user and see how it goes from there. – Vladislav Rastrusny Mar 18 '12 at 20:10
  • Already had that function built in, although i do admit i wasnt using it the first time around when testing, i just logged out, logged in using remeber me, and tried again, both with username and password specified and not specified inside the download manager, both still only grabbed my login page – cwal Mar 18 '12 at 20:12
  • @user575594 Specifying login and password inside download manager doesn't make sense. Because this will work only when your site uses HTTP authorization: http://php.net/manual/en/features.http-auth.php – Vladislav Rastrusny Mar 18 '12 at 20:16