Guest Login, Permissions and Kiosk Dashboards

Jared Wiltshire

Great, good to hear

henryblu

@mihairosu did you ever find a solution to displaying a dashboard page on a raspberry pi via launching it in kiosk mode? I've noticed that the pi requires chrome to launch in incognito mode to clear the cache (so the session restore functionality is disabled), but as @JoelHaggar said, auto login requires the browser to store login info.

mihairosu

@henryblu Yep, we are using FullPageOS and a link to the screen. You will have to manually login once with the pi, and it appears to remember it anyway.

I was never able to get any sort of automatic login to work, or no-login required kiosk screens to work. If that's not already existing, I really hope they have it on their radar still. I know there were instructions for how to do some of this, but it didn't work for me.

Software like PRTG, or Grafana make it really easy to do it. I wish Mango's was just as easy or easier.

Will Geller

Automatic login is a function that has been available for quite some time. What specifically are you having issues with.

You simply go to Administration > Auto Login and enter the user credentials and yes it will be stored in the browser cache. Does this not work with the version of Chrome you are running on the Pi?

mihairosu

Ah I think there is a misunderstanding. What we are really looking for is a public view with no credentials, or credentials passed by the url perhaps.

We don't want to have to hook up keyboard/mouse or VNC into each kiosk screen to enable an auto login, which we first need to login as admin anyway to set up.

henryblu

That's it @mihairosu . The reason I am after this solution is because enabling the cache for auto-login causes this pop-up every time the pi boots when the dashboard turns on in the morning, quite similar to this post - https://community.risevision.com/rise_vision_inc/topics/chrome-restore-pop-up-after-crash

0_1500511194437_dec21bea-3a69-4633-8e3a-b21f81600b0e-image.png

Most solutions suggest to launch chrome/chromium in incognito mode to clear the cache. There are a few other old techniques out there which I have tried to remove the pop-up but none seem to work besides going incognito.

That's my motivation for wanting a webpage with either no login required or auto login stored in the URL.

mihairosu

I never tried to use Risevision for this purpose.

FullpageOS seems to work though, so give that a try if you'd like.

JoelHaggar

I think what you are after is the auto login code that you can put into your dashboard. There is an example under: /ui/examples/templates/auto-login

You basically program a username and password into your page so any time it loads the page does the login automatically. This is different than the auto login feature in the web app. Let me know if that helps.

[edit - Jared] This will only work for a full custom dashboard, you cant use this if you are using Custom Pages / Dashboard Designer.

phildunlap

I wonder how you're launching the browser. I would expect that if launching it from a shell with a specific URL it would not question your intentions, but I don't know.

Edit: I tried it. No luck, still offered to restore.

henryblu

Sorry I'm a little unsure about pasting the Auto login code into a dashboard page. Say for instance my username is test and the password is testtest. I would edit the auto-login code to look like this?

<!DOCTYPE html>
<!-- You need to include ma-app here so ma-username and ma-password are picked up -->
<html lang="en" ma-app ma-username="test" ma-password="testtest">
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
    <title>Angular Material Template</title>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/modules/mangoUI/web/vendor/angular/angular-csp.css"></link>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/modules/mangoUI/web/vendor/angular-material/angular-material.css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/modules/mangoUI/web/vendor/material-design-icons/iconfont/material-icons.css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/modules/mangoUI/web/vendor/mdPickers/mdPickers.css">
</head>

<body layout="column">
    <div ng-if="appLoading">
        <span>App is loading..</span>
    </div>

    <div ng-cloak layout="column" flex>
        <!-- Your content here -->
    </div>

    <script src="/modules/mangoUI/web/vendor/requirejs/require.js"></script>
    <script src="/modules/mangoUI/web/loaderConfig.js"></script>
	<script>require(['ngMango/bootstrap']);</script>
</body>
</html>

Which part of the code do I then paste into a dashboard page? Thanks.

phildunlap

https://superuser.com/questions/719875/google-chrome-always-says-google-chrome-was-not-shut-down-properly
https://superuser.com/questions/237608/how-to-hide-chrome-warning-after-crash

TLDR
It looks like you can modify "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Preferences" (Windows, probably something similar in ~/ on Linux. Edit: people in the second link have ~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Preferences) for "exit_type":"Crashed" --> "exit_type":"Normal"

I tried it, it works! Chrome writes the exit type to Crashed when it starts.

henryblu

Awesome - managed to make it work this time! Thank you, all is fine now.

Jared Wiltshire

@henryblu That code is not pasted into a dashboards page, it is basically the skeleton for a whole custom app. You can't use it with Custom Pages / Dashboard Designer.

I can definitely look into making it easier to setup auto-login from a centralized location. I can probably add it into the UI settings page as a matter of fact and also add URL parameter options.

mihairosu

@Jared-Wiltshire We would absolutely love to be able to do any of those things. Would really make our lives a little easier.

We can think of more places we'd like to use the dashboards but where we can't simply log in locally.

Jared Wiltshire

@mihairosu There will be more options in the next UI module release, I'll update this thread with more details when I do the release.

Jared Wiltshire

@mihairosu @henryblu
I've added more options for logging in automatically to the latest UI module (v3.1.8).

There are now three options for supplying the auto-login credentials (in order of precedence)

Url parameters
Local storage/cookies (this used to be the only option)
From the UI settings which are stored in the REST API JSON store

Important warning
Never use admin credentials for auto-login, always use a view-only/restricted user. The password will be stored/and or transmitted in plain text. When using the UI settings, the credentials will be publicly accessible from the REST API!

Url parameters
You can supply auto-login credentials using the autoLoginUsername and autoLoginPassword url/query parameters.
e.g. https://mymangodomain.com/ui/home?autoLoginUsername=publicuser&autoLoginPassword=publicpassword

There is also a parameter which will store the credentials from the URL into the local storage/cookies - autoLoginStoreCredentials. This ensures that if the user navigates away and comes back to Mango the credentials are still available.
e.g. https://mymangodomain.com/ui/home?autoLoginUsername=publicuser&autoLoginPassword=publicpassword&autoLoginStoreCredentials

autoLoginDeleteCredentials can be used to delete these credentials in the event that you no longer want users to be auto-logged in.

Local storage/cookies
You can store the credentials in the browser's local storage/cookies via the "Auto-login (local)" page under "Administration", or via the url parameters as explained above. These credentials must be added on a per machine/browser basis.

UI settings / JSON store
You can store auto-login credentials for all clients on the "UI settings" page under "Administration". Any client/browser which connects to the Mango instance will use these credentials (provided they are not logged in via one of the previous methods).

mihairosu

Jared,

Thank you so much for putting all this effort into these new features!!

It looks like they work with the new UI but not the old dashboard pages, which I believe Joel warned us about.

As soon as get the chance to transfer our pages over, I'll be able to fully test these. My initial tests show they work just fine however.

I'm pretty excited about these changes.

Thanks again.

Jared Wiltshire

@mihairosu You could create a dashboard in the new UI that simply redirects to the old page. When you hit the new UI page you will be logged in then redirect.
e.g. just put this in the markup

<meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=/legacy_page.htm">

P.S. this isn't valid markup but it seems to work (it should go in the head). You could also just use a script tag and set window.location.

MattFox

Hi @Jared, have been trying to implement the auto login feature for the last day or so. Getting slightly annoyed with the auto login local not compatible with the admin template single page app (only just read in one of your other posts in May that it's deprecated which doesn't help me much here now that I am now up to my neck in it.)
Are you willing to provide some assistance here so I can work out how to implement the cookie type browser storage so that individual users can set an auto login if they wish to? Not so fond of the url type implementation.

Jared Wiltshire

@MattFox The latest adminTemplate should work with the autologin, what version are you using?

You will need to enter the credentials at /ui/administration/auto-login-settings but after that the adminTemplate should log you in automatically.