cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
2073
Views
0
Helpful
15
Replies

Problems with session management on CSC/Cisco website (SSO related)

Peter Paluch
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Dear friends,

I have come across an issue regarding the single sign-on (SSO) used throughout the Cisco website and CSC that starts to be increasingly annoying:

  1. I visit the CSC and log in to respond to some thread. Then I start responding to a post.
  2. During the response, I need to consult the technical documentation, configuration guides or other documents on the Cisco website. So in another tab of my browser, I visit the Cisco website and do my searching/browsing.
  3. At some point, the Cisco website recognizes that I am already logged into the CSC and starts producing URLs with the /partner/ component in it (e.g. in Search results). Clicking on such URL will cause me to be redirected to the login page again. This is the first issue - why do I have to log in again since I am already logged in and the SSO is supposed to take care of that?
  4. Okay, I enter my credentials again, get logged in, access the necessary document, and then I return back to my opened post on CSC, finish it and submit it. KABOOM - the CSC swiftly informs me that I am unauthorized to perform that action, losing my answer in the process! Logging into the Cisco website (as described in the Step 3) obviously invalidates my current session on CSC! I need to login again to the CSC (until I do that, it considers me as guest again but when I click on the Login link, I suddenly get logged in without entering my credentials) and, well, write my answer anew. Sometimes, a part is salvageable but usually it's only a small fragment.

Would it be possible to correct this behavior? I've lost quite some time rewriting my lost answers.

Best regards,

Peter

2 Accepted Solutions

Accepted Solutions

Hi Peter,

I wanted to give you a quick update on the two issues.

First Issue:

We are currently working on a long term and short fix for this issue. Unfortunately the long term solution will be a drawn out effort as we move all our legacy content into our new data center farm. The team is currently testing the short term fix, will keep you posted on the progress as I get more details.

Second Issue:

We are currently doing root cause analysis for this issue and I will provide you updates weekly on this issue as we roll out the fix.

Thanks a lot again for you continued support and patience.

Sudheer.

View solution in original post

Hi Peter,

Fix for issue#2 has been deployed to production. Please do let us know if you run into any issues.

Thanks again for your continued support of Cisco Support Community (CSC).

Thanks,

Sudheer.

View solution in original post

15 Replies 15

sparvith
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Peter,

We are looking into this issue. Can you provide some info for us to replicate this issue?

1) Which browser you were using and version.

2) Cisco url's that you browsed in the second tab.

Thanks a lot for you support.

Sudheer.

Hello,

This is just a test - please ignore.

Peter

Hello,

Another test - please ignore as well. Just testing whether it wreaks havoc again.

Change 1, 1.1

Change 2, 2.1

Best regards,

Peter

Hello Sudheer,

Thank you for your response.

So far, I have been able to confirm and reliably reproduce the first  complaint: the SSO does not actually work seamlessly across different  Cisco website sections. I am using Firefox 3.6.13 both on Windows and Linux and the behavior is consistent under both operating systems. I have not yet verified other browsers. The sequence of steps is as follows (assume that my CCO account is associated with a Cisco partner):

  1. Enter the CSC site and log in.
  2. Open a new tab and visit any page on the main Cisco website, say, http://cisco.com/go/support
  3. Use the Search function to search for the phrase "understanding 802.1s"
  4. The list of results will use URLs with the /partner/ path component. Click on the first link (Understanding Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (802.1s)).
  5. The login page will appear again, prompting you to enter your credentials once again. After entering them correctly, the requested document will be displayed.

Thus, even though I logged in in the first step, I need to re-login in the Step 5.

I have not been so far able to reliably reproduce the second part of my complaint - that after logging in the Step 5, the current session in the CSC is invalidated. I will keep on doing experiments to find out how to trigger this issue.

Best regards,

Peter

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the details. I was able to reproduce the issue on my machine. I will provide an update on this issue by end of this week. If you are able to reproduce the second issue,could you please note down the time and page you are on, it will help us in troubleshooting.

Thanks again for you support and patience.

Thanks,

Sudheer.

Hello Sudheer,

I have found out a reliable means to reproduce the second part of the issue.

  1. Access the CSC at http://cisco.com/go/netpro and log in
  2. Open a new tab in your browser, and visit the page http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6441/tsd_products_support_series_home.html (it is the 12.4T IOS product support page, I have bookmarked it as I am using it often)
  3. Go back to the tab with the CSC and click on any section or a thread. Notice in the upper part of the page that you are again recognized as Guest, not as a logged-in user anymore.

I will gladly provide you with additional data (visited pages, dates) but as this issue can be 100% reproduced by following the described sequence of steps, I am not including these data right now.

I guess that there are more URLs similar to the one suggested in the Step 2 that will result in the same issue.

Best regards,

Peter

Hi Peter,

I wanted to give you a quick update on the two issues.

First Issue:

We are currently working on a long term and short fix for this issue. Unfortunately the long term solution will be a drawn out effort as we move all our legacy content into our new data center farm. The team is currently testing the short term fix, will keep you posted on the progress as I get more details.

Second Issue:

We are currently doing root cause analysis for this issue and I will provide you updates weekly on this issue as we roll out the fix.

Thanks a lot again for you continued support and patience.

Sudheer.

Hello Sudheer,

Thank you very much for keeping me posted. I also appreciate very much your commitment in solving these issues.

Best regards,

Peter

Hello Peter,

my personal workaround for this issue is to use two different browsers:

I started to use Google chrome to access CSC and to use Firefox to look for documentation in CCO.

Actually I started this practice when many mounths ago I was not able to login to CSC with Firefox.

the single sign on is also a problem in some other cases, like when you need to log in with a different (customer) account to CCO for job.

In this latter case the use of two different browsers is a need.

Best Regards

Giuseppe

Hello Giuseppe,

Thank you very much for joining this discussion!

I am sure your workaround is effective. I guess, though, that when these issues are resolved, it will be more convenient even for you to use just a single browser for all necessary tasks. One thing I am trying to avoid is having duplicate (and disparate) sets of settings, bookmarks, etc. in two distinct browsers.

Best regards,

Peter

Hi Peter,

Sorry for the delay in responding, as I was paternity leave last week.

For issue #2, we have coded a potential fix for this issue, and we are currently in the process of testing it.  If testing goes well, it will then need to go through a review and (if nothing goes wrong) should be available in our next release. I will keep you posted as we reach different milestones and determine a release date for this bug.

Thanks,

Sudheer.

Hello Sudheer,

No apologies necessary. I am certain you enjoyed your time with your children. Also, thank you very much for keeping me updated!

Best regards,

Peter

Hi Peter,

I wanted to give a quick update on issue#2. The bug fix is being tested on our internal stage environment and we are planning to release this fix into production on April 14th.

Thanks,

Sudheer.

Hi Peter,

Fix for issue#2 has been deployed to production. Please do let us know if you run into any issues.

Thanks again for your continued support of Cisco Support Community (CSC).

Thanks,

Sudheer.

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community:

Quick Links