3.5.2 Username registration

Sign up with username is based on verification via email. A new user has to propose his username which is also called a service ID (for example Vippie ID), then create a password and provide his email address. In addition the country code information is collected, a user has to choose his country from the drop down list, by default it is set to the country code obtained from the SIM card (if available). The country code is needed for further phone numbers synchronization. These parameters are sent to the register.ashx method. The EMCD first checks if the ID is available (not used by other user) and if so it will add the request to the dialer_requests table, then will generate verification code and send an activation email to the address provided in the request.

Email template

The activation email is composed using the template file located in the var/www/emcd directory. The name of the template file is defined in the AppSettings.config file in the following section:

<!--Mail settings - Account Activation-->

  <add key="account_activation_mail_subject" value="Using XXX - confirm your registration"/>

  <add key="account_activation_mail_body_file" value="/var/www/emcd/aa.txt"/>

  <add key="account_activation_mail_body_html" value="true"/>

  <add key="account_activation_mail_display_name" value=""/>

  <add key="account_activation_mail_bcc" value=""/>

  <add key="account_activation_mail_reply_to" value=""/>

The key name is “account activation mail body file”.

The other keys allow to define other email settings like:

• subject – change the XXX to your application name
• html or plain text
• bcc email
• reply to address

Here is the default file, you can freely change its content. vup_activation.html

This is important to put the proper URL of the VUP in the body of the email in the template. The activation link there is the only place where the VUP URL is set.

SMTP settings

The SMTP server for sending email has to be defined in the AppSettings.config file in the EMCD directory:

<!--SMTP Settings-->

  <add key="smtp_host" value="ip"/>

  <add key="smtp_port" value="25"/>

  <add key="smtp_from" value=""/>

  <add key="smtp_user" value=""/>

  <add key="smtp_pass" value=""/>

  <add key="smtp_ssl" value="true"/>

Verification procedure

The purpose of the activation email is to verify if the address really belongs to the user before creating new account.

The EMCD composes an email and generates a token which is then appended to the link defined in the template. The EMCD first creates a code – same as with the phone number registration, which is stored along with other information sent by the softphone, in the dialer_requests table. Next, based on the code and some other parameters a token is generated.

When the receiver of the email clicks on the link the VUP is opened in a browser. Depends on the result – whether the clicked link was valid or not an appropriate VUP’s page will appear. If the verification is correct the page will show a message that the account has been successfully activated.

The VUP in fact only acts as an intermediary, on receiving the token after the link is clicked, the VUP passes it to the EMCI provisioning.doRegister method. Remember that the VUP is the only element accessible from a browser, hence the link points to the VUP and not to the EMCI or EMCD directly.

The EMCI decodes the token and compares the code and other parameters with the dialer_requests entry. If all agrees a new account is created and appropriate response is sent back to the VUP which in turn shows a page with either a success or failure text.

At the moment the user submitted the username, password and email the softphone shows the log in screen with an additional instruction to wait for the email in order to activate account. If the Log in button is pressed before a message is shown indicating that the account is not active yet.

When the user clicks the link and gets the “account created successfully” message he can now press Log in button.

On successful authentication the softphone receives the SIP login and password from the EMCD. The credentials are then stored locally, user does not have to enter them again.

Flow diagram